Ubuntu Linux on my T40 Laptop
I finally finished (relative term) setting up my older T40 Thinkpad with Ubuntu Linux. The basic install was quite easy. It took about 15 minutes to create the CD image, boot and install Ubuntu. It took another 45 minutes as it automatically checked for all updates (119 of them) and installed them on one pass. So, within an hour I had a functioning personal computer - the complete operating system, a usable interface, the basic office suite, and Internet software. This is equivalent to taking my Windows installation and adding Office or one of the other word processing + spreadsheet + presentation packages. The difference being this is all open source (aka free) and it only took an hour (of which about 10 minutes needed me to pay attention).
Now, that is not to say that after an hour passing, I was done. No, that was not the case. You see, I had read and seen pictures of many cool and wild things that could be done to Ubuntu … many things that I had only seen on MAC OS X and read about on Vista (which was never getting it’s hands on my PC). So, I set out to add all the cool bits and pieces that I could find. That is where the geek-factor kicked in … plus a good dose of linux-is-not-for-the-weak. (Carl makes good on this second point.)
The trouble began with my T40 ATI video device. I am sure I still do not have it where it needs to be (performance wise) but a lot of Google-ing and I found enough detail to get it prepared for graphics gluttony - almost. I had to figure one bit out on my own … if the screen displays about 60% across then it’s out to the Linux command line
sudo emacs /etc/X11/xorg.conf
search for color depth and change 24 to 16
Then more reading; more Google-ing; more reading; still more Google-ing … and finally …
Ubuntu + ATI Radeon support + Compiz Fusion + Avant Window Manager + mapping for the missing ‘Window’ key + Sun JVM 1.6 + CIFS mapped NAS drives + SystemRescueCD backups. Unlike Carl, the networking (wired and wireless) was automatic. In my case, all troubles stemmed from (and likely still stem from) the ATI video chip.
(Edit: I should point out that the system still is less than 3.5GB of disk space and only needs about 180MB of RAM for the base and all the GUI stuff. While this seems large, you can compare it to the Windows config which takes 385MB of RAM when idle. An image backup with SystemRescueCD takes 10 minutes and is only 1.1GB compared to the 4.5GB image that Acronis made for Windows.)
The first image just shows my screen with one icon highlighted in the doc at the bottom. The second and sixth images show the “cube” - you will notice that windows can slide around the corner. Also, “cube” is a generic term as you can have many different sides but much above 8 gets confusing. (I tried 5 for a while. I’ll settle on a number based on how much stuff I keep open.) The fourth image shows some window effects like transparency when dragging and window-shades to minimize windows but keep them in place. The fifth image is one of three options for scrolling thru windows. This one is like iTunes cover art. There is also a Vista-like parade of windows.
All is not rosy though in the Linux desktop world. I can not get screen-casting to work so no videos of my cool machine yet. Also, there are no good blogging tools that compare to what I use on Windows. This alone is my biggest barrier to making Ubuntu my primary machine.
In closing, I agree with others that linux, as an end-user PC solution has a bit of growing up. However, it is close - very close. If you take away all the “graphics gah-gah”, my machine was ready in about an hour. For me, it would have been completely usable - except for the lack of a good blogging client. I may break down and try running my blogging tool in Wine … or not.
I was —— “this” —— close !
September 25th, 2007 at 05:16
Thanks for the write-up. You’ve reminded me I need to get round to installing Compiz Fusion!