Toughbook CF-54, Road Warrior ^ 2

I just realized that my CF-54 is over 4 years old and still going strong. It's been my companion on various travels across the globe. From far east jungle to east coast Starbucks and from northern minus degrees to middle east heat. Serving just fine. 

My specific unit is with non glossy FullHD touch screen, 16 GB RAM and 256/512GB removable drive and internal 1 TB M2 SSD. It has two battery, giving it reasonable good battery lifetime while running latest Debian 9.1. All devices work just out of standard installation (wifi, touch, LTE, audio, brightness and bluetooth, hibernate). So hardware wise it's very capable machine, giving some serious peace of mind when traveling. 

Only downside for really intensive work is SSD interface type, which is SATA. I realized this when compiling huge projects on embedded Linux world and SATA interface is slow, when compared to nvme ssd. 

I was offered to switch to Dell Precision 5520 or XPS 13 and I tried them extensively out during last spring. 




And even they had superior specs over my four year old CF-54, it was still huge disappointment. 5520 had 32 GB RAM, 1 TB nvme SSD and bigger display, but still - I just cannot live machine that fragile with my everyday job. 

For me laptop is mobility and traveling. I just cannot stuff that piece of plastic on overhead lockers on that third jump on fully booked plane, carry it with me on field operations while testing my code or anything else than just pure office work. 



So if you're after any serious Linux Laptop and you are able to live with SATA SSD, Panasonic CF-54 Toughbook is your choice. I've run Debian, Ubuntu and Fedora on it and it just works without a glitch. 

I just smile to Panasonics efforts to sell this beauty with Windows 10 and at the same time I am so glad if any of our competitor takes that path :)



 

CF-XZ6 has arrived

Panasonic CF-XZ6 has arrived. It works good with Linux. In case you want to know more, comment or get in touch.

Short summary

• Intel® Core™ i5-7300U vPro™ Processor [works]
• Display 12.0” QHD (2160 x 1440)  [works]
• Touch display [works]
• Touchpad [works]
• LTE Modem [works]
• On Fly removable tablet part [works]

Tuning Toughbook CF-20

All black Panasonic Toughbook CF-20 

Here goes few pictures of my tuned up Panasonic Toughbook CF-20. After installing Linux on this, I see this to be ready for any professional tasking.

This black back turned out to be pretty nice, hiding brand and model - but making it unique from outside. Highly recommend this modification.

Few pictures of connectors at side of tablet part of computer and keyboard base:

Early verdict on CF-20 running Linux

After few days with Toughbook CF-20, here goes initial impressions running this thing with Linux.  

First - even when this device is small, it makes form factor to very pleasing to move and travel with. I managed to attach camera strap on display for easy carry. There is actually two different position where this kind of strap can be attached.

Secondly I applied some black sticker on back of display, hiding that all silver color of original back and Panasonic Toughbook logo's. Mainly I do this because reflections to my vehicle windows when using in drive situations. And top of all, I was very pleased how it makes this device look like in total.

-> Will update picture of that new black later today.

Interfaces 

This small laptop has more interfaces I could ever imagine. First time I have thing where I can have two wired LAN ports available. HDMI and VGA is there as RS-232 with 9-pin D-connector(!). USB's, SD and MicroSD card readers included as well (yes, two of those!).

I can hardly wait to get this thing side of Mac Powerbook user (with single USB C in that).

 

Travel ahead 

I am looking to take some serious travel with CF-20 in coming weekend. 

I've done these trips before with CF-54, which is good workstation for developer, but this time I check can I manage with smaller one. From this, that strap alone for carrying computer has been only thing which I've missed on my CF-54. Carrying it always with an handle takes one hand away.

Toughbook CF-20 with Linux

Toughbook CF-20 arrived and no Windows on this one. Installed Ubuntu 16.04 to test latest hardware with latest software and it worked.

First some quick specifications of CF-20:

• Intel^® Core™ m5 vPro™ processor 
• 8GB RAM and 256 GB SSD hard disk
• 10.1" digitizer touch screen with 1920x1200 resolution
• Awesome amount of interfaces
• LTE module (1199:9041 Sierra Wireless, Inc.)

USB device ID's for touch and LTE:

ID 5986:0656 Acer, Inc
ID 5986:0689 Acer, Inc
ID 056a:0148 Wacom Co., Ltd
ID 0eef:c066 D-WAV Scientific Co., Ltd 
ID 10c4:ea60 Cygnal Integrated Products, Inc. CP210x UART Bridge / myAVR mySmartUSB light
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0424:2744 S
ID 1199:9041 Sierra Wireless, Inc.

First impressions

First this device is small. Almost too small to do every day computing (which is mainly development work for me). 10.1" display with 1900 x 1200 resolution makes it pretty small print. Zooming comes in handy almost in every program. I've defaulted DPI value a bit up to make menus and icons bit larger.

I will head up to LTE configuration and update here how it goes. First Panasonic Toughbook with MicroSIM on LTE module.

UPDATE: LTE Works just fine. Network manager tweak applied and everything works.

I would say that Panasonic Toughbooks have been one of the most Linux friendly computers which I've played with. 

OPSEC With Panasonic CF-54

Been traveling a lot and my Toughbook CF-54 has been serving good. Since projects we do are mostly confidential for specific customers working in intelligence sector - we are always taking OPSEC pretty seriously.

One feature I could not live without is removable hard drives. Every time I have to leave my laptop behind, I extract HD to carry along. This makes machine in hotel room total brick for anyone interested.

And yes, I have not booted Windows since '90's. That's another OPSEC tip. 

Panasonic CF-54 with ubuntu 16.04

Did some upgrades to 16.04. Found out that LTE module (1199:9041 Sierra Wireless, Inc.) in CF54 needs to be reconfigured.

Here's how:

Add /etc/modprobe.d/ncm.conf with following (and reboot):

options cdc_ncm prefer_mbim=N


This makes network manager able to see and configure your LTE.