Hi, I'm trying to set up a laptop for production test of a PCMCIA to USB based Expresscard adapter we make. For various reasons testing this in windows is highly undesirable. In windows, our device uses the standard/enhanced USB hub drivers (it looks like a standard USB hub). Our test is a simple batch file that we run in a command window that writes/reads/verifies a file using a Lexar Expresscard Flash memory. I have spent a lot of time trying to find a DOS solution that supports both PCMCIA and USB to no avail. I know nothing about Linux but it's my understanding that it supports this hardware config. After all, people do run Linux on laptops, right? We often use a consultant for SW tasks but he's not responsive right now. I'm proficient with DOS/windows etc. Two questions - 1. Can a Linux novice install the OS and get the PCMCIA/USB working w/o any special knowledge? Just to be clear, the USB is attached to the PCMCIA and then there will be some mass storage on the USB. 2. If the answer to 1 is yes, what distribution should I use? We don't need or require a GUI but it may not hurt either. Again, our objective is to create a batch file that writes a file to a USB mass storage device, reads it back and performs a verify. Currently I do this with 5 line or so DOS batch file using copy and fc commands. I assume something similar can easily be done on the Linux command line. The problem with windows is mostly that the people who will be doing this are computer illiterate so we need something as close to a button push as possible and can go around the clock w/o reboots etc. Thanks

Ok, after a few minutes of research I realized that the question is silly - Linux is shipping on laptops. I'm still going to try it myself to hopefully get going quicker. However, I still need to ask - As I mentioned ealier, the problem we have with windows is as follows: 1. Inserting a removeable mass storage device brings up a Explorer window which often remains after the device is removed. Then the operator has to close it otherwise they will accumulate and it slows things down or gets in the way of the command window running our batch file. 2. Approximately 1-2% of our units under test fail and this often crashes the laptop. Of course this will still happen with Linux but on Windows it's a long drawn out process to get things going again. This was my main motivation for trying to get a dos machine going - rebooting is just a button push. 3. During the process of testing, various windows often pop up for backup requests, SW updates etc. and this can confuse the operator. Of course these can be disabled but it's much better if the machine was so dumb it didn't do this at all. So with Linux, can it be configured w/o the GUI and just run a small program from the command line but of course still have valid PCMCIA and USB drivers active? Or if this cannot be done, I assume that it can be easily configured to avoid all or most of the above problems? Thanks

Linux is a multi-user, multi-tasking operating system. It starts in text mode. If you want a graphical user interface, you must install Xorg (to interact with the hardware and provide an API) and a desktop environment (to interact with Xorg on the user's behalf). The following explanation may help you better understand just what this means. You start your Linux system, and log into a GUI session. So far, your experience is similar to using Windows. You can start additional (up to a total of six) GUI sessions by selecting switch user > Start new session in the KDE menu, then log. Your experience is still very similar to using Windows. Now come the differences :). You can switch to a console screen by pressing CTRL+ALT+F1 and log in. This session will be associated with the F1 function key. Console sessions can be associated with any or all of the first six function keys (F1 through F6). GUI sessions are associated with the F7 through F12 function keys. You can have as many as six console sessions and six GUI sessions running simultaneously and switch between them using the appropriate CTRL+ALT+Function key combination. One user can run multiple sessions simultaneously, or each running session can belong to a different user. The command interpreter for DOS is command.com. The command interpreter for Linux is bash (Born Again SHell). In DOS, you write batch files for command.com to interprest for you. In Linux you write scripts for bash to interpret for you. The DOS command.com command interpreter supports an IF, THEN, ELSE statement, a FOR, IN, DO statement, and a GO TO statement. The Linux bash command interpreter supports an IF, THEN, ELSE statement, a CASE statement, a FOR statement, a WHILE statement, a WHEN statement, the creation of functions, and much more. If I understand you correctly, you are testing external USB drives on laptops by connecting the drive to a USB card connected to the laptops PCMCIA slot, then copying a file to the drive and comparing it to the original. You would copy the file using the cp command, and compare it with the original using the diff command. If the drive should fail, it is less likely to crash a Linux system than Windows. In Linux, an external USB drive should be treated as a removable storage device (in a class with CD's, Zip drives, Floppys, and USB Thumb drives) so a failure should result in a write error. You may have more trouble getting Linux to mount the drive so a regular user can write to it than with drive failures. If all the laptops your operators will be using are the same, once you get one set up as you need it, you should be able to clone it to the others by creating an image of the first computer's hard drive, and copying it to the other laptops. I am not sure if I fully answered your questions, but I hope this information will be helpful, Ernie Registered Linux User 247790 ICQ 41060744

Thanks ernie, great explanation! I already have an Unbuntu install up and I'm getting familiar with it. I can't imagine that anyone would have trouble with CTRL-ALT-F1 but is there any relatively easy way to boot to a console screen without any user intervention (and still have hardware drivers functional of course)?

Just do not install the Xorg and desktop manager (KDE, Gnome, etc.) packages. I am unsure if Ubuntu permits this in the installer, but you should be able to do it from the console. IIRC, Ubuntu is based on Debian and will use a program named dpkg for software package management. It runs from the command prompt. You navigate through the package list, and select packages to be installed or de-select packages to be removed. I experimented with Kubuntu a while ago, but Mandriva is my distribution of choice and my primary OS for every day computing. HTH, Ernie Registered Linux User 247790 ICQ 41060744

This may help: http://www.hentzenwerke.com/wp/from...