[ltp] Step up T60

[Chris Schumann]

Helen Borrie wrote:
> ... I'm now the delighted owner of a T60.
Welcome to the club, Helen! I have one myself: 2623-D7U.

> The T60 is a 2008-HK4 with the T5600 (1.8 GHz) Intel duocore, 15.4"
> display with Radeon X1300.  Currently it has 512MB RAM for which I've
> ordered 2 X 2GB 667 MHz low-density modules as replacement;  and an
> 80 GB 5400r HDD which I'll replace with an Hitachi 320 GB 7200r that
> I've currently got in an external SATA enclosure.

Keep in mind the T60 will only use 3GB of RAM. It's a limitation of the 
chipset. Having two 2GB parts will give you about 10% better peak memory 
bandwidth due to symmetric banks than having different-sized parts, so 
it's not a complete waste.

> The dual-boot plan is to get rid of the unwanted stuff on the 80GB
> drive, partition the 320 GB drive and image-copy the C partition into
> the boot partition of the bigger drive;  then do likewise with the
> Linux (Mandriva 2008:0) partition from the 160 GB Samsung PATA HDD
> that's currently on the no-name;  and fix up the MBR.

I recommend a clean install followed by a data migration. See if you can 
create restore media from the existing hard drive. If not, there are 
many friends here for you to get restore media for that machine.

> Another plan is to commission the vmware 5 for Linux ...

I'm using Xen on Fedora since it comes with it for free. I have WinXP 
for testing IE since I'm a web developer; Solaris and FreeDOS for 
playing around. Since I also have a 320GB drive, I may add ReactOS, and 
HaikuOS too. I also dual-boot to Vista from time to time.

> The
> doubt I have about this is whether an OEM installation of WinXP
> (which is an official Lenovo downgrade from Vista, hence no disks)
> can be shuffled about like this.

Since the T60 shipped with either Vista or XP, you can get restore media 
for either. For example, I have XP restore discs. If your machine has a 
Vista Business COA, it should also have downgrade rights and an XP 
product ID. Keep us posted when it arrives.

> I'm also interested to know whether the i386 binary installers for
> Mandriva, Centos and Ubuntu (and maybe others) are happy on the T60
> or whether I should go straight for a completely fresh x64.

Your T60 is not 64-bit capable.

You would need a Core 2 Duo CPU instead of the Core Duo you have. If the 
motherboard is revision 3 or later, you can upgrade the CPU to a Core 2 
Duo, and then you could install a 64-bit OS.

Even with a Core 2 Duo in the machine, you will still be able to use 
only 3GB of RAM.

> My final question (for now!) is about the two PCMCIA ports:  does
> anyone know whether both the Expresscard and the standard port can be
> operational simultaneously?
Although I have no ExpressCard cards, I've never seen a limitation 
discussed. Since all the ExpressCard card-readers I've seen actually use 
the USB interface internally (the pins have both PCI-Express and USB 
ports), you should be doubly safe.

> (From the Linux POV, I know that Mdk 9 was totally friendly about the
> Type 2 network and phone modem card I plugged into the TP 390E all
> those years ago:  it just works.  That old bus can take 2 Type 1
> cards or one Type 2, AFAIR.)
The bus can take two cards, but the slots would only hold one Type 3 
card because they take up both slots.

HTH,
Chris

PS - I happen to be a Fedora fan myself, but F10 has been disappointing. 
Still, I use it every day.