Well, I bit the bullet and bought a GCT on eBay for $139. I also purchased an IDE cable for it from BadFlash.com. Very great service, btw!
Spent some time playing with it, before I opened the case. I was able to get into the BIOS after a short time, and immediately set it up for the diagnostic screens. No more annoying Gateway/AOL logo upon reboot.
After I opened the case, I found I had an intact IDE header. Who-hoo!
Drove to CompUSA and picked up a 32mb CF card from Lexar ($29.95), a PCMCIA CF adaptor for my laptop ($14.95), a 128mb SODIMM from PNY ($39.95). I know, I could have gotten all of this stuff online at a much lower cost, but my local CompUSA has an unusually high number of cuties (for a computer store).
As for the drive, I have a number of Fujitsu MK6014MAP 6.1gb 9.5mm notebook drives laying around.
Since I wasn't in the mood for hardware hacking that night, I opted for a pre-built Midori Linux image on the new CF rather than installing the drive. I dd'd the image to the CF card via the PCMCIA adaptor, and installed it in the GCT.
Everything booted fine, works great. Lack of apps on the Midori image pushed me towards a full install of Linux, or WinX.
Next day, I decided to get zesty and install the drive. Removed the CF card. Connected everything up, mounted the drive using a plastic framing I had from a custom HD mount I did awhile back. Drive spun up, and I removed the drive to install Linux, as I didn't have a Win2000 CD at home.
I used my laptop for this. I've got an IBM Thinkpad T21. Its drive doesn't have any strange adaptors from the HD to the HD, so it was a simple swap out. I installed RedHat 7.1, and removed the drive before I rebooted after the install.
My reason for installing RedHat 7.1 was simple- I didn't have my 7.2 CD's at home. I may look to upgrading it soon, as the ext3 support could be very helpful for a device like this.
First boot was done on the GCT. Detected all the devices fine, booted up clean. Found a Transmeta Crusoe Processor at 397 mhz.
A small bit of tinkering with Xconfigurator was necessary; 10 minutes later I had X up and going.
Since I didn't have time to track down an Ethernet MiniPCI adaptor, I went with a Linksys USB Ethernet adaptor. Works fine, uses the pegasus.o driver.
I've been running it for a week or so. The only thing I haven't got working is the touchpad. I'm going to look to compile the mk712 stuff out of the Midori distribution tonite.
It makes a great IM terminal, as well as a general browsing and music machine. So far, I've got about 5 requests from others to put one together for them, after they saw mine, and inquired as to its cost.
One thing, though. The PNY 128mb part I bought doesn't work. System doesn't boot when its installed. I'll pick up a different type, and post the results, in a few days.
Thanks to all for their posts in this forum!
Adam
