Lenovo is offering users of ThinkPads and other Lenovo products who purchased their PC between October 26th, 2006 and March 15th, 2007 a free upgrade to Windows Vista. Take a look here. Personally, I would rather pay for an upgrade that would allow Apple OS X to run natively on my ThinkPad T60.
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Setting up the ThinkPad T60
The first thing I did after I got the T60 was to format the drive, keeping the rescue partition, and resize the first boot partition to give Windows XP 15 GB. I’ve decided to keep XP on this laptop for being able to do firmware upgrades to the Nokia E61 and to be able to access the Motorola SLVR with the Motorola Phone Tools. Other than that, I don’t need XP and I might eventually do away with it.
I manually partitioned the drive into multiple partions. I created at 15GB partition to hold my home directory as I expect to share it between multipe Linux distributions. I created at 2.5GB Swap partition and a 20GB partition to hold Fedora Core 6.
Installing FC6 was as normal as any Linux distribution goes except it crashed when I tried to customize the package installation. Once I ran a standard development environment install, it went smoothly.
After everything was installed, I got to configuring this puppy. I found there was a bit of manual intervention beyond what was required for my old T40. No big deals other than not being able to get the bluetooth working well enough that I can synch all my contacts and calendars from my Nokia E61 to Evolution. I’m not entirely sure where the problem is but I think it’s somewhere in the libsync libraries. Still trying to find an expert who can help me with this.
Configuring the Intel 3945 wireless was pretty painless – for one specific network. Fedora, in my humble opinion, still does not support location based network profiles very well. And for some ver weird reason, running NetworkManager is the only way to get DHCP working on the laptop with the wireless. It’s very weird, but at least I know I have to keep it on if I want to use DHCP. Conversely, if I don’t want to use DHCP (wired or wireless) and I want to employ a static network configuration, NetworkManager MUST be turned off.
Overall, I’ve been very happy having my ThinkPad T60 running Fedora Core 6 but the little things like synching my phone with my calendar and addressbook are things that Fedora is just not cut out for. I’ll see if i can get it working with Ubuntu when I get some time to install it.
Well, as much as I love OS X, the MacBook just wasn’t cutting it for me. The MacBook is a great computer for people who want to get things done and not have to worry about the underlying technology. I need to be able to get things done without futzing with configurations, but I also need a flexible environment where I can work with new technologies, get back to working on my open source social networking project, and also be able to work with Linux environments like Fedora, OpenSuse and Ubuntu.
The MacBook is great for multimedia things and I will probably continue to use OS X for video editing, managing my music collection, and managing the fast increasing number of digital photos that I take. However, it will probably NOT by my MacBook. I have decided to sell my MacBook. It was a tough decision, especially since I bought it less than six months ago and I upgraded the RAM to 2GB less than two months ago. I might try another Apple portable someday in the future but for now, the geek in me is screaming for a ThinkPad running Fedora Core 6, OpenSuse 10.1 and Ubuntu 6.10.
On Thursday, I picked up a Lenovo ThinkPad T60. Sorry, but i was just too excited about getting a new ThinkPad and I didn’t take the required unpackaging pictures. The ThinkPad T60 comes with 1 GB RAM, 120GB 5400 RPM HD, Intel 3945abg Wireless, ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 with 128MB Hypermemory, SXGA+ video at 1400×1050, Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 at 2GHz, DVD Recordable, 56k Fax modem, Infrared, Bluetooth, Gigabit Ethernet, Verizon Broadband Connect EVDO, 3 USB, Mic and Headphones, 1 PCI Express Full and 1 PCMCIA Slots, Fingerprint Reader, Security chip, 9 cell battery, and a three year warrant. The only real difference in specs is that the ThinkPad doesn’t have any sort of webcam (Apple MacBook has iSight) or remote control (Apple MacBook has FrontRow).
The ThinkPad has an Intel Core 2 Duo chip, 128MB of video RAM, double the hard drive capacity, double the RAM of the MacBook, and also the Verizon EVDO built-in. That’s a substantial amount of hardware for $1600. The only thing I’ve found so far to complain about the ThinkPad is that the screen isn’t as bright as the MacBook and considering winter is approaching, the ThinkPad can’t double as a heater like the MacBook can.
The 14.1″ version of the ThinkPad T60 is a bit smaller and lighter than the 15″ version. I had considered an ThinkPad X60 or X41 but I decided against it mainly because they both use an Intel 950 graphics chip with 64MB of shared memory, the units in stock didn’t have DVD-RW capability and the HD was maxxed out at 60GB.
The feel of the lenovo ThinkPad T60 isn’t very different from my old IBM ThinkPad T40. However, Lenovo has made a few changes like changing the battery type and the power adapter. I won’t be able to use the battery from my T40 nor will I be able to use the two T40 chargers I have. I presume that dock options are also different for the T60 than for the T4x series of ThinkPads. This ThinkPad T60 also has the Lenovo name displayed prominently next to the T60 logo.
I’ll get into what I’m doing with my new T60 in another post but suffice it to say, I am very happy to be typing on a ThinkPad. However, I do miss having OS X working with such ease and finesse. As much as I love Linux, it is a serious PITA getting things to run and things still don’t run as cleanly or well as they do in OS X. Synchronizing a phone over bluetooth with your PIM is a perfect example … Oh well, I guess that’s part of the fun and challenge of using Linux 🙂
Novell and Lenovo are teaming up on a new ThinkPad laptop with Novell’s Suse Linux operating system preinstalled. Hopefully, the price doesn’t start at $3099 as stated on CNET.
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Lenovo to preload Linux on T60p
Couldn’t Lenovo have announced this in May? It is so tempting to think if I could dual-boot SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 ( preloaded and supported by Lenovo – potentially with all the “ThinkPad Experience” applications like “Access Connections”, “Power Manager” and other utilities available on Windows ) and a version of OS X that people have gotten running on their ThinkPads. One can only dream! I’m looking forward to seeing the full announcement on the 14th. Read the complete article on eweek below.
The PC maker, at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo beginning Aug. 14 , will announce a plan to pre-load Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 on one of its ThinkPad notebooks, sources familiar with the two company’s plans said.
Lenovo to Load Linux on ThinkPad Laptop
technorati tags:Lenovo, Novell, Suse, Linux, ThinkPad, T60p
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