i'm about to buy an Averatec 2100 laptop from a friend. I already have a laptop, and this is small enough to be very portable, why not make it into a quasi-netbook? i think i'm going to remove the hard drive, and replace it with a 2.5" IDE to Flash memory adapter, I'd like to cram a GPS receiver in there too, right alongside it. the Hard drive has a cage assembly that would make a handy mount for everything there with a bit of dremeling. the cage is roughly 4" x 2.75" x 0.4" so space is at a premium. which would be the most cost-effective way to go for flash memory? i want at least 8GB but 16 or 32 would be nice. The thing i really care about is finding the smallest IDE -> Flash adapter out there, since that will be the important thing when all is said and done. I think this would make a pretty sweet little rig for keeping in the car or bringing to class. I want to embed a GPS receiver so i can use it for navigation (got that idea from a modded eeepc lol). also, is there a particular GPS receiver that works best with linux? thats what i'm going to throw on it
I'd go for a usb thumb drive. Corsair has them up to 32Gb. Just crack the case open and shrink wrap the board for a nice small drive. I'm pretty sure that laptop has a couple usb ports on the outside, just unsolder one of the ports and wire the flash drive to that port. Hell, you could probably stick in a small self powered usb hub in the place where the drive used to sit, and stick a couple drives there. As for gps, I don't know of any "good" linux mapping programs. If you have an internet enabled cell, you could tether and use google maps.
that is an option, but i'd rather use a small IDE to flash adapter so it'll be faster. i'm gonna have a free IDE slot, and i'm going to be tying a USB up with the GPS, so might as well use the IDE right?
