Thinkpad T61
Paul J Gans
folks out there. Or it may not. In which case hit
delete.
I've just purchased a Lenovo Thinkpad T61 running Win XP
(yes, they are still selling that -- and bragging about
it too) with 2 Gbytes of RAM and a 120 Gbyte hard drive.
The system comes with two partitions on the disk. The
first contains Win XP and the second (about 6 Gbytes)
contains the "diagnostic and reinstallation" software.
No CD's are included.
I turned it into a dual boot machine by defragging
the Windows partition and shrinking it. I used GParted
on a bootable CD to create a third partition in between
the first two as I wanted to avoid moving the reinstall
partition in case the hardware relied on its being in
a fixed location. (Yes, I'm conservative.)
There were major problems. The machine has a 1280x800
pixel screen, but OpenSuse 10.2 insisted that it was
1024x768. This resulted in a strange looking stretched
display.
All attempts to change that with Sax2 failed. Sax2
insisted that since the video was framebuffer based,
nothing could be changed.
The machine contains an Nvidia Quadro NVS 140 M video
card. But there seemed no way to make the installation
use it in the way intended.
I reinstalled several times, playing with the different
setup parameters each time. For some reason unknown to
me (I think did nothing different) on the last install
I managed to convince it that the screen really was
1280x800 and it accepted that.
Of course, since the text screen for the booting messages
had been 132x44 lines, I was a bit surprised to see that
it now became 80x24 lines. I guess you can't have
everything.
The built-in Intel 4965AGN wireless chip was not even
seen by the install routine. That doesn't surprise me.
Perhaps 10.3 will fix that.
The machine seems very fast. It runs twin 2.0 Ghz
CPUs.
At one point I tried installing Kubuntu 7.04 (Feisty)
just to see if that would recognize the wireless setup.
Kubuntu would not even start to boot. It would hang
right after it installed the core operating system from
the CD and released unused memory. It then said that it
could not find the memory.
That's the first time I've seen OpenSuse beat out
Ubuntu.
I've not (yet) used the machine very much. If I manage
to get things better straightened out, I'll pass that
information along.
--
--- Paul J. Gans
George Peatty
wrote:
>At one point I tried installing Kubuntu 7.04 (Feisty)
>just to see if that would recognize the wireless setup.
>Kubuntu would not even start to boot. It would hang
>right after it installed the core operating system from
>the CD and released unused memory. It then said that it
>could not find the memory.
>That's the first time I've seen OpenSuse beat out
>Ubuntu.
I've had similar problems installing Kubuntu. If you want Kubuntu, then
install from the Ubuntu 7.04 CD, and when you boot, open a terminal and type
sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop
This was the only way I could get kubuntu on two of my machines ..
Paul J Gans
Thanks. I'll try that. I want to see if Ubuntu can run my
wireless and handle the screen better.
Paul J Gans
Followup: I tried Ubuntu 7.04. It failed in the same
way. The message was "can't open tty0". Of course,
up to that point the setup routine was happily writing
to it and displaying the Ubuntu logo.
Oh well. I'm happy using OpenSuse, even if it can't find
the wireless board and can't smoothly scroll or move anything
in X on this machine.
I expect that as the T61s (they are new) get more exposure,
much of this will be fixed.
Harold Stevens
[Snip...]
> Followup: I tried Ubuntu 7.04. It failed in the same
> way. The message was "can't open tty0".
FWIW...
I had a similar quirk using 7.04 and an old IBM 300GL desktop. The install
CD would boot and load the kernel. Shortly after displaying 100% of kernel
load, the install would lockup with:
invalid compressed format (err=2)
-- system halted
The same CD worked fine on two other desktops and a laptop, so it probably
isn't the CD itself (AFAICT).
Googling found some hits on this particular error, but seemed limited to a
few kernel developer gripes, and no obvious resolution (IIRC).
The same 300GL worked fine with Dapper (6.06), so I just wrote off 7.04 on
the 300GL, and will try again with the next Kubuntu release.
--
Regards, Weird (Harold Stevens) * IMPORTANT EMAIL INFO FOLLOWS *
Pardon any bogus email addresses (wookie) in place for spambots.
Really, it's (wyrd) at airmail, dotted with net. DO NOT SPAM IT.
Kids jumping ship? Looking to hire an old-school type? Email me.
Paul J Gans
>In <fair3u$k7c$9...@reader1.panix.com> Paul J Gans:
>[Snip...]
>> Followup: I tried Ubuntu 7.04. It failed in the same
>> way. The message was "can't open tty0".
>FWIW...
>I had a similar quirk using 7.04 and an old IBM 300GL desktop. The install
>CD would boot and load the kernel. Shortly after displaying 100% of kernel
>load, the install would lockup with:
> invalid compressed format (err=2)
> -- system halted
>The same CD worked fine on two other desktops and a laptop, so it probably
>isn't the CD itself (AFAICT).
>Googling found some hits on this particular error, but seemed limited to a
>few kernel developer gripes, and no obvious resolution (IIRC).
>The same 300GL worked fine with Dapper (6.06), so I just wrote off 7.04 on
>the 300GL, and will try again with the next Kubuntu release.
I've googled as well. It seems that my error can be fixed
by changing the disk access method to "compatibility" in the
BIOS. The error has been reported by a number of people.
OpenSuse does'nt need that. However, googling reveals that
in order to get the Nvidia card in the T61 recognized by OpenSuse
one has to download the Nvidia driver from Nvidia. And getting
the wireless to work requires the addition of an Intel open source
driver.
Many details at:
http://www.linlap.com/wiki/IBM-Lenovo+Thinkpad+T61
I've not done these things yet. I may wait for 10.3 since
I'd just have to repeat them when I move to it.
dee...@gmail.com
> Followup: I tried Ubuntu 7.04. It failed in the same
> way. The message was "can't open tty0".
I had the same problem, but google got me past this pretty quickly
with the info here:
"Used Alternate CD version or go to BIOS change SATA to
Compatibility."
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=3275587
I didn't try the Alternate CD,but changing SATA to Compatibility fixed
he problem for me, and the installation proceeded without a problem
after that. I didn't experience the display problem described by the
same poster in the above link. My display came up in high res at
1680x1050 right out of the install, which was very impressive and a
great relief (because I've had display issues in the past with earlier
releases).
I do not have wireless yet, which is what I am looking for right now.
I don't think I have sounds either. Other than that, Ubuntu looks
wonderful on the high res display.
I am running Ubuntu 7.04 on a ThinkPad T61 that I received a few days
ago. Hope this helps.