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Home page of Manuel Graeber
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GNU/Linux
How to upgrade a Thinkpad T23 (2647-3RG) from
Win2000 to Linux (SuSE 8.0 or RedHat 7.3)
Disclaimer: all work
performed by the user at his/her own risk
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This is for a multi-partition,
double-boot system (eg if you want to keep using dictation under Windows
and later exchange documents between the Windows and Linux versions of
OpenOffice - www.OpenOffice.org)
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Get an EZ-Gig hard disk transfer
kit from www.apricorn.com
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(available from sales@drakecs.co.uk);
the cable is the important part - you will not need the software
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Get a new hard disk (www.ibm.com
has installation instructions; sales@drakecs.co.uk provide HDs with caddies
along with the Apricorn cable and software; the original HD cover
is available from IBM - useful but not absolutely necessary)
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Get the Acronis OS selector
programme (www.acronis.com)
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Get the Acronis Trueimage programme
for Windows (www.acronis.com)
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Create a boot CD using the Acronis
OS selector programme
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Format the new HD as FAT32 using
the Acronis OS boot CD
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Create a partition image of
your original Win2000 HD, ideally on an independent backup HD, and deploy
from there to new HD using the Apricorn cable (you will need two of those
if both external hard disks are connected via PCMCIA; do this before you
deploy (from an Acronis image using the Apricorn cable) or install (from
a boxed CD set) the Linux partition(s)
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Use the Acronis OS boot selector
programme boot CD (you've created) to install this programme on the new
HD
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Create at least one FAT32 partition
for exchanging data between Windows and Linux (this partition will be readable
from 'both worlds')
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Create a 1GB Linux swap partition
and a 4-6 Gb ext2 partion for Linux as hda4 (this is for SuSE, RedHat requirements
are somewhat different; I prefer SuSE as it recognises the data exchange
partition automatically)
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Install Linux from CD; chose
the Lilo boot loader and hda4
You can later deploy such
a Linux partition from an Acronis partition image to a different HD using
the Apricorn cable (the bootloader configuration will need to be recreated
in this case after booting up using the manual installation function of
the SuSE installation CD and then Yast: "restore original boot loader configuration")
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The Acronis OS boot selector
will recognise the different partitions and operating systems
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VMware 3.2 and a Win2000 guest
operating kit work nicely with the SuSE 4GB kernel (2.4.18) and installation
of a network version of PegasusMail 4.01 on the data exchange partition
(see above) allows running PegasusMail as an e-mail program (in parallel
to KMail) alternatingly in both "worlds" while sharing the same (!) mailbox
Additional points
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Price tag for the non-GPL software
mentioned (academic band, excluding HD): appx. £350
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Recommended HD size: 40 GB
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Data safety: excellent, images
of all partitions can be stored on normal CD-Rs
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Time required for upgrade (including
writing of disk images): 1 working day
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