[PLUG] Thinkpad T61

Kris krisa at subtend.net
Sat Oct 20 00:09:33 UTC 2007


John Jason Jordan wrote:
> In shopping for a new laptop the Thinkpad T61 is currently at the top
> of my list (but the list order sometimes changes hourly). I'm pretty
> sure I've seen comments here by someone who has one. Comments
> would be welcome (off-list), and specifically regarding:
> 
> What features did you get?
> What features do you wish you hadn't ordered?
> What features do you wish you had ordered?
> Where did you get it, what is the best place?
> Is it possible to find one in a store in Portland to look at?
> Which distro/architecture do you use on it? Issues?

I purchased a T61 in August to replace my HP nc6220.  The HP was great, but was
only a 1.8GHz P-M, and we're doing a lot more with Xen, so I wanted an HVM
capable proc for testing.  Mind you the feisty xen kernel didn't support the
ipw3945 simultaneously (and why would it being a server kernel).

I opted for the Intel video chipset.  I've had awesome luck with nvidia drivers
on my desktop, but believe Intel is better at supporting open source software
than nvidia, and feared there could be a chance of getting a new nvidia mobile
chipset that wasn't supported.

The T61 hardware was a bit too new for Feisty.  Sound didn't work, hibernate
didn't work, and ctrl-F(x) for a text console didn't work.

I'm happy to report that with Gusty, everything is working nicely.  Though I was
a bit surprised that compiz/beryl doesn't work.  Sure I expected crappy 3d
support form the Intel card, but not nothing. :)  No big loss though, it would
have been neat but not functional for me.

Noticeable physical differences between the HP and the Lenovo:
 * HP has a standard desktop keyboard ctrl-alt placement, the lenovo's are
closer together (IBM used to boycott the windows key too.. but this Lenovo now
has it)
 * The LCD is much cooler (in color temp) than the HP, which you just get used
to, but side to side is quite noticeable.  I use greys and blues in my theme
anyway, so I guess I'm cool color-temp kind of person. :)  Compared to my
viewsonic 19" LCD at home laptop LCD's just suck.
 * For the pointer-mouse users like me, Lenovo provides 3 mouse buttons.  The HP
had a pointer-mouse but only two (trackpad on both have only 2).

I have the fingerprint reader but haven't tried to use it (I've been using
dm-crypt on /home since it was available with much success).

-- 
I'm just a packet pusher.

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