Laptop Broken Keyboard Interface Challenge!

[Jose Catre-Vandis]

It's an old Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Pro V2010 laptop with a motherboard problem keyboard won't work (even in bios) and neither will a USB keyboard nor onscreen keyboard.

So planning to make it into a digital photo frame.

It's got XP on it at the moment so want to replace with simple installation (best would be a cli install with openbox option).

Best way to go about this? Remove HDD - do install on another laptop (don't have a similar one) then put it back with fingers crossed? Or unattended install? Will need X as can copy over a text file full of useful commands which can be copied and pasted into terminal / dialogs using mouse.

Seems to good to bin it / recycle so all suggestions and advice welcomed

[Jose Catre-Vandis]

Well Linux to the rescue once again!

I downloaded Slitaz 4, shoved the CD in the FS Amilo, it booted up and lo and behold keyboard working (well nearly all keys CTRL doesn't work) (Slitaz 4 has a countdown boot so no need to interact early)

Installed Slitaz and well on the way to a digital photo frame.

Keyboard would not work with any other live Cd I tried, and I have not risked going into the bios in case the kb packs up again.