[ltp] Ubuntu/Debian on an X61 - my experiences

[Donald P Kong]

my experiences.


On Mon, 2008-02-04 at 12:01 +0100,
linux-thinkpad-request@linux-thinkpad.org wrote:

> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 12:16:07 -0800 (PST)
> From: Ari El <ari.reads@gmail.com>
> To: linux-thinkpad@linux-thinkpad.org
> Subject: Re: [ltp] X60 - (bad) experience, others?
> Reply-To: linux-thinkpad@linux-thinkpad.org
> 
> 
> I have an X60s (1702, Core Duo (not core2)) with and 8-cell battery pack.
> 

mine is a X61 7676-58U. Centrino Duo 2.0 GHz, 8-cell.

> What I'd say is: the bad experience on the X60s is with Linux. The machine
> itself is awesome.
> 

machine is definitely great.

> I've had it for a year and a half; with WinXP it is really fast for most
> purposes, runs cold, and after all this time it is still giving me 8 to 9h
> of battery life when used for writing (word) and light surfing (wireless
> on), 30 or 40% brightness. Consumption averages an awesome 7.5W, and I've
> seen it going to 6W with wireless off. It wakes up from hibernation in 15
> seconds or so. And all this is with no SSD drive... yet!
> 

with powertop, best i have got is hovering around 11-13W. no bluetooth,
firewire and USB modules unloaded. wifi on. i think Firefox takes up
lots of power but even with wifi off and nothing running, it still
doesn't go lower than 9W.

> I installed dual-boot Linux in the x60s the day I bought it, and kept
> re-installing all new ubuntu releases. Everything basically works (save for
> the fingerprint reader, although I heard it is possible to make it work).
> Even after tweaking, power consumption averages 10 to 11W for the same usage
> pattern as above. 
> 

fingerprint reader works in Ubuntu and Debian. no nice interface to log
in like what is in Vista but it works. one fingerprint only so far.

> I bought the machine to carry it around, so I'm still booting winxp on it. I
> can't wait for the day linux will give me a comparable battery life. I
> switched to linux in every other machine at the office and at home, but not
> in my x60s, yet. 
> 

i don't get 8-9h but 7 hours is possible. i can't complain since that's
about what IBM says it will give but i sure like to see the kernel
tweaked better to get longer run-time. maybe a kernel recompile?

> I'm sure  powertop, the tickless kernel mode and other good work of intel
> and other folks will eventually trickle down the chain and we will
> eventually get there. I thought this was going to faster though. 

i wish there would be a nice GUI interface to all the functions proposed
by powertop. maybe also to enable/disable USB and firewire or whatever
else.

i run mainly Ubuntu now since Debian isn't quite there yet. i migrated
from a Compaq M700 and have always been using "testing" till Dec 2007.

actually, the first OS i installed was Lenny after resizing the Vista
partition. however, i have to take the kernels from Sid to get sound
working properly.

the only reason i have to triple boot Vista, Debian and Ubuntu now is
that Debian lacks

1. good working compiz-fusion. i like the features.
2. brightness keys Fn+Home/End is not working perfectly. i don't get a
smooth transition from keypresses.
3. suspend/hibernate is not working and i'm not sure where to tweak
though i did get it to work properly on the m700.
4. powertop actually sees a higher power consumption

Ubuntu has everything working well except that sometimes wifi goes flaky
and i have to reboot also on occasions, the machine seems to take a few
minutes to resume from suspend.

if anyone has a good link to fixing these 4 issues, i would be back to
using Lenny. not that i don't like ubuntu but i prefer Debian if
possible.