T61 and Ubuntu

Hi,

i am planing to install Ubuntu 8.04 (release in a few days but already released as betas and RCs) at my T61 and completely remove Vista (no dual-boot). I am thinking to leave the hidden partition intact in case i want to do a factory re-install at the future.

Has anybody done this and if yes, what are the gotchas that i have to be aware of ? Will the mechanism of the blue button continue to work after Ubuntu installation so i can re-install Vista at any time or may i will experiment problems with Linux bootloader and the like ??

Thanks for any help

 

I've tried that with gutsy, the thinkvantage button will only work as far the menu to restore factory setting. I managed to restore Vista by using the hidden partition image disc which I burned before, even after Vista is installed again the thinkvantage button would not function properly because the BOOTMGR file was erased, there is already a thread here that tells you how to restore it.

and one thing for sure, carefull not to erase your hidden partition when installing ubuntu, if that happens restoring your hidden partition might be impossible , goodluck

 

Hey,

thanks for the reply!

So, i am little confused by the "the thinkvantage button will only work as far the menu to restore factory setting" you wrote. I will be carefull NOT to delete the hidden partition, will i be able to restore it again by using that blue button ??

And, as you said that you did it, have you observed any anomalies with T61 hardware in Ubuntu ?? Or some other hints that you can give me ?

Thanks again for the help!

EDIT: And overally, did you feel happy when you switched ?

 

Objectref,

I have been toying around with Linux distros in the past few months, now I do not have T61 I use my D630, but most of the hardware is relatively the same.
One good point I can give you right now is that the Ubuntu community is extremely quick at getting drivers out for hardware. So if you have any "recent/new" hardware in your T61, the drivers would be out VERY quickly. In fact if ever you meet problems in linux, its rarely because of a driver with the ubuntu distro. What is nice with this distro is that you can program the thinkvantage button to do what ever you want it to. This may take a bit of trial and error in the terminal.

here is a thread on it.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=758780

I strongly suggest you search the ubuntu forums, most of your questions have most likely already been answered!


cheers

 

Thanks for the reply!

I did not meant using the blue button within Ubuntu but use it in a future moment where i would like to install Vista again, from the hidden partition.

 

Check out this site. They have full info on Linux installs on Thinkpads. Really good site.

 

What I meant is when you press the ThinkVantage button on boot it can still lead you to a screen with the option to restore hidden partition, but when you choose that option, it would fail because the BOOTMGR file is missing.

I can use the hidden partition again after I restored the BOOTMGR file,

I'm a linux noob, and my ubuntu experience was somewhat short lived, the system run hotter while on windows temperature range would be between 36 - 60 degrees while on ubuntu it can get as far as 70 degrees, not all the hotkey works, and my wireless connection most times wouldn't connect to my LAN. cant really follow the guide on ThinkWiki.org, too complicated for me

overall conclusion, linux is not for noob . willing to give hardy heron a go though, on ma desktop...

 

I have a T61p (see signature specs) with two hard drives. One hard drive has XP Pro and the second hard drive is in the CD Drive slot with Ubuntu. I use the F1 for BIOS access to select the hard drive that boots up.

Anyway,

...Ubuntu works great on the Lenovo T61p with no problems and great speed and boot up time

...If you make the restoration CDs, you can erase the recovery partition and forget about the blue button. Whenever you want to restore your Vista, insert the CD recovery disk and follow the process. The recovery process will install the partition again and all capabilities as well as the original Vista o/s. Or, as an alternative, use Acronis True Image to make a hard drive image of your latest running Vista o/s and when you want to use Vista again, just apply the image to your hard drive.

Have fun.

 

Yes, i already have made recovery disks so as i understand it, i can even delete this hidden partition when i am at Ubuntu installation so i can take advantage of these 7-8 GB, correct ??

@ The Fire Snake: Thanks for the site!

 

Yes, I have done that process a couple of times. If you have any problems with Ubuntu, please post again and I would be glad to help out.

But, I think Ubuntu is more than ready for prime time.

By the way, I read quickly the notebook Linux site referenced and the process is even easier now. If you install Ubuntu, it will automatically even tell you a proprietary Nvidia driver is available for your download during the process and then install it for you.

Good luck.

 

Ok, thanks for the help!

??? So easy now ?? As i have nVidia, i thought that i would have immediate problems with that but as you say i would not!

Ah, how can t download this if it is in the installation process ? It would have not internet connection at this time...Is this ability (download NVIDIA drivers) available and after the installation ?

 

In the Ubuntu Live CD Boot up, choose the Vesa video line item. You will have video capability.

During the process, Ubuntu will look for a wired internet connection....so have that hooked up.

Then after the installation has taken place, Ubuntu will will tell you you have the latest updates waiting via internet which you should download.

Ubuntu will then tell you about this time that it also has your Nvidia driver ready for installation which you should accept.

 

Ok, great info, thanks! When Thursday comes (for the new release) should i download the Live CD or the "alternate desktop" one ?

EDIT: I have an "Intel Wireless WiFi Card 4965AGN" and a Bluetooth device (T61 built-in). Are these two going to work in Ubuntu ??

 

My 4965 works great in Ubuntu ... using it now as I write this. You can download the Live CD and install from that.

I don't have the bluetooth...so that is the only application I did not use in Ubuntu...so I can not comment on that.

You can actually use almost any recent Ubuntu Live CD, install, and then download the latest updates from the Internet....which will make your o/s current...even to the latest release.

 

Encouraging news! Ah, by the way: I have started to dig for various issues/hints on the net about Ubuntu and the like, i even ordered a book for this!
I read here http://prantran.blogspot.com/2008/01/enabling-multicoredual-core-support.html

that i must have a specific kernel version ("Generic" and not "i386") so that Ubuntu can take advantage of my laptop's dual-core processor.

Is there somewhere on the setup that i should be carefull to select this ?

 

Well, I believe that since you're using a 2 Core processor, you should download the AMD64 version.
If you want to install graphically and play with the LiveCD, which I always do, just download the 8.04_Desktop(AMD64) version.

Oh, I highly recommend downloading using a torrent, as it's faster for you, and lessens the load of the Ubuntu servers!

I've only embraced the Penguin late last year, and been loving every moment of it.

 

Xmm...i got a little confused now...

In the download page i see two options

1. Standard personal computer (x86 architecture, PentiumTM, CeleronTM, AthlonTM, SempronTM)

2. 64bit AMD and Intel computers

I think you mean the second. The first one is 32-bit and the second 64 ? And what i will gain/loose if i install the 64-bit one on my thinkpad ?

 

Well, simply put, the x86 means it only utilizes 32bits of your 64bit processor; and the AMD64 utilizes all 64-bits.
Go 32bit if you want to play safe, as there are still a tiny few programs that aren't 64bit compatible.
Go 64bit if you want to utilize the full power of the C2D. (Don't worry about the "AMD" bit on it. It's just a name.)

To download the torrent, go here: http://releases.ubuntu.com/8.04/
Then scroll to the bottom, and you'll see a list of various downloads. For the time being, everything is the Release Candidate version, so it's "rc".

If you want to download the RC version now, choose "ubuntu-8.04-rc-desktop-amd64.iso.torrent" or "ubuntu-8.04-rc-desktop-i386.iso.torrent". (Where AMD64 means the 64bit version, and i386 means the 32bit version.)

When the Final version comes out, just choose the same link(s), but without the "rc", naturally.

 

Ok, thanks! I wait until Thursday and download the 32-bit version, i like to play safe. There are lot of software that is not 64-bit ready (drivers etc) and i think "the fewer the bits, the fewer the problems", for now!

 

Have fun!

 

You will be pleasantly surprised how easy it is to fully install Ubuntu on your PC.

Download and burn the i386 Live CD and boot up. After the boot, you will see an icon on your desktop for "Install". Click on the install icon and follow the process to completion. At the Live CD point, you can even see how your bluetooth is working even before installation.

 

Ok, after more carefull design, i think that this vista crap won't die so easy (i depend on visual studio on my work and chances are that i am still going to need it some times in home too...), so i plan for a dual-boot solution.

I am not so happy with this because i stillwant to have only Ubuntu on my machine but i have to live with that.
I searched the net and found the way to do it. I will use the "shrink" tool in Disk management so to reduce Vista's partition and thus creating a new one so i will install ubuntu on that.

The question is, after a period that i am happy to ditch vista once and for all, will i be able from Ubuntu to do the reverse ?? i mean, does ubuntu have a tool to tell it "Hey, take that partition with my old OS and glue it to the current one' ? Or i just delete/format and have a second partition ?

The updates that comes to my system throught Lenovo's System Update (i mean Bios, nvidia drivers, modem drivers and the like), is there a way to keep them coming from Ubuntu ?


Thanks, again, for the help!

 

Yes. You could use GParted to delete the Vista partition, and then expand the Ubuntu partition.

 

Well, you could try running the Visual studio stuff in Wine. Or even better, use VMware or VirtualBox and run Windows Vista INSIDE Ubuntu.

For the partition problem, you can use gparted. It's included in the Gutsy Gibbon 7.10 LiveCD and the 7.10 OS. (Not too sure about Hardy.) It's under System > Administration > Partition Editor

As for the updates, Ubuntu itself and it's developers will be producing drivers and support for your hardware. And you can update them through Ubuntu's system update. Most of the drivers will be open source, but some, won't. Sure, it's not, say, from Lenovo itself, but it's completely suitable. If there's a driver for your hardware, there will be no problems whatsoever. You won't even feel the difference.

 

Thanks! Does the installer of Ubuntu have a "partition configurator" built-in as Windows does ? I mean, if someone's hard disk has 2 partitions and he want to scrap all of them, (unify them) and install Ubuntu in that (whole) partition , he has to use GParted first and then install Ubuntu on the just created partition or he can do the same thing by simply using the Ubuntu Live CD ?

at zephyrus17: What can i say...I already opened some links for these programs you gave me and started to read about them. As i said, i was forced to consider dual-boot for professional reasons but now something started to changing... A million thanks for the info!

EDIT: My T61 came with an Anytime Upgrade DVD. Is that DVD suitable to install Vista from it (on VirtualBox perhaps) ?

 

Yes, there is gparted in the OS itself, but it's not as powerful as the one is the LiveCD because when running from the LiveCD, all drives aren't mounted.
In both cases, they can be found in System>Administration>Partition Editor

About the virtualization, there are certain limitations, which I have no idea what they are. But, from my personal experience of running VMware with XP, it was very good. I could play Windows games, and even surf the net. However, you need quite a bit of RAM, and from your sig, I think you'll do fine.

Here's a howto about installing XP: (I'm not so sure with Vista, though. You can try it out.)
HowTo: Windows (XP) on Ubuntu with VMWare Server
Just search and ask around Ubuntu Forums: Virtualization and the main forum itself.
It's a great community and helped me LOADS when I just started off.

 

I thought that VirtualBox is free and not vmware...From the links you gave me it seems that it is also free. Have you got any opinion on VirtualBox ?

 

VMware has a couple of free offereings: VMware Player and VMWare Server. The player does not allow you to create virtual machines ( though there are ways to work around that); it also does not have some of the features of the pay version VMWare Workstation, such as creating snapshots.

I use VirtualBox quite a bit. It uses less resources than vmware but is not as polished. I use it for several Windows vms. The snapshots are kind of crappy, and advanced networking is more of a pain than with vmware. They were recently acquired by Sun, so perhaps there will be some nice improvements in the feature set.

 

Thanks to Proteus for reminding me. I used VMware server, which was free. I've never used VirtualBox, so I won't be able to compare. But For me, VMware was easy to configure, and ran quite smooth on my 2GB Dell. Since you have 3GB of RAM, VMware should run just fine.

 

Hi again.

I downloaded today 8.04 and run it as a Live CD. I want to check that everything is ok before i actually install it permanently. So, i tried to connect to my wireless AP but with no luck. Ubuntu recognizes my wireless card, it shows me the available APs just fine and it asks me for the credentials. So my AP wants a WEP key 128 bits Hex and has an Authentication of type "Open". So i give it to the respective box but it keeps asking me the same thing all over again.

If i go to the "network" at the menu, i ca see the network box that displayes "wireless", "wired" and "modem" connections.
I tried both to set "wireless" to roaming mode and i saw the above behavior. I also tried to give the static ip and DNS that i use in Windows just fine but i cannot connect to it.

I am sure i am doing something wrong here, can anyone helpme with this ? Ori i am not supposed to these things by just running from Live CD (with no changes yet) ?

Thanks (again) for any help!

 

objectref,

Yes, your 4965 wireless will work fine with the Ubuntu 8.04. By the way, Ubuntu has an excellent forum including a wireless section if you need more detailed help.

But, I have 8.04 running at the moment and if you left click on the icon in the upper right corner between the search function and the speaker icon, you can then choose and set your wireless connection.

Enjoy.

 

Thanks, i made a post there.

Hmm...i already have done that. I have set it up correctly, a procedure i also have done for 2 other Windows machines on my home network with no problem. The problem is that although i give the correct WEP key, it keeps asking me for this...

 

Try the forums there. They'll be able to give you much better help.

 

Can you change the security settings on your router? I use WPA Personal, and it works perfectly with two windows machines and three linux machines.

 

objectrf,

Wireless can be a little tricky no matter what the o/s,,,,at least initially...then once it is set you never think about it again.

I seem to remember in my case using hard wire first....then wireless with no security....and like char....ended up with WPA personal...which has been solid for me for many months. But because it has been months....don't remember the fine details of getting there.

In the Ubuntu forum, they probably do have any fine details or process documented. Let us know when your wireless pops into play......

 

I do not get it...WEP is a standard, isn't it ?? Why i have it changed for Ubuntu to work ? If i change it i have to make changes to other machines on my network too...
Is this something to do with the fact that i do not have it installed yet, i run it from Live CD just to check for this sort of problems ?

EDIT: my access point name is hidden and i give it's name to network manager. Is this acceptable or i should change it to not-hidden ?

 

Now i am sceptical again...I was planning to ditch a workable OS to install ubuntu but i run into problems from the very first try.
I saw at their forums that the wireless thing is one of their very big problems, many people complain about not working correctly.

Don't these things are supposed to be working out of the box ? Many says that writing a bunch of commands in the terminal may work things out but so much terminal-code for just a simple thing ? Other there says that network-manager is buggy...

I cannot figure out how to enable this thing...When in "Roaming Mode" it keeps asking me for a "passphrase" and when i set it up with static ip and the like, i cannot see any wireless network around...

 

objectrf,

Sorry to see you getting frustrated! If you are in N.CA, I will have it running for you in about 10 minutes.

And, WEP will work on Ubuntu, I and others ended up using WPA for added security.

And, you might be right about taking off the hidden AP. As I said, my similar experience with Ubuntu wireless was many months ago and now don't remember the fine details.

What I did and others probably do is a quick series of steps to get the wireless working.....which I do with any o/s. Does it work wired? Does it work with no security? Take off the hidden AP and try it. When you do have it working, then implement levels of security, etc.

If this is too frustrating, you are probably right.....maybe return to something already understood and running like XP but if you do try and succeed, you will be quite happy with Ubuntu. Very fast boot up. Very fast running. Full o/s update every six months....and ongoing updates automatically.

Don't forget to have fun. It's a little bit of a learning process.

Alacrity


EDIT: The Ubuntu up and running on the Lenovo in my signature block is set up with WPA2-PSK / AES and does not have a hidden AP.

EDIT: Just turned the AP SSID to "hidden". It works as well.....as I am putting this EDIT comment into the post now with Ubuntu.

 

thanks for the help but i am a little far away (Greece)

No, i will not give up, i will certainly make this thing work, no matter what.
So, i will keep trying for this using the Live CD but i suspect that this is not the correct way to do so.
I mean, some folks says installing ndiswrapper modules that i think i cannot do by using the Live CD. It has to be an installed OS, isn't ?

So, i am reading a book on ubuntu these days and will catch up soon. Have you any steps for me to try for this thing ?

Again, a million thaks for your patience and help!

 

Just curious guys...Haven't used Ubuntu since Feisty/Gutsy on my Latitude C640.

To anyone who has installed Gutsy, is UltraNav supported? What about the fingerprint reader? These are the only two pieces of hardware I can think of that might not have out-of-the-box support in my config, so I'm just curious.

I'm downloading the DVD .ISO on my main box at the moment; I'll probably play with it as a Live CD briefly or use Wubi just to check it out before doing a full dual-boot install with grub.

 

Here
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Installing_Ubuntu_7.04_(Feisty_Fawn)_on_a_ThinkPad_T61

you will find info about fingerprint reader

and here
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Installing_Ubuntu_8.04_(Hardy_Heron)_on_a_ThinkPad_T61

for the trackpoint.

 

Just a question for VirtualBox, if someone knows:
I saw that it asks about how much RAM this VM will use, for example, 500 MB is a nice options for running Windows XP inside Ubuntu.
I want to ask: These 500 MBs (or any other number), will be given from the system (Ubuntu) ONLY when i start the VM and run Windows XP and then, when i quit fro using this VM, it will be given back, correct ??

 

Yes, that is correct. Just make sure you have enough host ram to comfortably support the VM along with other operations on the host. Its a pain when your VM causes the host to swap.

 

Ok, i have 3GB of Ram and planning to give 700 to WinXP, just to run Visual Studio some time.

 

Ok, i installed ubuntu and i pretty much have everything up and running (and working), from my mail and development tool throught Thinkpad's buttons for sound and brightness.

The only thing that keeps make angry is the wireless...I tried not to use WEP Key but wpa personal with no luck.
I even found and tried using ndiswrapper and ndisgtk and installed the windows driver version, nothing.

Is there a T61 user with my wireless card that uses 8.04 sucessfully ?? What else i should try ?

 

I finally found a solution....I installed Wicd. It removed network manager and at last, it is WORKING!!

 

Break out the champagne!!

Bet you feel great resolvng that!

And, yes, I have used WICD before and that is a good software program.

Bet you love the resovoirs of great software available and Synaptic Package Manager. Put Compiz on your Ubuntu to impress your friends.

Sounds like you learning fast!

 

Thanks!!! I wouldn't go to sleep today (it's 03:00 am here in Greece) until i solve that.
I didn't go with dual-boot solution, i killed Vista this evening and i have only Hardy Heron on my Thinkpad!

Compiz is for desktop visual effects ?

Ah, the ONLY thing i do not like at all, are the fonts that pages are displayed in Firefox. I tried to resemble a Firefox windows installation at this matter but i cannot find the same fonts (Arial for example).

Have you got an idea where i can get something like that ?

 

Thank goodness you didn't go with dual boot. I have spent countless hours correcting dual boot/mbr problems in the past and no longer touch it. Good decision.

And, yes, Compiz are desktop effects. You can have four different desktops going on a rotating cube.......impresses the hell out of all my friends.

On fonts.....do a google on "fonts linux firefox" and you will get some good inputs. I have great fonts on my firefox but have again forgotten how I got there.....too many months ago.

Sounds like you are now having fun. Break out the resin....since you are in Greece.


EDIT: I see " mscorefonts package" in a few google threads......which rings a bell for me....microsoft core fonts.

 

Another soul has embraced the penguin. Joy!