[ltp] T40 / Pentium M and Linux

[Atul Chitnis]

On 26 Mar 2003, Derek A. Rogillio wrote:

> I'm in a situation where I either need to spend a considerable amount of
> money to repair my T21, or purchase a new machine.  I'm seriously
> considering both the T23 and the new T40.

I went through similar issues recently, when my old faithful TP 770 died 
on me.

I considered various makes, including Compaq, Dell and Toshiba, but 
finally settled on yet another Thinkpad - an IBM Thinkpad T30 (2366-92U)

http://www5.pc.ibm.com/us/products.nsf/$wwwPartNumLookup/_236692U

I wiped Windows off it and installed RHL 8.0 on it. Everything worked out
of the box - Wireless, USB, DVD, video, sound, cdwriter, USB, ethernet,
etc. I just had to download the modem driver, and I was all set. It is
always comforting to see a manufacturer actually give support for my
preferred OS:

http://www.pc.ibm.com/qtechinfo/MIGR-46291.html


The 40 GB hard disk gives amazing throughput, which was important to me,
given the amount of image related stuff I do. 

[root@wookie] ~# hdparm -Tt /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  0.45 seconds =284.96 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  2.50 seconds = 25.56 MB/sec

Only word of warning - the Thinkpads usually have USB 1.1 ports, which 
sucks eggs. However, a cheap USB 2.0 PCMCIA card solves that issue.

Display is nice - a 14.1" at 1400x1050x32bit colours. And the little 
keyboard light that shines down from the top of the screen rocks! X had no 
problem with the ATI Radeon 7500 card.

The built-in DVD+CDwriter combo works well, though the writer is a bit of 
a slowpoke at 8x ;-) DVD playback is smooth.

Batterylife is average - with a 100%-on wifi connection, I get about 2:15 
hours.

Machine is reasonably light - 2.2 kilos without AC interface, so quite 
portable, yet powerful enough to handle anything I throw at it.

All in all, IBM's machines have proven to be highly Linux compatible for 
me, as well as others:

http://www.linuxcare.com/labs/certs/ibm/thinkpad/t30/index.epl

If there is one thing I hate about this machine, it is the fact that for 
the fiorst time, IBM has a notebook that has *both* the standard 
trackpoint (which I am very comfortable with) and a Synaptics GlidePad - 
which I just cant stand, and immediately disabled in the BIOS. I have 
fairly large hands, and touchtyping invariably results in my thumbs 
hitting the pad, causing my cursor to go where no one has gone before :-(

Hope this helps.

Atul

-- 
-------------------------------------------
Atul Chitnis       | achitnis@exocore.com
Exocore Consulting | http://www.exocore.com
Bangalore, India   | +91 (80) 344-0397
-------------------------------------------


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-- 
-------------------------------------------
Atul Chitnis       | achitnis@exocore.com
Exocore Consulting | http://www.exocore.com
Bangalore, India   | +91 (80) 344-0397
-------------------------------------------