Linux ThinkPad T61 Review

by Kevin O'Brien

Operating system selection has almost always locked consumers into the Microsoft Windows operating systems, but recently many manufacturers have started to offer Linux alternatives. Lenovo has started to offer SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 on some Thinkpad models, in addition to Vista and XP. This review covers the 14" T61 with the "SLED 10" Linux operating system.

System specifications:

• Processor: Intel T7300 Core 2 Duo (2.0GHz, 800MHz FSB, 4MB Cache)
• Graphics: Intel GMA X3100
• Operating System: Novell SLED 10
• Display: WXGA+ 1440 x 900 (LG screen)
• Hard Drive: 80GB 5400RPM
• Memory: 1GB (1GB x 1), up to 4GB max
• Ports: 3x USB 2.0, 1x FireWire, Monitor out, modem, Ethernet, headphone out, microphone in
• Slots: PC Card Slot and Smart Card reader
• Optical Drive: CDRW/DVD-ROM
• Dimensions: 13.2" x 9.3" x 1.09 - 1.26" (335mm x 237mm x 27.6 - 31.9mm)
• Weight: 5.5lbs
• Price: $1,249

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System Durability and Design

Nothing has changed with this T61 since our last review of this exact model beyond the operating system differences of going from Windows to Linux. This model still shares the same top notch Thinkpad build quality, and the basic semi-rugged business design.

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Operating System

The biggest change to this notebook since our last review is that Lenovo now offers SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 as an operating system option in addition to Windows Vista and XP. This gives users or businesses another choice, and hopefully a discount off the system price without needing to pay for a Windows license. Many users will also enjoy added security and stability that many Linux and Unix systems bring over XP or Vista.

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Since many users are probably curious how this system stacks up against a Windows system, I will compare this system against a comparable Vista machine for basic benchmarks.

Boot times

Suse boot to idle desktop: 2 minutes 8 seconds
Vista boot to idle desktop: 53 seconds (with fingerprint scan)

Shutdown Times
Suse shutdown: 30.2 seconds
Vista shutdown: 34.5 seconds

I found it very surprising that the boot times into the Suse Linux desktop environment took more than twice the time of Vista. For someone trying to quickly check their email in an airport quickly, it would be painful taking that long. I would highly suggest users use hibernate or suspend modes instead of a full shutdown.

Wireless Setup

Wireless setup in both Vista and Suse Linux is very straight forward. You click on the wireless icon in the taskbar and are greeted with a list of discovered networks. You then select the network, and depending on security options connect to that network. I did have trouble connecting onto a few WEP enabled networks around the office with the Suse system, but testing with other routers using WEP and WPA proved successful.

Office Productivity

For standard office documents like word processing, spreadsheets, or presentations, the Suse system includes Open Office. This handled everything in an environment that looked very similar to Microsoft Office, and was easy to adapt to. All document formats were easily opened, including those from the newer Office standard like Docx, Pptx, and Xlsx.

Document load times

Documents loaded at near identical speeds on both systems. Times ranged from 0.5 second to 2.0 seconds depending on file size.

Image Editing

The image editor included on the Suse system is Gimp, which is a free photo editing program with similar capabilities to Adobe Photoshop. Since this software is also available for Windows, I did a side by side image loading benchmark between each system using a 40MB 8-bit TIFF image.

Image loading times

• Windows Vista: 4.8 seconds
• Suse Linux: 3.0 seconds

Audio and Video Players

For listening to music or watching movies you have a pretty good selection of applications to pick from with the stock Suse system. The main applications being RealNetworks Helix for audio, and mPlayer for video. One advantage the Suse system had over Vista, was it already contained all the required video codecs to play Divx and Xvid encoded movies.

Instant Messaging

For instant messaging you have Gaim preloaded, which has support for AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Jabber, and many other protocols. Since I use a version of this software called Pidgin on my Vista machine, I felt right at home with Gaim.

System Performance

To measure system performance, we used the Dhrystone benchmark for processor performance and HDParm for disk performance.

Dhrystone: 374.8
Hdparm Cached Reads: 7263.51 MB/s
Hdparm buffered reads: 46.23 MB/s

Ports and Features
Front: Firewire, Wireless On/Off switch, and Headphone/Mic jacks

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Back: Battery and AC plug

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Left: VGA, Modem, LAN, 2 USB, PC-Card Slot, Smart Card Reader

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Right: Optical drive and 1 USB

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Battery

One area of concern with the Linux system was battery life. Suse did not appear to support the same power saving profiles that Windows offered, and battery life times were much lower. With the 6-cell 5200mAh battery, I was lucky to get more than 2.5 hours of battery life. In our previous review of the T61 with higher spec running a 6-cell battery, we managed roughly 3 hours and 40 minutes.

Heat and Noise

In general, the Linux version of the ThinkPad T61 performed noticeably better in terms of heat and noise than a Windows version ... if only because the processor wasn't as heavily taxed by the light operating system. Below are images with temperature readings listed in degrees Fahrenheit.

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Conclusion

I think that the Linux operating system offering is an excellent start at giving consumers more choices, as well as a cost saving option if they do not wish to pay for the Windows operating system. In its current form the two systems are similar enough for most users to pick up quickly without much frustration, although some areas still need a bit of refining, like in the power management area. With battery life being a key attribute to notebooks, having almost an hour less is of much concern. Overall I think Linux needs to be offered on all notebooks for an operating system option, if for nothing more than giving consumers another alternative to Windows.

Pros

• Runs well out of the box, no need to install updates or additional software for general uses
• Stable and Secure

Cons

• Power profiles on battery are limited
• Boot times are painfully long

 

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lol @ Vista logo

 

Several of us at the office laughed at the exact same thing.

 

whats worst is the windows key

 

This only proves that Linux distributions are a long way from working like Windows in laptops.
It's a good idea to get one with SUSE if you want to save some money though.

 

Well I don't know about that - I've used several distros in the past and a lot of them have booted much faster than windows. And worked just as well. But I have to admit that I'm pretty unimpressed by Lenovo's offering here.

 

Kevin, this is blasphemy. The laptop not only has Vista sticker and Vista keyboard, but also has Vista COA label.

I thought the reason to get a Linux laptop is NOT pay for the OS. Why are we paying for the 2 OSes with this? SLED isn't exactly free too.

Or did you just forget to upload a new set of pics.

 

Lenovo probably just slapped a generic disc iimage onto all orders.

 

if amol is right,

then spending a little time on thinkwikishould help optimize the machine's performance.

 

lol vista keyboard...

 

openSuSE 10.3 has much much better boot times. I'm still waiting for my T60 to be delivered but as soon as I get it I could report the exact measurements. The people from Novell did a hell good job to improve the speed of the booting process.

 

I wonder if the long loading time is because of SLED. I know old OpenSUSE had long load times, but should be much better on 10.3 and onward.

BTW, Arch on my FZ boots really fast (much faster than Vista).

 

how much is the difference between prices with vista version?

 

No, this just proves that distros from july 2006 are not that great. This review is basically a non event.

 

Yeah, cool. I like how you write it off after seeing one distribution in a limited environment.

It's nice to see it being offered by more manufacturers, but for the user that truly wants to save some money they'll just go for the cheapest operating system option and build their own. Having many choices is always good.

I'll admit that while some distributions are nearly perfect for the most basic users just playing Solitaire and checking their email, it still isn't quite ready for the business user that needs absolutely everything at their fingertips right out of the box.

All in good time...

 

I don't see what advantage Open SUSE offers over installing PCLinuxOS other than being pre-installed. But, I can think of several advantages for running PCLinuxOS instead of SUSE.

http://temporaryland.wordpress.com/2008/01/15/pclinuxos-2008-on-my-thinkpad-t61/

 

Thanks for the review!
As for the booting time, I believe it's SuSE's fault. I used to have SuSE 10.1 installed on my T60, and I have to say it was really slow. I am now running Ubuntu 7.10 on my T61p, and it usually takes less than 30 seconds to boot into GDM, and every things works flawless except the Fn+F7 key, which is probably due to the Nvidia driver.

 

you know what the despicable part of both Lenovo and Dell offering linux?
they actually cost most!!!
they're usually about $50 less in price, but you can't use coupons on them, so they end up being more expensive. I hate it.
I only use linux on all my machines, and hate having to give micro$oft my money when i buy a laptop, as I immediately just wipe it and put on linux.
Problem is, I don't want to pay more just to do that, so i get Vista Basic, use coupons, and just wipe. sad i know, as microsoft always touts those impressive numbers of how many copies they've sold. They've sold me 5 copies of vista basic already! none of which i've used!

 

like everybody else said here, openSUSE 10.3 is much better.

10.0-10.2 used to make the kernel run all sort of various double checking and stuff like that, 10.3 is much better.

10.0-10.2 is a bloated monster. i think you should retest with 10.3

you guys should try running powerTOP and using the suggesstions, and the new 2.6.24 kernel if running 64-bit. you'll get massive battery life improvements. (also go to lesswatts.org), better than windows vista. (kernel 2.6.21 is fine for 32-bit)

 

This was just the notebook we were given for the review. No Vista, etc was on the machine, just versions of Linux. I am guessing it was a production sample pulled and had the stickers on it for whatever reason.

 

Thanks for the PowerTOP recommendation! I'd never heard of that. I'm afraid I'm too chicken to go to a later kernel than the default 64-bit OpenSUSE 10.3 one.

 

well...if you want to try the new kernel
http://www.suseblog.com/?p=305

it's required for most powerTOP recommendations. the powerTOP website @ www.lesswatts.org or http://www.lesswatts.org/projects/powertop/

can explain.

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_reduce_power_consumption
the thinkpad wiki has a very good tutorial that covers all the bases. read it before making a new kernel, if you decide to. it provides options you should select. (personally, i do not do the hard drive tweaks because i'm afraid that the head unloading/loading will wear the drive out)

(personal results: idle: 5.2 hours to 7.8 hours)

 

why you guys reviewing the exactly same model with just a bit different configurations so many times?

this model is nothing special besides its old name , I would like to see non-thinkpad Lenovo review.

X300, X61 , T61 all boring nothing changed, nothing will change either .

 

oh and coming with Linux pre-installed is nothing rare. Many pcs in Asia come with it since 2004. I think all ASUS and Acer models come with it.

So why only this Thinkapd gets reviewed just because of its Linux,if so it is unfair.

An ASUS F8 SV I tested at a local was Linux model as well and was ok , I think I will buy it but not sure because there is no Photo Shop CS 3 or DXO5.0 in Linux world.

Any way hope you guys review an IDEAPAD, not THINKPAD.

 

Hey Mods, how would you like me to submit a review of an Apple MacBook that came preinstalled with Linux Mint? I can submit one, if you want. I'd like to see more Linux reviews.

 

Besides Fedora I really haven't seen developers bragging about making their distributions laptop friendly.
And forgive me for the dare of telling the truth: Linux ain't for laptops (especially because of the battery life).
My real question is why don't they offer Linux on all the laptops? I would like buying one without Windows.

 

@lappyforphotoshop: You're soo annoying. In every Thinkpad-thread on this forum you're posting FUD and agitate against Thinkpads.
Please, if you don't like them, just shut up and go post somewhere else (go in the Lenovo 3000/Y...-Series threads and tell this guys that this laptops are better than Thinkpads), I can't read it anymore...

@Topic:
Nice that you review Linux-preloaded models, I like that.
It's a pitty that Lenovo delivers a so old distribution (especially SuSE 10 [<10.3] sucks) that seems to be pretty unoptimized.
Imho 2 minutes boottime are not acceptable and any modern distro can do much better.
Let's see what the future brings - Dell show's how to do.

 

I have to say, SuSE might not be the best choice for desktop/laptop computer users. It will make some truly competitive laptops if lenovo put Ubuntu into their T or even X series.

 

Ubuntu is not quite "professional". They should go for something better (read: updated), enterprise segment. And they should remove the Vista sticker(s).

 

What, exactly is "unprofessional" about Ubuntu. Is it just because it's not called "Ubuntu Professional Edition."

 

@FadetoBlack:

What's your reasoning behind "Ubuntu is unprofessional"; "Linux is not for laptops"? Why do you say they should go for a better Enterprise section (well everything should be better, I know that lol)?


Linux is not offered on all laptops because it's not for the masses. It has a learning curve (I'm not saying Windows/Mac doesn't have one - Linux demands much more). Why are you not using linux? That's probably why linux is not being offered on all laptops - if the buyer cares for it, they'll put it in there by their own accord.

 

What is your reasoning behind this? I can get much better battery life on linux -- purely because I can configure it how I see fit and stretch it as far as I please.

Well for starters, it costs an OEM much more money than Windows, since they get paid to pre-install Windows. Also, as Amol stated, some distributions can have a considerable learning curve. While many projects are working hard to make the curve as gentle as possible, there are always issues that arise.

Most manufacturers don't like making compatible drivers for linux-based systems, either. The quickest gripe that Windows users make is, "I can't get (obscure program) working natively!"

Developers are working hard to solve all of these issues, though. The future is looking very good.

 

It doesn't cost them a dime if they don't offer support (besides drivers maybe) for it. I would buy a laptop with Linux pre-installed just because it would be cheaper.
I'm not using Linux because I don't need the extra headaches it gives me and same may go for the rest of the computer world. I like the ease of use.
I don't feel like Ubuntu is the right OS for a business laptop the same way I don't feel like Linux distributions are suited for laptops.
I don't care about Linux, nor will I ever do, but I like it the way it is. I do like to play around with some distributions and I felt like I had to tell the OS what to do, while Windows does that by itself (99% of the time). Taking away the difficulty from Linux is like taking away a candy from a kid.