Indecisive over XP Tablet Edition or Windows FLP

[pentium]

I have this FrontPath ProGear 1050HX+ (the HX means it originally came with Linux but that's long gone) tablet that I want to use almost strictly for GPS.
The problem however is that it uses a 400Mhz low power processor and only has 128mb of Sdram soldered to the board so my options over the OS is quite limited. I ahve moth Windows XP Tablet Edition and Windows FLP (Think XP with EVERYTHING being an optional component, even Internet Explorer). I want to use XP Tablet Edition because it will give me all the enhanced tablet support but again, I don't know if it will be sluggish on the system specs. If I use FLP I know I will not have performance issues but I don't know if it will like being on the tablet or not as well as nobody ever tested the "alternate driver" for the GPS module on FLP, only on XP (you make the system thing the GPS is a serial port and just point the mapping software at that port).

Any opinions?

Also, how on earth do I install anything on this? I have the internal IDE hard drive but the only other I/O I got is a single USB port and a single PCMCIA slot.

[acstech]

Re: Indecisive over XP Tablet Edition or Windows FLP

Can you boot off of anything other than the internal HD?

[pentium]

Re: Indecisive over XP Tablet Edition or Windows FLP

The BIOS I can boot from the PC card bay but not usb. Shoot, the BIOS is really stock and even says you can boot from either a cd drive or floppy even though neither exist in the tablet.

[digge]

Re: Indecisive over XP Tablet Edition or Windows FLP

Maybe you need a PCMCIA CD/DVD-drive, might work with an USB but not sure. Other options would be to take the harddrive out and prep it with everything needed from another computer or maybe there is some kind of special software to transfer via USB and use it kind of like an external harddrive.

Did some googling suggesting that Windows XP will be very slow. http://www.keyesfamily.org/WebRoot/P...1050%20FAQ.htm

Have a look at that page, answers a few questions about installation as well.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Indecisive over XP Tablet Edition or Windows FLP

So put a USB card in the PC Card bay.
.

[pentium]

Re: Indecisive over XP Tablet Edition or Windows FLP

Maybe you need a PCMCIA CD/DVD-drive, might work with an USB but not sure. Other options would be to take the harddrive out and prep it with everything needed from another computer or maybe there is some kind of special software to transfer via USB and use it kind of like an external harddrive.

Did some googling suggesting that Windows XP will be very slow. http://www.keyesfamily.org/WebRoot/P...1050%20FAQ.htm

Have a look at that page, answers a few questions about installation as well.

I have an IBM PCMCIA 24X cd drive and it didn't work and I don't know what on earth a PCMCIA USB card would do.
I too was thinking of doing the install on another computer and once I was done, moving it back to the tablet but the last time I was doing that was back in the 98SE days and XP supposedly does not like such swift hardware changes as opposed to 98. I'll try anyways I guess.

EDIT: I just read that FAQ. I guess FLP it is and if that fails, I know someone who has the embedded SDK so we can spend a weekend making a tweaked installed specifically for my system.

[ratdude747]

Re: Indecisive over XP Tablet Edition or Windows FLP

why did you dump linux? unless you instll goofy GPU drivers, you can use a surrogate computer no problem. ive done that to other devices before. for instance, switching server boxes.

edit- forgot about the gps. sorry about that.

[NxB]

Re: Indecisive over XP Tablet Edition or Windows FLP

I think most people are running debian on these things since the midori linux that came with it is toast. Besides that you could try win2k. Thats what I have on my car computer because its only a 266 PII. It plays MP3s and runs gps software just fine. I do have an extra 256MB tho. Best part is that you can copy the CD to the hard drive, make the drive bootable and start the setup from within DOS.

[NxB]

Re: Indecisive over XP Tablet Edition or Windows FLP

... I think XP might be able to launch the installer from DOS too. Its in i386\winnt.exe

[washu]

Re: Indecisive over XP Tablet Edition or Windows FLP

If you have another machine with the same chipset / HD controler you can install XP/2K on that and then swap the drive. I've done that several times with old laptops that had no CD/Floppy.

[pentium]

Re: Indecisive over XP Tablet Edition or Windows FLP

why did you dump linux? unless you instll goofy GPU drivers, you can use a surrogate computer no problem. ive done that to other devices before. for instance, switching server boxes.

edit- forgot about the gps. sorry about that.

The original linux install had been replaced with xubuntu which was surrogated from another laptop and thus *nothing* worked and it was slower than snails having sex.
All I need it for is so I can run Microsoft Streets and Trips off the hard drive and plug a PCMCIA GPS module into it and use it when I'm travelling in Vancouver.
I'm not going to be trying to run anything super fancy on this.
I have exhausted all but one idea.
I'll rip my Windows 2000 cd to the hard drive using ddrescue, hopefully boot from that and then install onto the unallocated space that the disc image didn't take up. If that fails, I'm honestly completely out of ideas.

[Wizard]

Re: Indecisive over XP Tablet Edition or Windows FLP

Careful.

2000 is dropped on much of the drivers/add on stuff. Make sure your GPS software is supported for this. This was reason I had to move on to XP so I can keep using software and other things.

Cheers, Wizard

[ratdude747]

Re: Indecisive over XP Tablet Edition or Windows FLP

it was slower than snails having sex.

you WOULD happen to know....




haha jk

[digge]

Re: Indecisive over XP Tablet Edition or Windows FLP

What i was referring to earlier was to copy over the files from the install cd to xp, and make the disk bootable with a simple dos bootloader, then run winnt.exe to install on it (as NxB mentioned). Just installing on one machine and move the drive over usually doesn't end up good.

[pentium]

Re: Indecisive over XP Tablet Edition or Windows FLP

What i was referring to earlier was to copy over the files from the install cd to xp, and make the disk bootable with a simple dos bootloader, then run winnt.exe to install on it (as NxB mentioned). Just installing on one machine and move the drive over usually doesn't end up good.

I'm a bit confused still on what you are saying but that is probably because I have never done something like this before.
Can you explain a little mroe in-depth? I have pretty much exhausted all my ideas so I got no choice but sit down and listed to you you guys have to say.

you WOULD happen to know....




haha jk

I remember this show on the Discovery channel.......

[ratdude747]

Re: Indecisive over XP Tablet Edition or Windows FLP

i hope you kept your clothes on... TMI!

hehehe...

[washu]

Re: Indecisive over XP Tablet Edition or Windows FLP

I'm a bit confused still on what you are saying but that is probably because I have never done something like this before.
Can you explain a little mroe in-depth? I have pretty much exhausted all my ideas so I got no choice but sit down and listed to you you guys have to say.

I think digge means the following:

-Put the drive in another PC.
-Make a small (2 GB or so) FAT32 partition and make it DOS bootable. Leave the rest blank. You can also format the whole drive FAT32 if that's the way you want it.
-Put the i386 dir from the XP CD on the FAT partition.
-Put the drive back and boot to DOS. CD to the i386 directory and run WINNT.EXE.
-Install as normal. Format the rest of the space as NTFS if you didn't make one big FAT32 partition.


This will work but the install will be very slow. If you know how to setup smartdrv.exe in DOS do that, it will make it way faster. The install even warns you about doing this.

[NxB]

Re: Indecisive over XP Tablet Edition or Windows FLP

Thats how I did my toughbook.

[pentium]

Re: Indecisive over XP Tablet Edition or Windows FLP

Again. no-go.

I got one last idea that hit me the other night.
The IDE controller in the thing accepts two drives (master/slave) and if I'm right, the laptop IDE connector is just the regular IDE/ATA interface in a PC, just smaller and with power running over several pins.
If I rig up a ribbon cable so I can connect thwe hard drive AND a regular PC grade cd drive running off an external power source, since the BIOS will allow booting from an CD drive I should in theory pop the disc in and it will start the install as it normally should in a PC.

Anyone care to confirm this?

[ratdude747]

Re: Indecisive over XP Tablet Edition or Windows FLP

it might work. do it long enough to get the non-gui bit done, and then use the pcmcia drive for the rest.