Clamshell iBook questions - LCD, CD, logic board...

Hi all..

I bought a Tangerine iBook off eBay a few months back. I've since upgraded the hard drive (20GB Hitachi), added RAM (256MB of whatever was cheapest at Fry's), and upgraded the CD drive to a CD-RW/DVD combo drive that I got on eBay. It was actually pulled from a Compaq laptop, but it worked just fine - I can read DVDs and burn CDs (Finder, NTI Dragon Burn, iTunes, and various freeware applications). The graphics adapter isn't powerful enough to play DVDs without a LOT of skipping/jerking video, so I don't mess with that anymore.

I have two questions. First off, the CD-RW/DVD drive. Like I said, it works great. Unfortunately, for some reason, I can't boot off it with Panther OR Ubuntu Linux (LiveCD or install CD). I can, however, boot off a Jaguar CD. I'm pretty sure I have the newest firmware update available from Apple. Is there something I need to do to make this work? Do I need to pull the drive and figure out how to flash its firmware in order to allow booting?

When I Option+Boot to get the boot menu, it sees the CD as Mac or Linux, but when I boot off it, it doesn't work. With Linux, it hangs and then boots into OS X (I have 10.3.9 installed). With Panther, it brings up a screen and flashes an OS 9-looking blue smiley face folder over and over, until I hard reboot it. With Jaguar, it boots off the CD just fine.

This would be a non-issue except that I was really wanting to dual-boot Ubuntu and Panther. Sooo any help would be appreciated.

Also, I've found someone on eBay selling 466MHz SE Graphite iBooks, untested, with no battery or power adapter. I love the color of my iBook, but I'd like to upgrade the logic board. If I did so (I'd drill out a hole for the firewire port), would I be able to play DVDs? In other words, does the 466MHz SE board have hardware DVD decoding support?

My other question is this: has anyone here successfully upgraded the LCD in a clamshell iBook? I've found a number of LCD cables from Compaq and Micron that appear to be very similar in construction. I'm starting to think that possibly the end of the cable that plus into the LCD might be the same across different brands, and I could therefore put in an XGA (1024x768) LCD, using the cable that is currently in use in the iBook.

Does anyone have any experience with this? What about using a 12" LCD from another Mac?

I would absolutely love to be able to upgrade the LCD, and it would be a neat accomplishment for me - not just for the higher resolution, but just to show that I could really do it. Again, any info is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

I had no idea. Dang!

Is there a firmware flash out there for Apple drives? I'm guessing that if this drive, physically, is just like an Apple tray-loading combo drive, I could flash it with Apple's combo drive firmware...