[ltp] IBM Thinkpad T41 type 2373-7fu; recommendations for auction purchase and *nix type

[Jeffrey L. Taylor]

I have a T41 2379-DJU currently running OpenSuSE 11.2.  Most everything works
out of the box, except the Fn function keys and the hard drive protection.
These can be made to work with editting a few files and/or installing
additional SW that is not necessarily in the OpenSuSE repositories.

512MB is seriously inadequate for a development machine.  It may be adequate
for an e-mail and Web browsing machine, but Firefox is fairly resource hungry,
especially with Websites with lots of moving parts.

5400 RPM hard drives are a bottleneck for developers and probably if you are
hitting the swap file.

T4x up through the T42 (ie., not the T43) are vulnerable to static electricity
damage through the USB port.  According to the ThinkWiki, the USB hardware is
in the southbridge, once damaged, the whole southbridge often follows.  I.e,
try to check the USB port before buying.

Just my $0.02USD,
  Jeffrey

Quoting Andy Graybeal <andy.graybeal@casanueva.com>:
> Greetings,
> I just signed on to this list.
> 
> I have the opportunity to hopefully purchase several IBM Thinkpad
> T41 type 2373-7fu machines at an auction.
> 
> I'm wondering if anyone has any luck running Ubuntu 10.04 on these
> machines?  Or can recommend a *nix for these machines?
> 
> The machines have the Centrino 1.6gHz, 512MB memory, WIFI, the
> harddrive has been removed for security purposes.
> 
> As well, each one has a very nice carrying case, ibm mouse, extra
> trackpoint nubbins, powersupply, phone cord, and other small misc
> items.
> 
> I'm allowed to test them before I bid, is there anything specific I
> should be looking for?
> 
> I took a Ubuntu 10.04 bootable CD and jump drive to test with, but
> it took an enormous amount of time to boot these machines from the
> media. I'm thinking about taking a Knoppix or Dyne:Bolic boot disks
> instead.. hopefully these will boot much faster.  If anyone can
> recommend a bootable linux to test with that would be good.
> 
> What approximate maximum bid should I go to on these? Remember no
> harddrive and only 512MB of RAM, and I'm in the United States.  I
> expect to get 5 machines if I can afford it; though I'd like to get
> all of them :)
> 
> I've looked at IBM Thinkpad T41's on Ebay, buy-it-now foes for about
> $130-$150.
> 
> One machine looks like it was dropped and has a small hunk of
> plastic missing from it's left corner and the lid seems a bit
> flimsy.  I didn't bother to turn this one on.
> 
> Several of the machine have their bios passwords set.  I need to
> find out the details, but if I remember correctly it is the password
> to get into the BIOS, not the password to boot the machine up.  I
> read in the manual that if the supervisor password is set, a board
> replacement is in order to get around this.  If there are enough
> machines without passwords, I won't be bidding on the ones with
> passwords.
> 
> Where can I expect to purchase replacement harddrives and possibly
> upgrade the memory?  And how much do you think I'll be looking at as
> far as price for this?
> 
> I would be grateful with any other information you can pass along.
> SpeedEvil from Freenode's ##ibmthinkpad says that I should get screw
> packages from ebay and loctite / threadlock because they will be my
> friends.  SpeedEvil was very helpful in the channel.
> 
> Just so everyone is aware, I have owned a T42 and just recently
> purchased a T410.  The T42 has expired into parts.
> Ubuntu 10.04 runs great on the T410.  I hope Lenovo can extend the
> legacy into the future.  I'm happy to find this mail list.
> 
> -Andy
> -- 
> The linux-thinkpad mailing list home page is at:
> http://mailman.linux-thinkpad.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-thinkpad