Any Advice? Ubuntu on Panasonic Toughbook.
Any Advice? Ubuntu on Panasonic Toughbook.
Hi everyone, Linux noob. I am installing Ubuntu on a Panasonic Toughbook CF-33. I was wondering if anyone had advice regarding drivers as the toughbooks have quite a few I/O ports, dual cameras, cellular antennas, and attached keyboard etc. Any advice is appreciated or even resources on where I could go to learn more about Ubuntu. Thanks everyone, take care.
Run a live version, and see if everything works. Generally speaking, the TBs aren't made for consumer Linux. Even Windows kind of works with it, but the drivers are spotty. Search for a CF-33 with Linux from factory, and install that version, if that even exists. The TBs are laptops for a very specific use-case, and support for them on the consumer market is lacking. Good luck, though!
Edit: quick search found this for CF-33 but is not Ubuntu specifically, and this specifically for CF-31 but it may still be helpful.
Will do. Yeah, when I got it I did a fresh install of Win 10 Pro and did a driver download from the Panasonic site and still had issues getting the sierra wireless card, gps, and rear camera working. Yeah, itâs been a bit of a journey for my use case. I deploy into pretty austere environments for work and itâs been hard to both hardware (laptops, tablets, cell phones) that are extremely rugged durable and can run open source. Thank you for the help.
I've done antiX on the CF-30, but the touchscreen wasn't working. I didn't really use it in the first place, but it was still a bummer. To be fair, the touchscreen barely worked on its original WinXP with OEM drivers built specifically for it. Good luck! I really hope you get all the needed hardware running!
Please share your process and results. This project looks bad-ass.
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Success!!
Edit: Used balenaetcher to flash Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, install was simple. I used ZFS for encryption (unsure how I feel about it right now, might switch this later), and activated Ubuntu Pro. During setup I selected âinstall 3rd party driversâ and seemingly most hardware that worked before on win10 is working in Ubuntu.
Panasonic Toughbook CF-33 with Emissive Backlight Keyboard. Nothing special as far as hardware. Intel Core i5-6300u at 2.4 GHz, 16GB ram, 256 ssd (I mainly use 1TB SD cards for removable storage). It has extended battery packs which do add weight and bulk to an already chunky laptop but the quote to replace with standard batteries was $500 so Iâm gonna wait on that.
Thanks everyone!
Congratulations!
Now, decorate it with cool stickers!
If you want a more windowsy layout, you can use the "dash to panel# extension to accomplish that
No experience with the CF-33, but I did use a CF-30 and as far as I could tell, outside the WiFi (back when drivers for that were a problem) everything on it worked out of the box, never had any accessories that plugged into the more proprietary connectors but everything I ever plugged in worked, including RS-232
Do want to add, on the CF-30 when I replaced the WiFi card with a newer Intel card I had to shave off the power control mini pcie pin so that the BIOS whitelist couldnt deactivate it, no clue if they still whitelist WiFi cards in newer models or the CF-33.
I had a Tough Book that I had to run a one-liner script on boot so I could have sound. It was something to do with alsamixer. I remember that I couldn't get any audio out of the silly thing without that script unless I plugged in and then removed headphones. Loved that machine though!
I just blame alsamixer for that. There was a solid 6 months that I had to completely uninstall and then reinstall alsamixer on my Lenovo every reboot so I could have sound
As of right now, audio is working! This is my 3rd toughbook and Iâve been super happy with them. I have put them through hell with travel, heat/cold, high altitude and the elements and theyâve been nothing but durable. Clunky yes, but I appreciate em. Iâm happy to have something other than windows running on them but now Iâm trying to get wine setup and running some of the niche applications.