General purpose Linux for T42?

[turboscrew]

What distros have people used on T42?

I'm trying to find a suitable distro for my T42.
My aim is to use my T42 for writing SW as well as for basic home use (messenger, e-mail, web-surfing, ...)
Any recommendations? Any words of warning? Other comments?

It looks like the newer gnome doesn't like T42 (Mint + Cinnamon/MATE).
However Mint 13 with KDE seems to work (just had a quick try).

Funny, but PAE doesn't seem to be problem: At least some distros seem to work around PAE
using some special segment limits.

[Tasurinchi]

Welcome to the forum!

I've installed Mint 13 Cinnammon on my T42p with 2GB RAM some days ago and it works like a champ! It just worked ootb. Previously I had Ubuntu 11.10 on it and it also worked without any issues.

Only changed to Mint 13 because it's a LTS and don't want to bother with re-installs or upgrades for the next two year

[turboscrew]

Welcome to the forum!

I've installed Mint 13 Cinnammon on my T42p with 2GB RAM some days ago and it works like a champ! It just worked ootb. Previously I had Ubuntu 11.10 on it and it also worked without any issues.

Only changed to Mint 13 because it's a LTS and don't want to bother with re-installs or upgrades for the next two year

I guess that little "p" makes all the difference?
In my T42 Maya only works with KDE. With Cinnamon or MATE the command prompt window doesn't get selected (hollow cursor, no letters from keyboard)
no matter how you click in the window. Could it be the graphics HW? (Mine is ATI Radeon Mobile 7500.)

[Neil]

You are on the right track there. ATi's proprietary Linux drivers support only the R200/FireGL graphics chips and above. The Mobility Radeon 7500 is based on the R100 graphics chip; the only Linux driver available for this chip is the open-source radeon DRI. There is also a bug in Xorg that prevents suspend to RAM from working correctly with the Radeon 7500...at least I could never get it to work right.

So it doesn't really matter which distro so much as what DE you choose and how you intend to use the machine. I like Crunchbang because the community and forum as almost as nice and friendly as this one.

[turboscrew]

I'd like to have gnome, since it seems like most SW tools are for gnome, but I guess that's not going to happen.
Well, maybe if something older, like Mint 8 (Helena).

It looks like the T42 repels gnome.

The #! got me @$%& interested. ;-D
Does that update often (like ubuntu)? Or is it like Mint - basically update = install a new release?
Does it have good set of programming tools?

Any opinions about EasyPeasy?

[Tasurinchi]

I guess that little "p" makes all the difference?

Yeah, my bad. I forgot the graphics are more powerful. But if my memory serves me well I also have a Linux distro on my "standard" T42 and it also worked without any issues. I'll see if in the next days I pay a visit to the cellar, undust the T42 and check it out.

[Neil]

Does that update often (like ubuntu)? Or is it like Mint - basically update = install a new release?
Does it have good set of programming tools?

Um...Mint (main edition) is built on Ubuntu, so they follow the same update schedule, which I think is mostly based on Debian testing (at least the LTS releases are).

#! is built on Debian stable, so it's...well...stable, as in, doesn't change often. You can, if you wish, change your sources to follow sid (unstable), and get all the new packages as they come out, so there are changes almost every day. Or there is a Waldorf version out now that is based on Debian testing, which will become the new stable in a few months...or "whenever it's ready".

All the programming tools available in the Debian repo are available to #! also. If some of the ones you use have Gnome dependencies, apt should bring those in for you even if you're not using the Gnome desktop. By default #! doesn't use a desktop environment, but rather just the OpenBox window manager.

On the other hand, it's weird that your T42 doesn't want to play nice with Gnome, but does OK with KDE. That just doesn't make any sense at all to me.

[turboscrew]

Um...Mint (main edition) is built on Ubuntu, so they follow the same update schedule, which I think is mostly based on Debian testing (at least the LTS releases are).

#! is built on Debian stable, so it's...well...stable, as in, doesn't change often. You can, if you wish, change your sources to follow sid (unstable), and get all the new packages as they come out, so there are changes almost every day. Or there is a Waldorf version out now that is based on Debian testing, which will become the new stable in a few months...or "whenever it's ready".

All the programming tools available in the Debian repo are available to #! also. If some of the ones you use have Gnome dependencies, apt should bring those in for you even if you're not using the Gnome desktop. By default #! doesn't use a desktop environment, but rather just the OpenBox window manager.

On the other hand, it's weird that your T42 doesn't want to play nice with Gnome, but does OK with KDE. That just doesn't make any sense at all to me.

I ment, my T42 doesn't want to play with Cinnamon or MATE (Mint 13 Maya, 32-bit, Cinnamon/MATE).
(Gnome2? Gnome3?)
Mint 13, 32-bit, KDE seems to work.

I tried Mint 8 (Helena) + gnome as a live CD and it worked well.
It's just a bit old, and I'm not sure is all the HW is properly supported.

Even if the release dates od Ubuntu and Mint are connected, it doesn't mean the same updates:
to my knowledge,Ubuntu is rolling, while Mint is not (except LMDE).
(My knowledge, of course, may be a bit old...)

[turboscrew]

What would you say about:
CrunchBang
Debian (Live Debian 686 seems to run)
EasyPeasy
Mint
Lubuntu

Any of them too heavy?
Any of them lighter than others?
Probable problems?
Other comments?

Is Lubuntu (too) a rolling distro (like ubuntu)?

The machine has only 1 GB RAM.

[Neil]

Ubuntu is not a rolling release, so neither are Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Kubuntu, Mint or any of the others based on it.

Strange that MATE doesn't work while Gnome2 does, since MATE is just the continuation of the Gnome2 project, and not much has changed.

The T42 should be able to run any of them on 1GB RAM, It's just up to you to try the LiveCD of each and see what works and what doesn't, and which you like the look and feel of better, then go with that. The tools and packages you are used to should be the same no matter which Ubuntu/Debian based distro you choose to go with.

[turboscrew]

Strange that MATE doesn't work while Gnome2 does, since MATE is just the continuation of the Gnome2 project

That's why I "re-toasted" a DVD...
... and it worked!

I think there must have been something wrong with Cdburnerxp that I used to erase
the DVD-RW after trying Mint13/Cinnamon and burning Mint13/MATE.

I put the tab for "verify after burn" and it passed...

I experienced later today a similar phenomenon.
Erased one live image and burned another with verify, and still the old one booted...
(Used 64-bit windows 7 for erasing and burning.)

Anyway, lots of thanks for the comments. Now problem to find a working distro
become problem to choose from too many distros.
I think the final match is between Mint/MATE and Debian.

[scodal]

This works amazingly well on my Thinkpad t43 http://www.slax.org/

Linux always drives me bonkers when it comes to drivers. Slax seemed to have found them all, but wifi was a little weird. Probably just me being inexperienced

[turboscrew]

I installed Mint13 / MATE.

Everything else seems to work fine except the touch pad.
Even Wi-Fi works fine.

Only the touchpad irregularities are pretty annoying.
The mouse pointer is jumpy especially when one tries to point onto the "scroll-arrow" or other relatively small item.
The pointer jumps about half a centimeter around seemingly randomly.
Sometimes the pad seems to think that a "button is pressed" even if finger glides on the pad quite smoothly.
That often happens when you use scroll-bar and then move the cursor onto the page itself - the scrolling tends to continue.

Any idea how to fix the touchpad?

[Neil]

The TouchPad (UltraNav) work with the standard ps2 mouse driver of Linux kernels. IIRC, somewhere on the Mint Control Panel there is a mouse settings button. Probably just need to make some adjustments to the sensitivity and speed.

For advanced settings look at the Synaptics TouchPad driver for X page on Thinkwiki.

[turboscrew]

Thanks, Neil, I'll check that gpointing-device-settings.
(Any hints where to find the explanations of the parameters - especially the "coasting"-parameters?)

[turboscrew]

Aha, part (but not all) of the problem seems to be scroll-gesture.
Any idea how to disable the gestures?
Moving the mouse pointer would be enough.