[ltp] advice/comments on the T60

[Peter F. Patel-Schneider]

From: Jon Escombe <lists@dresco.co.uk>
Subject: Re: [ltp] advice/comments on the T60
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 11:51:12 +0000 (GMT)

> > Hi gang.
> > 
> > I want to buy a Thinkpad T60 and install Linux on it.  I am looking
> > for advice or comments on such an endeavour.
> 
> I am running FC6 on a T60 (2007-63G) with 14.1" SXGA display, ATI X1400
> graphics, and Intel 3945 wireless.

I have a similar setup, but with the 15" 1600x1200 screen on a T60P.
Apparently the "P" adds a lot to the price, but it is my work machine,
so it didn't come out of *my* pocket.  :-)

> For me, the 14.1" SXGA screen hits the sweet spot in terms of
> resolution, size/weight, and battery life.

Like others, I find the 15" screen to be the best I've ever seen.  As I
view a lot of PDF documents, I really wanted the 1200pixel height.  (I
used to view PDF documents sideways on an XGA screen - I got a lot of
strange looks doing this.)  I've heard that this screen is no longer
available - what a shame if this is so.

> It's reasonably painless to keep the ATI fglrx drivers up to date
> through the livna repositories, and desktop effects work once Xgl is
> installed (although it would be easier if the ATI drivers supported
> AIGLX).

I have the fglrx drivers updating automatically, out of the livna
repository.  I just have to wait until the fglrx driver upgrade pops up
along with the kernel upgrade.

> Likewise the ipw3945 wireless drivers are easy to compile or install
> from RPMs, 

These are a bit more problematic.  
Hopefully there will be a free driver for the ipw3945 in Fedora soon.

I update the driver manually via:

yum -y --enablerepo=atrpms install ipw3945d ipw3945-ucode ipw3945-kmdl-`uname -r`.i686

Apparently it is possible to just get ipw3945 packages out of atrpms,
but I haven't tried it out yet.  (See
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=94861.)

> and the card works well with NetworkManager on WEP/WPA/WPA2
> networks.

Agreed.  

> Suspend and hibernate work fine after a couple of small configuration
> tweaks. 

Could you send out your tweaks?  I haven't bothered to get hibernate to
work, but suspend worked

> All in all, am very happy with the combination of FC6 and this
> laptop.

Me too.

Almost everything works great - even twin-head output.

My only real annoyance is that I can't get the internal modem to work.
Does anyone have any way of making it work?

> Regards,
> Jon.

Peter F. Patel-Schneider