I had no trouble putting Midori Linux (best package found here) on the IA-1 last night after following these instructions (and using a program called WinImage instead of Dskprobe in Win2k). For anyone taking notes, make sure you use the El Torito image first before attempting to install/boot Midori, as listed in the instructions above.

This thing is cool. I never expected to have so much fun with it. The particular Midori distribution I used has been tailored specifically to the unit, so everything works instantly — LCD, keyboard, sound card, modem, USB ethernet, and USB wlan drivers are included. It’s got an XFree86 GUI with the Ice window manager (looks nice) and some apps like Opera, an email client, and an MP3 player, which are useful. It’s amazing they squeezed all that stuff into 16 megs of space. Once I get a USB ethernet NIC, I’m thinking about putting it in the living room, hooking it to the stereo, and using it as a streaming MP3 client (The XMMS MP3-player built into the Midori package supports this). You could do a lot of neat stuff with this machine. Maybe I’ll put MS-DOS on it and run a BBS. Or perhaps it should be my dedicated Klondike solitaire machine. 🙂 Either way, this thing is neat. If you can find one for under $30 and are comfortable with doing some simple modifications, get it.

(Update: 01/28/2013 – Since most of the Compaq IA-1 pages out there are dead now, I’ve decided to host a version of the Midori Linux image for the Compaq IA-1. You can download it here. It also includes the El Torito boot image and instructions on how to use it in a text file.)

I got my Compaq IA-1 today. It’s a spiffy little Internet machine from the peak of dot-com optimism (read: circa 2000). Unfortunately, it only runs a dumbed down version of Windows CE, was designed to use only Microsoft’s MSN ISP service, doesn’t have an Ethernet card built-in, and won’t do anything unless you’re connected to the Internet. So why get it? Because it was absurdly cheap and really neat-looking — and you can put Linux on it! That’s right, folks…these days, someone could find a way to put Linux on my toilet if they tried hard enough, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there is already a guide somewhere out there to do just that.

Some of the unit’s virtues are thus: a 266MHz AMD K6 CPU, 32MB SDRam, internal 16MB Flash RAM, integrated 800×600 color LCD display, four USB ports, a 56K modem, built-in microphone and speaker, a compact flash slot, wireless IR keyboard, and it’s tiny! Supposedly, the best form of Linux for the IA-1 is a variant called Midori, so I’ll try that out and let you know how it goes. With any luck, I’ll have an underpowered web-browsin’ machine in a few days. What’s the point? I have no idea. It’s the hack that counts.