My old Compaq has finally bit the dust, so I’m purchasing a new Lenovo T61.
I’ve ordered it equipped with 4 GB of memory, and I purchased it because I
know it’ll run Linux.
I’m planning to remove the Vista Business it comes with and set it up to
dual boot XP and OpenSuse. Any things I should be concerned about? None of
the hardware sites seem to have current models covered as to compatibility.
Thanks, Bob
Hi,
a friend of mine bought a Lenovo T61 and installed opensuse (64bit) and everything works (including the fingerprint reader, but kde/kdm doesn’t support a fingerprint reader for auth 
). So I think you will not encounter any problems at least with linux/suse.
The pre installed Vista business edition has so many extra apps installed by lenovo so that it is really a pain to use 
Maybe you should start with the xp install and then install suse as a suggestion, to avoid eventual difficulties.
hope this helps.
Have a look @ HCL/Laptops - openSUSE
If your’s is not there, give it an add when you have it setup – help out the next guy:)
Monex wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> a friend of mine bought a Lenovo T61 and installed opensuse (64bit) and
> everything works (including the fingerprint reader, but kde/kdm doesn’t
> support a fingerprint reader for auth ). So I think you will not
> encounter any problems at least with linux/suse.
>
> The pre installed Vista business edition has so many extra apps
> installed by lenovo so that it is really a pain to use
>
> Maybe you should start with the xp install and then install suse as a
> suggestion, to avoid eventual difficulties.
>
> hope this helps.
>
>
The first thing I plan to do is back up Vista, then uninstall it. It’s the
last thing I want on any of my equipment. I haven’t decided yet whether to
run it in dual boot with XP or just add VMWare - I’ve ordered it with 4 GB
memory so it should work fine either way.
Thanks, Bob.
Don’t forget to check out our laptop stickie, which has a number of links to laptop sites (including one specifically for IBM/Leveno):
WELCOME to LAPTOP thead area - openSUSE Forums
Slap me on the head oldcpu, I plum forgot about that one:p
Maybe this ole brain will remember next time:)
I have openSUSE 10.3 running on a ThinkPad Z61p, which I believe not to be much different from the T61. The only thing that caused problems was the binary blob from AMD/ATI, aka, the ‘fglrx’ graphics driver, everything else worked right out-of-box (well, the fingerprint reader seems to be detected, but I haven’t used it so I’m not sure it actually works).
All the problems I had vanished as I switched to use the ‘radeonhd’ driver, the downside of which is that there is no 3d-acceleration yet, but that’s a work in progress. My current uptime is 47 days and I suspend this thing every day to take it to work with me, so this seems to be quite stable as well.
The issue above of course only applies to models with ATI-cards inside them. If you have an Intel one, you shouldn’t have any problems as those cards have nice and fully working open source drivers.
Check out this review. It’s on a T61P, but it would be very similar to your machine except for the GPU -
thinkpads.com Support Community :: View topic - openSuSE 11.0 review (long)
I am a mod at that site as well ;).
Robert Smits wrote:
> My old Compaq has finally bit the dust, so I’m purchasing a new Lenovo
> T61.
>
> I’ve ordered it equipped with 4 GB of memory, and I purchased it because I
> know it’ll run Linux.
>
> I’m planning to remove the Vista Business it comes with and set it up to
> dual boot XP and OpenSuse. Any things I should be concerned about? None of
> the hardware sites seem to have current models covered as to
> compatibility.
>
> Thanks, Bob
Well, the new laptop arrived yesterday, and after I gave up on backing up
the horrible Vista Business software (It was taking more than an hour per
DVD), I installed XP from the supplied restore disks, since I have
discovered over the years that Windoze does not play nicely with other
children in the OS sandbox.(And I have occasional need of some legacy
software).
Installing OpenSuSe 10.3 was very straightforward. My nic worked right away,
as did the video. I had no sound, however. I followed one of the urls given
earlier
(http://forums.opensuse.org/hardware/laptop/309440-welcome-laptop-thead-area.html)
and used the instructions to download the latest stable alsa drivers and
install them. After rebooting I had sound.
So far I like the laptop, except for not having a number keypad - it does
have a function to turn a section of the keyboard into a numbers pad, but
it’s not the same thing.
Thanks to all of your help.
–
Bob Smits OpenSuSe User
Robert Smist wrote:
> Robert Smits wrote:
>
>> My old Compaq has finally bit the dust, so I’m purchasing a new Lenovo
>> T61.
>>
>> I’ve ordered it equipped with 4 GB of memory, and I purchased it because
>> I know it’ll run Linux.
>>
>> I’m planning to remove the Vista Business it comes with and set it up to
>> dual boot XP and OpenSuse. Any things I should be concerned about? None
>> of the hardware sites seem to have current models covered as to
>> compatibility.
>>
>> Thanks, Bob
>
> Well, the new laptop arrived yesterday, and after I gave up on backing up
> the horrible Vista Business software (It was taking more than an hour per
> DVD), I installed XP from the supplied restore disks, since I have
> discovered over the years that Windoze does not play nicely with other
> children in the OS sandbox.(And I have occasional need of some legacy
> software).
>
> Installing OpenSuSe 10.3 was very straightforward. My nic worked right
> away, as did the video. I had no sound, however. I followed one of the
> urls given earlier
>
(http://forums.opensuse.org/hardware/laptop/309440-welcome-laptop-thead-area.html)
> and used the instructions to download the latest stable alsa drivers and
> install them. After rebooting I had sound.
>
> So far I like the laptop, except for not having a number keypad - it does
> have a function to turn a section of the keyboard into a numbers pad, but
> it’s not the same thing.
>
> Thanks to all of your help.
Even had you the patience to create the backup set, you would likely have
given up trying to restore it if that became necessary - that ThinkVantage
system they use is reliable but calling it SLOW is being kind! I used it
to restore Vista Home on a desktop (AMD 64X2 3600) and it took nearly 4
hours - time to drink enough beers to forget what you were doing in the
first place.
–
Will Honea
uSe Will Honea wrote:
> Even had you the patience to create the backup set, you would likely have
> given up trying to restore it if that became necessary - that ThinkVantage
> system they use is reliable but calling it SLOW is being kind! I used it
> to restore Vista Home on a desktop (AMD 64X2 3600) and it took nearly 4
> hours - time to drink enough beers to forget what you were doing in the
> first place.
>
Yeah, I agree. Windows is SUCH a PITA to install after you’ve used Suse,
it’s unbelievable. Rebooting after nearly every program install,
interminable waits, and now a 30 % decrease in speed for the DRM. Who needs
it ?
Bob Smits, Ladysmith, BC
“What a wonder is USENET; such wholesale production of conjecture from such
a trifling investment in fact.” – Carl S. Gutekunst
Robert Smits wrote:
> uSe Will Honea wrote:
>
>
>> Even had you the patience to create the backup set, you would likely have
>> given up trying to restore it if that became necessary - that
>> ThinkVantage
>> system they use is reliable but calling it SLOW is being kind! I used it
>> to restore Vista Home on a desktop (AMD 64X2 3600) and it took nearly 4
>> hours - time to drink enough beers to forget what you were doing in the
>> first place.
>>
>
> Yeah, I agree. Windows is SUCH a PITA to install after you’ve used Suse,
> it’s unbelievable. Rebooting after nearly every program install,
> interminable waits, and now a 30 % decrease in speed for the DRM. Who
> needs it ?
>
> Even though XP is significantly faster than Vista, it still took up to two
> hours to install the base XP plus the updates - no other software at
> all.and that’s with a fast cable modem. I’ve now installed OpenSuse 11.0 -
> it’s so fast! (About 20 minutes, including partitioning and reformatting
> the hard drive to install the base system. Another 20 minutes and I’d
> installed all my other software, and updated it. All that was left was to
> download my documents and files from the backup on the main system.
You’ve got something a whole lot faster than what I’m using (AMD 64X2
3600) - 11.0 RC1 takes close to an hour to install clean - but I’ll second
the W2K/XP/Vista install times, especially if you apply all updates. I
feel sorry for those who install from an old XP distribution disk - even
the SP2 version I use requires at least 90 updates and 2 or more re-boots
and thats’ without the IE 7 update. Don’t get me started.
Since you have a Lenovo machine, I would suggest that you aquire the latest
version of ThinkVantage from their web site then run it to create new
recovery disks after you apply all the myriad fixes if you forsee a need to
restore the XP partition at any time - that will construct a recovery
system that is up to date as of the time of creation. Saves lots of time
and aggravation over and above that generated by the recovery itself <g>.
–
Will Honea
Will Honea wrote:
> Robert Smits wrote:
>
>> uSe Will Honea wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Even had you the patience to create the backup set, you would likely
>>> have given up trying to restore it if that became necessary - that
>>> ThinkVantage
>>> system they use is reliable but calling it SLOW is being kind! I used
>>> it to restore Vista Home on a desktop (AMD 64X2 3600) and it took nearly
>>> 4 hours - time to drink enough beers to forget what you were doing in
>>> the first place.
>>>
>>
>> Yeah, I agree. Windows is SUCH a PITA to install after you’ve used Suse,
>> it’s unbelievable. Rebooting after nearly every program install,
>> interminable waits, and now a 30 % decrease in speed for the DRM. Who
>> needs it ?
>>
>> Even though XP is significantly faster than Vista, it still took up to
>> two hours to install the base XP plus the updates - no other software at
>> all.and that’s with a fast cable modem. I’ve now installed OpenSuse 11.0
>> - it’s so fast! (About 20 minutes, including partitioning and
>> reformatting the hard drive to install the base system. Another 20
>> minutes and I’d installed all my other software, and updated it. All that
>> was left was to download my documents and files from the backup on the
>> main system.
>
> You’ve got something a whole lot faster than what I’m using (AMD 64X2
> 3600) - 11.0 RC1 takes close to an hour to install clean - but I’ll second
> the W2K/XP/Vista install times, especially if you apply all updates. I
> feel sorry for those who install from an old XP distribution disk - even
> the SP2 version I use requires at least 90 updates and 2 or more re-boots
> and thats’ without the IE 7 update. Don’t get me started.
I know. My desktop, which has been considerably updated since, came with the
original XP. I slipstreamed SP1 and SP2 into it to get reinstall time down
to a reasonable number.
>
> Since you have a Lenovo machine, I would suggest that you aquire the
> latest version of ThinkVantage from their web site then run it to create
> new recovery disks after you apply all the myriad fixes if you forsee a
> need to restore the XP partition at any time - that will construct a
> recovery
> system that is up to date as of the time of creation. Saves lots of time
> and aggravation over and above that generated by the recovery itself <g>.
>
Good idea, though I’ve left the factory restore partition - it’s less than6
GB.
Bob Smits, Ladysmith, BC
“What a wonder is USENET; such wholesale production of conjecture from such
a trifling investment in fact.” – Carl S. Gutekunst
Robert Smits wrote:
>> Since you have a Lenovo machine, I would suggest that you aquire the
>> latest version of ThinkVantage from their web site then run it to create
>> new recovery disks after you apply all the myriad fixes if you forsee a
>> need to restore the XP partition at any time - that will construct a
>> recovery
>> system that is up to date as of the time of creation. Saves lots of time
>> and aggravation over and above that generated by the recovery itself <g>.
>>
>
> Good idea, though I’ve left the factory restore partition - it’s less
> than6 GB.
It may be just an errant observation, but the restore partition on the
restored copy grew by nearly 1GB when I used the updated rescue/restore
disk set - looks like the updates got slipped into the recovery partition
in the process. Nice, if true.
Now, if I can just figure out how to restore to a virtual machine…
–
Will Honea