Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop Edition on T61

I was considering installing this on my T61 since it would be supported until 2011. I just have a couple of questions.

Would it be wise to dual-boot vista and ubuntu, since I'm still in school?

Also, are there any conflicts with this version of ubuntu on the T61?

Are there any real advantages to using ubuntu over vista business?

Thanks for any and all help

 

If you are new to Linux you should leave Windows on the HD and have a dual-boot setup. Consider a clean install of Vista to free some space on your HD first:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=144783

You can also get rid of Windows, install Ubuntu and then run Windows from within Ubuntu by using VMware or VirtualBox. You should check those out.

I'm not sure. I'm still waiting for my T61 and then I'll find out. Have a look at

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

That you have to find out yourself. Some people say "no". I myself - being a huge Linux fan - say that there are plenty. It mostly depends on what you use your laptop for. If you play fancy games you'll need Windows. If you do Internet, office and multimedia (music, videos etc.), then you don't need Windows.

 

thanks a lot, I'm definitely going to consider a dual-boot set up

 

You can use wubi to install dual-boot Ubuntu without creating an extra partition, it's very simple, just a few clicks, you don't even have to burn an installation CD.

http://wubi.sourceforge.net/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wubi_(Ubuntu)

 

i'm running a dual boot with XP Pro and Ubuntu 8.04, i originally installed the 64bit version, but i didnt like the lack of compiz but shockingly everything even in 64bit is recognized instantly, now im running 32bit and all is well.

 

I'm using the AMD64 and the Compiz is great.

 

Do you have the NVS140m or the intel? It could only find the basic drivers for me and they werent compatible with desktop effects.

 

You need to install the nvidia driver which is not included in the basic installation

 

Wubi is nice if you want to experiment some without a lot of hassle. There was a notable difference in speed when I tried it though, which is understandable considering that you have a filesystem within another filesystem.

 

Which one? I'd love to be able to take full advantage of my RAM and Video Card.

 

I installed Hardy the day the release came out on my new T61p

The restricted drivers application is now called "Hardware Drivers". It is located under "Administration". Just select the Nvidia driver. Works perfectly here (T61p with 570m)

What does not work here? Kde (Kubuntu) does not play nicely with thinkfinger (Fingerprint reader driver/tools). This works with the gnome/gtk based "plain" ubuntu. If you need instructions on how to enable it, let me know.

What i haven't tried yet: ieee1394, bluetooth, multicard reader.

 

Does it preserve the ThinkVantage blue button function that allows to boot into the restore when pressed upon reboot?

 

Yes it does, because wubi does not change anything inside Windows and preserve the original bootloader

 

Great - then I'll install it!

I am still in shock about how great Ubuntu 8.04 is and how easily things can be troubleshot thanks to the linux forums and excellent documentation. I tried it out on my wife’s Compaq Presario V3000 after I decided to kill XP because all the bloatware snug up again ("Vongo", etc), even the lightest antivirus, anti-spyware and firewall programs really slowed the system down and Gnome is now blazingly fast! I can’t believe that most the maintenance tasks we are concerned with as Windows users are essentially artificially created to maintain business: none of them are needed under Linux!

Figure that: I bought a $2200 Lenovo T61 with Vista Ultimate and it seems that I'm back to the old Win95 times: key system services just won't run despite my desperate attempts for months (e.g. event log service). As a result Lenovo programs won't run either (DiskKeeper). I continue to get the blue screen of death (BSOD), the computer slows down after repeat suspend till it BSODs on me, the wireless network manager crashes after each suspend and cannot be restarted meaning that I have to reboot each time I stop something for a few hours. Office 2007 looks good and the new interface is actually nice (once you get used to it) but it too, crashes inexplicably! This has wrecked havoc with my PhD thesis, a 350 page document with a ton of big graphics. When I run it on my wife's laptop in OpenOffice it is as fast as if I were scrolling an ASCII text with 2 pages! It is ridiculous! Office 2007 also has a problem with the screen refresh when I scroll even only moderately large documents. It fills the screen with horizontal stripes of the text I was looking at and won’t refresh or go away.
I figure if it takes me that much effort to get my most basic stuff done, then I can as well switch a totally new operating system.

My only concerns are now to find Linux replacement for:
iTunes (I’ve got an iPhone) – perhaps Wine will make it work.
Endnote – perhaps Wine or just using their online subscription version? No good Linux replacement that I know of.
VectorNTI, a program for DNA cloning (molecular biology) – I’m sure there must be a Linux equivalent out there.

An interesting observation of course is the emergence of cloud computing and that is to me, quite frankly, the biggest argument for Linux (not against it as recently discussed at ZDNet): as we can do most things online (spreadsheet, word processing, presentations, financial software) we don’t really need highly powered PCs anymore. gOS Linux on cheapo Everex PCs is the best example.

Enough rambling! I gotta install Ubuntu!

 

I don't even use office anymore for academic purposes. LaTeX produces much better looking papers and has powerful built-in bibliography codes. Of course, there is quite a steep learning curve when you start....

For iPhone software on Ubuntu, take a look here:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PortableDevices/iPhone

 

I tried a clean install today and yes, it does seem to be a little bit faster than a wubi installation....

 

Even if you decide to dual boot the restore partition is one of the boot choices in the Grub menu.

 

did you guy get external work? I hooked up a 20 inches LCD. Clone desktop work but i can't get it as an extend monitor

also i can't hook up my apple wireless keyboard via bluetooth

 

I have Vista 64 installed on my T61p (4GB/320GB/WUXGA/Nvidia256). The single most frustrating thing about Vista 64 has been trying to get it to install the software for and synchronize my Garmin 3600 and Tapwave Zodiac Palm OS devices.

MS VPC doesn't virtualize USB ports. VMware Server Beta 2.0 runs, but doesn't officially support Vista (at all) and I can't get the USB ports to work through it.

So... I'm considering putting Ubuntu 64 on the machine. The plan then is to put VMware Server Beta 2.0 on it, then an XP VM. Will I be able to see the USB ports for Garmin Palm OS map systems through that chain? Has anyone had any luck doing anything like this?

 

Grench -- have you tried VirtualBox? If not, try the latest 1.6 Sun xVM. It's a very fast VM.

 

I have Ubuntu Hardy 64-bit on my Dell. (See sig) And it works perfect. Everything detects brilliantly EVEN the wireless. Thinkpads have much better compatibility, so, hardware detection will be no problem. In the even you do, there is a Thinkpad Linux Wiki.

I don't recommend VMware 2.0beta. Get the stable 1.0.5. It's, uh, more stable and it detects Vista. However, because of the resource hog that Vista is, you'll be hard pressed to run it smoothly on VMware at all. (I think that's why VM doesn't run it.) I recommend you to install XP instead.

My VMware 1.0.5 doesn't detect USBs as well. You'll need to configure it. I think VirtualBox will work better with USBs, haven't tried it myself, though.

 

I have mixed feelings about Ubuntu 8.04 and my T61.

I had installed it for 1 month alone, i.e. no Vista in my hard disk.
I did it because i wanted to really see how Ubuntu is going and if it is up to be considered a mainstream OS. (i am a software engineer and i, somehow, HAVE to know about these things).

So, i tried to "emulate" my old Vista System, i mean, development tools, working hardware, internet/email and the like.

So, i quickly run into problems:

- WiFi did not work out of the box. After 2 days of search i realized that GNOME Network Manager is not working correctly so i installed Wicd and i had my WiFi connection alive.
But the (WiFi) led was not show anything so i spend another few hours to find what was going on. I found some hacks but i eventually had a constantly powered-on led (no blinking led on data transfer)...

- Hibernate was not working, neither did Suspend. Hibernate just shown a black screen indication that the system has crashed. Suspend, some times worked and then i was presented by a white screen. I figured out that if i type my credentials there, the system will come up. But it worked randomly and when it did, my WiFi connection was never detected and i had to reconnect from Wicd (which was missing from the tray too) or reboot.

- nVidia drivers made the system experience some "lags" every now and then, and that was something very annoying. Also, some black screens were coming very often just before the respective windows were draw on screen.

- The battery. Ahh..the battery...In Vista, with WiFI constantly on and connected, i am able to have more than 3 hours of work (Visual Studio, designing, compiling etc), easily.
In Ubuntu i was hardly getting 2 hours. Maybe less. I have found some hacks (again...) and a program that would manage the power and finally managed to get 2.30 hours but the system was running more slowly than Vista with the same (?) power settings.

The good stuff:

- The system, when from cold boot, was up and running by occupying only 250MB of RAM, which is dramatically less than Vista's ~ 1GB.
I would never come not even close to the 3GB Ram i have, no matter what of my software i was running together.

- Virtual box was working GREAT! I was running XP from a VB vm and it really was going FAST. It something that everyone should see, really!
I was able to run Visual Studio, Sql Server and all this stuff from there, amazing work.

- Other software like Open Office, mp3/cd/dvd players were working ok, although some of them has to be tweaked with net searching.
In general, software was working very nicely.

Anyway, i am back to Vista (i use ms technologies for my work and Windows is a must for me, at this time) and after made a Clean Install i have my system that really rocks and all hardware is working as expected.

I believe Ubuntu has done an amazing work but is not ready yet to be considered as a mainstream OS. There are times that you have to find things on the net, download code, build the code and install. I can do this because i am a software engineer and i know about this stuff but do not expect the average user to do it.
I am a little sceptical because my Thinkpad T61 has very well known hardware parts and i would expect that i would not have any problems with the hardware. I cannot imagine how Ubuntu will do if installed in other systems with older parts or not so "brand names" ones.

 

When I get my Thinkpad I'll try a clean Ubuntu install and see how many things work and how many don't.

Previous attempts of installing it on a T42 were brilliantly successful as well.

 

I installed 8.04 on R32, and it took me 2 - 3 hours to fix the screen display problems (from 800 x 600 to 1024 x 768).

I found that it requires extensive computer knowledge in order to get things done in Ubuntu, especially to set up the machine to work properly (It took me a while to get the middle button work for trackpoint). I believe Ubuntu will be popular only for those with good knowledge about OS / Computer skills, but not yet ready for average home user unless it is pre-installed from manufacturer.

 

I'm duel booting with vista. Ubuntu has been working great. the only problem i ran into is that my bluetooth mouse didn't work out of the box. I had to do some searching but i finally got it working.

If you guys are having problems I feel like there are a lot of resources to find solutions and fix things.

thinkwiki is a good starting point.

 

Personally, i had "consulted" thinkwiki and found a solution o the trackpoint. But eventually i had the same problems that many-many people already had (as i read on the net), so it is not us but some things are waiting o be fixed.