Topic 'Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)' in forum 'All Things Unix' - dslreports.com

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 11:11:42 EDT

robman50 posted : I'm downloading xubuntu 12.04.1 because upgrading just takes to long. As for the printer I'm sure my printer will work better with a newer o/s. Heck it might even work better with a newer version of CUPS.

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 13:31:49 EDT

robman50 posted : Here is what my printer works with according to the manufacture site.
Redhat9(32bit), Fedora14(32bit), Fedora15(32bit/64bit), Mandriva2011(32bit), openSUSE11.4(32bit), Debian4.0r9(32bit), Debian6.0.2.1(32bit), Ubuntu10.04.3(32bit), Ubuntu11.04(32bit/64bit), EeePC4G(32bit), EeePC1000H(32bit)
Which one those would be a good choice?

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 12:59:40 EDT

robman50 posted : Which would be the best the old laptop?
LXDE Fedora spin
lubuntu
Debian GNU/Linux 6 (LXDE)

I am happy with the LXDE desktop over the dumb unity one. Just don't know what system has better support for more software/drivers.

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 06:22:59 EDT

boog posted : Yes, you can choose the others on the login screen.

The machine can get slow if it has to start swapping memory to the hdd.

I'm not a fan of the unity desktop either. I prefer xfce.

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Sun, 02 Sep 2012 23:16:40 EDT

robman50 posted : Yeah I have seen that before. That's on the login screen right? To be honest I find that the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS desktop sucks. Not a big fan of the dashboard.

As for RAM since the system is using 442/992MB could that make certain things slow to load?

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Sun, 02 Sep 2012 21:48:23 EDT

boog posted : You can have multiple desktop environments on your system at once. Just log out and pick another and log back in.

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Sun, 02 Sep 2012 21:14:40 EDT

robman50 posted : I tried switching from the LXDE desktop to the GNOME one and I think I screwed it up. LOL
On to the newest version of Ubuntu now. So far the system seems smooth and stable.

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 13:14:27 EDT

Maxo posted :

said by robman50 Is Windows that slow because of all the crap it loads?[/BQUOTE :

What was causing your Windows install to be slow is anyone's guess.
Number one reason I find people to have slow Windows is because the programs they've installed, and drivers, have all put their bloat into the startup folder, eating all CPU on login, and RAM for the duration of being logged in. More of a Windows culture problem than a design flaw in Windows itself.
Anti-malware programs can also be real resource hogs with the ability to bring any machine to its knees.
--
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Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 10:24:55 EDT

robman50 posted : Just using the standard kernel that lubuntu installed after all the updates and the neat thing is the laptop boots and shuts down more faster than the Acer laptop. Is Windows that slow because of all the crap it loads?

Core i3 (fist gen 2.0?+Ghz)
6GB RAM
SATA (2nd gen)
500GB HDD thats 2 years old
Win7 x64

Core (1.83Ghz)
1GB RAM
SATA (1st gen)
60GB HDD with over 4 thousand bad sectors
lubuntu

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 01:07:11 EDT

robman50 posted : do I need to get the ibm-acpi or thinkpad-acpi kernel?

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 20:33:51 EDT

Maxo posted :

said by robman50:

Next puzzle to figure out. How to I map a network drive?

From the desktop, click on File->Connect to server. You can also do this with Nautilus, the file manager, open.
Please note that drop-down menu titles do not appear unless your mouse is in the top bar.
From here you can connect to any FTP, SSH, WebDav and Windows share. Create a Bookmark once connected for easy access in the future.
--
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Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 16:28:52 EDT

robman50 posted : Next puzzle to figure out. How to I map a network drive?

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 16:10:18 EDT

pablo posted :

said by robman50:

Running at AHCI mode 'feels' like the laptop is running more quick and smooth.

I'm glad you're enjoying the distro.

If you want verifiable proof when using AHCI, you can try some disk tests. Or not. :)

Cheers,
-pablo
--
openSUSE 12.1/KDE 4.x
ISP: TekSavvy Bonded DSL; backhauled via a 6KM wireless link
Assorted goodies: »pablo.blog.blueoakdb.com

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 16:05:36 EDT

robman50 posted : So far everything is running smoothly. Running at AHCI mode 'feels' like the laptop is running more quick and smooth. WiFi is running great and now it is updating. Holy updates 206+, at least they are small ones. ;)

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 15:29:52 EDT

pablo posted : Given your situation, I'd try some LiveCD's and test drive the lot.

Cheers!
-pablo

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 15:25:24 EDT

robman50 posted : I would think I can run the SATA controller in AHCI mode since I took XP out.

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 15:11:46 EDT

robman50 posted : I am happy to see what the wifi works 'out of the box' with the latest version of lubuntu. :)

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 15:03:40 EDT

pablo posted :

said by robman50:

What should I do with the IBM service partition? Can I get rid of it? If installing wipes the whole drive clean that using the T60 recovery CD's should bring it all back than right?

It may be possible for you to use gparted to copy the recovery partition to another device (e.g. a USB flash drive?) and free up the space. :)

Cheers,
-pablo
--
openSUSE 12.1/KDE 4.x
ISP: TekSavvy Bonded DSL; backhauled via a 6KM wireless link
Assorted goodies: »pablo.blog.blueoakdb.com

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 15:00:06 EDT

El Quintron posted : you'll have to get the Adobe stuff outside of the standard repos... although there are open source alternatives to Adobe reader, which are bundled with most distros so unless you need it for a specific reason that only leaves Flash.
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Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 14:55:21 EDT

robman50 posted : What should I do with the IBM service partition? Can I get rid of it? If installing wipes the whole drive clean that using the T60 recovery CD's should bring it all back than right?

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 12:24:55 EDT

robman50 posted : The only packages that I plan to install are:
Adobe Flash
Adobe Acrobat Reader
Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Thunderbird
and maybe OpenOffice or what ever LXDE comes with.

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 11:23:15 EDT

El Quintron posted :

said by robman50:

Do I need any antivirus software with the Linux/Unix systems?

Assuming you're only installing from official repositories, then no.

Packages found out in the wild, and coming from non-officially maintained repos might be another story, exercise proper due-dilligence when installing from these sources. :)
--
Support Bacteria -- It's the Only Culture Some People Have

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 11:03:47 EDT

robman50 posted : Linux/Unix seems like a great choice for an internet machine since it's gaming support sucks and thats why I plan to pull XP off.

Do I need any antivirus software with the Linux/Unix systems?

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 08:43:35 EDT

pablo posted :

said by robman50:

They recommend 2GB of RAM for 12.1. :(
»en.opensuse.org/Hardware_requirements

The recommendation from the web page you cited states "Main memory: 512 MB physical RAM (2 GB recommended)"

I've run openSUSE 12.1 in a VM, with 768 MB of RAM and it ran fine.

Cheers,
-pablo
--
openSUSE 12.1/KDE 4.x
ISP: TekSavvy Bonded DSL; backhauled via a 6KM wireless link
Assorted goodies: »pablo.blog.blueoakdb.com

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 00:57:07 EDT

FiReSTaRT posted : Try Lubuntu. It's pretty easy on the resources. I've had a T60 workstation on my previous job and it ran Debian just fine, so anything fresher should give you good out of the box support.

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Sun, 12 Aug 2012 20:57:31 EDT

EUS posted : A t60 is not that old, I ran ubuntu 9 on one a few years back. Like all other laptops I used, the main issue was getting wireless w/WPA2 to work.
--
~ Project Hope ~

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Sun, 12 Aug 2012 19:37:45 EDT

robman50 posted :

said by Bink:

, or you can compile your own kernel to use less RAM.

hmm..
Starting MS-DOS...

:D

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Sun, 12 Aug 2012 18:14:09 EDT

Bink posted : It'll run on a box with 32MB of RAM. That said, if you have that little RAM, I can only refer you to »dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-06-24/, or you can compile your own kernel to use less RAM.

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Sun, 12 Aug 2012 15:07:44 EDT

robman50 posted : That's kind of silly that they won't tell you the RAM requirements.
»www.openbsd.org/i386.html

Although seeing an 80486DX as an supported CPU makes you wonder if that is just for the kernel and the command shell. I doubt it will run any GUI's.

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Sun, 12 Aug 2012 15:00:32 EDT

robman50 posted :

said by donoreo:

said by robman50:

I would think the T40 is an older slower model from the T60. Thanks, I'll give SUSE a try.

I was running XFCE as my desktop, but KDE was running ok as well, but took more memory.

They recommend 2GB of RAM for 12.1. :(
»en.opensuse.org/Hardware_requirements

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Sun, 12 Aug 2012 14:57:36 EDT

robman50 posted : So I guess I would be looking for something that is not an RAM hog.

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Sun, 12 Aug 2012 14:47:53 EDT

Bink posted : I run OpenBSD on my T42p--all the hardware is well supported and suspend/resume/hibernate work well--but you might find that heavy use of a modern web browser will readily eat through your meager 1GB of RAM. That said, this is definitely not my gaming platform.

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Sun, 12 Aug 2012 14:44:16 EDT

donoreo posted :

said by robman50:

I would think the T40 is an older slower model from the T60. Thanks, I'll give SUSE a try.

I was running XFCE as my desktop, but KDE was running ok as well, but took more memory.

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Sun, 12 Aug 2012 14:40:04 EDT

robman50 posted : I would think the T40 is an older slower model from the T60. Thanks, I'll give SUSE a try.

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Sun, 12 Aug 2012 14:29:39 EDT

donoreo posted : I have a T40 and until it died recently (CPU fan) I had SUSE 12.1 on it running fine.

Re: Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Sun, 12 Aug 2012 14:10:08 EDT

robman50 posted : I found this link but all of those distros seem old and probably not supported any more.
»www.linux-on-laptops.com/ibm.html

I need something that still can support the latest Firefox and Thunderbird updates.

Best distro for an IBM ThinkPad t60 (laptop)

Sun, 12 Aug 2012 13:13:35 EDT

robman50 posted : Are there any distros aimed for an older vintage laptop? Most I found are for the home desktop user. Could any desktop distro also run okay with an laptop?
Okay the laptop isn't that old and it could probably run anything. It's got a 1,83Ghz Core Solo CPU, 1GB RAM, 60GB HDD, DVDROM, finger print scanner (which I never use).
Model is IBM ThinkPad t60.
It probably would run DSL or Puppy like 'a bat out of hell.'
It runs XP but the hardware won't let me play any games and I find it seems to run slow.

Edit: I forgot ThinkCentre was the desktops. DUH LOL :D