[ltp] Questions/Pointers for ThinkPad 600 Model 2645-21u

[Charles E Taylor IV]

>      I just got a ThinkPad 600 Model 2645-21 with 160 MB RAM and 3 GB 
> Hard Disk,

More RAM and hard disk would be nice.  RAM is cheap, and you should be
able to get at least 228M in there.

> 1) My BIOS date is 4/98 should I update it?

I wouldn't mess with it unless you have some sort of Linux problem.

> 2) What Linux distros do TP600 users recommend? Should I go RH9? 
> Mandrake 9.1? Debian?

I use Redhat 9 on a 600, a 770Z, and a 240.  Surprisingly few problems.

> 3) Has anyone done a TP600 customized Gentoo install? Was there enough 
> of a speed bump to justify the labor?

And is 3 gigabytes of hard drive even *enough* to do heavy-duty building? 
(I'm specifically thinking Open Office and Mozilla here, though I'm sure a
KDE or Gnome rebuild would give the machine a workout, too.)

> 4) Is TP600 sound supported? Do I go with ALSA or OSS? What about audio 
> in?

They say ALSA's supported, but I use OSS on my TP600 because I knew hpw to
set it up. :)  (cs4232 driver)

> 5) Do we have stable PCMCIA support for the TP600? What's needed to get 
> it to run?

I've not had any PCMCIA problems under Red Hat 9.  I guess it just works
on other modern distributions.

> 6) Is an accelerated XFree86 server available for the video chip?

Yes, and with the newest X you get XV support - nice for MAME and DVD/VCD
playing.

> 7) Does this wacky eraser-tip-stuck-in-the-keyboard-mouse work in X?

Yes.  All three buttons work, too.

> 8) Is there any reason to do DOS on this thing or can I wipe the whole 
> drive and just do Linux?

If you intend to use the hibernation feature, you need a DOS partition to
hold the hibernation file.  It should be at least as large as your RAM
size added to your video memory size.  It doesn't have to be bootable, but
it's handy to install a copy of DOS just to boot the BIOS setup utility
PS2.EXE ...

> 9) What is battery life like when running linux? Is any power 
> management supported?

My battery's always been dead, so I can't answer this one.  APM is
supported, though.  Suspend and hibernate work.

-- 
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*  Charles Taylor <tomalek@mindspring.com>
*  Chemistry teacher, Linux enthusiast!
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*  Web: http://home.mindspring.com/~charletiv/
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