My Life with a T60p (as it happens)

[Ujeni.net]

Just thought I would update this thread with a little more info.

I now have OSX installed. It runs very fast...no audio or power management though.

How did you get OS X installed on your Thinkpad? Any tips or links?


Thanks

It takes a bit of hacking of course...but I am certainly not the first to get it working. Not even the first on a t60p. Check out the OSX part of this forum and also visit http://www.osx86project.org/.

The basic steps are:

1. Create an empty partition.
2. Download and burn an OSX x86 install DVD (most are already patched)
3. Set the empty partition to active.
4. Restart the machine and install OSX on the empty partition.
5. Use a boot disk to set the XP partition to active again.
6. Boot into XP and install a dual boot loader.

Took me about 2 hours the first time. Could do it a lot faster now.

[Ujeni.net]

I am currently installing Unreal 2004 to test just how bad the pixel response is. I'm no gamer, but this game moves very quickly and should show me if its my imagination or if the pixel response is deal-killer.

More to come soon.

[archer6]

Ujeni.net, thanks again for your VERY helpful reports here.

I have not recieved my T60P yet and will be up against a travel deadline as mine arrives (hopefully soon). So I will need to set it up quickly and get going.

Like your situation I need a responsive display, so I would like to hear more from you on that issue.

Finally, I would also appreciate a link to a site that has OSX install tips etc. As I too will be running XP plus Linux, and would also like to load OSX.

[Ujeni.net]

Ok, I have played Unreal 2004 on the T60p (as a reminder I have the hydis 14" screen). Some very interesting results. For reference, I also played the game (exact same level and settings but with a higher resolution) on my dell 8300. The dell has a 9800 pro crad and a dell 2001fp display.

The results:

Although there was ghosting during the game on the t60p, it was not as bad as i had expected. I expected to see huge problems, but the effect, although noticable, did not take too much away from game play. Upon further inspection, I am beginning to believe that the pixel response problem is really only a problem when moving a pixel from being very bright to being very dark (scrolling black text on a white background is a good example of this). Mid-range shifts are not as obvious. Hmmmm.

Another interesting result was the frame rate. Keep in mind that the Dell system that I comparing the t60p to is the same macine I used to compare Maya performace to earlier in this thread. Despite my t60p's more powerful graphics chip and lower resolution, the dell, with its 9800pro and higher resoltution, averaged about 15% higher than the t60p. Very surprising. In the Maya test, the v5200 blows the 9800pro out of the water...but not in games. Clearly, the drivers for this chip are optimized for 3d work and not gaming. I have no doubt that my current drivers could be tweaked to improve performace (I have them optimized for Maya at the moment) or I could wait for new omega drivers. This result made me happy actually, i bought the machine for hard-core openGL work and it is clear by this test that the chip and drivers are optimized for just that.

One final result...there is a blue tint the t60p. I think others have mentioned this, but it became noticable when I compared the exact same level on the 2001fp (fantastic monitor by the way). The ATI drivers are equiped to fix this, I'll atempt this soon.

Well, it looks like this test was not the do-or-die test that I hoped it would be. Its really hard to find major faults with this machine past the pixel response issue. And now that issue seems to be a bit more isolated that I had thought.

My next big test on this machine will be to install a distribution of Linux. How cool would that be? The three most popular operating systems all running natively on a very fast machine.

[Ujeni.net]

Ujeni.net, thanks again for your VERY helpful reports here.

I have not recieved my T60P yet and will be up against a travel deadline as mine arrives (hopefully soon). So I will need to set it up quickly and get going.

Like your situation I need a responsive display, so I would like to hear more from you on that issue.

Finally, I would also appreciate a link to a site that has OSX install tips etc. As I too will be running XP plus Linux, and would also like to load OSX.

Archer6,

A few things. One, the machine comes in pretty good shape, so you should not have too much trouble seeting up XP (although, as usual, there is some software that you will likely want to remove).

I think the display is on the edge of being a problem for me. One minute I'l happy with te brightness and sharpnes...the next minute, the pixel response issue shows its ugly head. My suggestion is to keep an open mind when you get your machine and judge for yourself. Lenovo seems to have a pretty liberal return policy if you elect to take that route.

As far as OSX on the t60p goes, here's a more detailed list of instructions (these may not be perfect...also, read through them to figure out what you need before you start):

1. Backup your machine. (duh, you ar eplaying with partitions here) I suggest making the recover disks too from the thinkpad "create rocovery media" app.

2. Get Partition Magic and resize your IBM_PRELOAD partition. You'll need to create at least 6 gigs on un partitioned free space on the drive for OSX.

3. Partition Magic will ask to restart to make the changes.

4. Upon restarting, select "Run..." from the start menu and type "diskpart" and press return.

5. In th eterminal that pops up, type these items (press return after each line):

list disk
select disk 0
create partition primary id=af

6. Close the terminal window.

7. Now get a patched copy of OSX x86 10.4.4 / 5 DVD. This is a legal grey area at best right now. Do a search over at http://www.osx86project.org/ for more information. Let me put it you like this way, you will likely get it BIT-by-BIT. (please don't PM me with questions abou this).

8. Start up Partition Magic again and make the empy partition active (right click on it in the Partition Magic interface).

9. Restart the machine. You'll get the Lenovo logo and then a prompt saying "missing operating system". Put the OSX x86 DVD in the drive and restart the machine. The OSX installer should start up.

10. When you get to the area that asks you to select a disk to install OSX on, mine came up empty. I went to the disk utility (found in the utilities menu) and reformated the partition. When that was done, it poped up just fine and I was able to install without any issues.

11. Once the install was finished, I restarted the machine...but the missing operating system came up again. This is liekly becasue a boot loader (like grub or Acronic OS selector) has not been installed. Putting the OSX disk back in the drive but not installing again got me back into OSX.

12. OSX is very fast, but to increase the speed even more, RaysMD on this board showed us how to get your v5200 card recognized by the OS. Basically, you need to edit two files to have the system recognize the card and use the correct resolution. You can find his instructions here:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 5&start=30 (fourth from the last post on this page). Worked great for me!

13. Next, you need to install a dual boot loader. I went with Acronic OS Selector. But first, you will need to set the XP partition as active so you can install the boot loader. I used The Ultimate Boot Disk to do this. You can download it for free here: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

14. Throw that disc in the machine and restart. Use spfdisk to make the xp partition active again.

15. Once you are back in XP, install the Acronis OS Selector and follow the prompts to set it up (very easy).

That should be it. For those wondering, I managed to keep the IBM invisible partition safely while doing all this stuff.

[Ujeni.net]

One thing I forgot to mention was that OSX is smart enough to see the XP partition and mount it as a second drive automatically. Very cool way to easily share files between the two operating systems.

Even with Macdrive installed on the XP partition, XP is not able to see or mount the OSX partition. Bummer.

[astro]

One thing I forgot to mention was that OSX is smart enough to see the XP partition and mount it as a second drive automatically. Very cool way to easily share files between the two operating systems.

How did it do that? You didn't re-format/re-install XP, so I assume that your XP partition is formatted as NTFS?

I didn't think that other OSes could read NTFS and you had to install XP on FAT32?

[kwramm]

you are right, pixel response time is the longest when a pixel changes from black to white sine the brightness difference of the colour is the greatest there. Changes from colour to colour are much faster usually.

oh and thanks for your review

[archer6]

Ujeni.net

Thanks for the very effective info regarding the questions I asked you.

After reading and following your post it's very clear to me that I will have this (OSX) up and running in a reasonable amount of time. Since I'm already quite familiar with OSX, drive partitioning etc, your suggestions & guidelines made complete sense to me.

Very helpful, Thanks!

[Ujeni.net]

One thing I forgot to mention was that OSX is smart enough to see the XP partition and mount it as a second drive automatically. Very cool way to easily share files between the two operating systems.

How did it do that? You didn't re-format/re-install XP, so I assume that your XP partition is formatted as NTFS?

I didn't think that other OSes could read NTFS and you had to install XP on FAT32?

OSX has always been able to read PC disks. Its left over code from the OS 9 days (called PC Exchange). Apple knew they had to have considering 95% of th eworld's disks are PC formatted! What I didn't realize was that its not only smart enough to read pc disks....but also PC partitions...not something apple would normally think their users would need...but its there anyway!

One thing I just found, the red trackpoint thing in the keyboard also works in OSX. Surprising.

[Ujeni.net]

Ujeni.net

Thanks for the very effective info regarding the questions I asked you.

After reading and following your post it's very clear to me that I will have this (OSX) up and running in a reasonable amount of time. Since I'm already quite familiar with OSX, drive partitioning etc, your suggestions & guidelines made complete sense to me.

Very helpful, Thanks!

Make sure you visit http://www.osx86project.org/ for the best and most up-to-date info. I'm guessing that the solution for no audio can be found in the forums over there. They also have a very useful Wiki.

[vliou]

Wow...this is amazing. Let me ask you though...

Wifi? does it work?
Video card recognized?

[christopher_wolf]

The Video card is recognized under OS X; WiFi Wireless, however, does not work thus far.

[Ujeni.net]

The Video card is recognized under OS X; WiFi Wireless, however, does not work thus far.

Errr...on mine, both work perfectly. My wireless worked automatically and the video card required a quick modification to work perfectly (details are earlier in this thread). Pretty cool that I have a v5200 working at full speed in OSX!

[Ujeni.net]

A quick update for the evening...I finally got fed up with the jiggling battery and decided to fix it myself. Nothing too complicated...just a bunch of layers of scotch tape in two places and my battery is now perfectly snug (can't see the tape either). Although it is kinda silly that I have to do this on such a high-end laptop, I'm just glad that the thing feels so much more solid. So thats one more small problem gone. I'm running out of issues!

I used the t60p outside today for the first time too. Sheesh, it did really well...even in direct sunlight. I'm sure there are brighter screens out there, but this one's brightness is enough for me!

Keep any questions you have coming! Happy to help

[christopher_wolf]

Well, the brighter you get with the same technology, the more power you use. There is also a point at which it gets too bright for sensible use.

[FuguTabetai]

My next big test on this machine will be to install a distribution of Linux. How cool would that be? The three most popular operating systems all running natively on a very fast machine.

I ordered a T60p with the intention to put linux on it as well. I have Fedora Core 4 running on an A31p (love the ability to have 3 hard drives in there, makes a great server) and love it.

Looking around though, linux on the T60 doesn't seem to be in good shape right now: no drivers for the Intel wireless card ipw3945 are still very rough, and no driver support for the FireGL 5700. Those look like the two major stumbling blocks, but I hope that in a month or two they will be better supported.

Probably will have to run the VESA software graphics driver for a while though.

[pundit]

Looking around though, linux on the T60 doesn't seem to be in good shape right now: no drivers for the Intel wireless card ipw3945 are still very rough, and no driver support for the FireGL 5700. Those look like the two major stumbling blocks, but I hope that in a month or two they will be better supported.

Probably will have to run the VESA software graphics driver for a while though.

I am documenting the state of FC5 on my T60p on my web site, if you're interested.

[Ujeni.net]

Looking around though, linux on the T60 doesn't seem to be in good shape right now: no drivers for the Intel wireless card ipw3945 are still very rough, and no driver support for the FireGL 5700. Those look like the two major stumbling blocks, but I hope that in a month or two they will be better supported.

Probably will have to run the VESA software graphics driver for a while though.

I am documenting the state of FC5 on my T60p on my web site, if you're interested.

This is inline with what I have found (just through research, I haven't installed linux yet). ATI drivers on linux are ify at best anyway...so the fact that they are too lazy to update their own drivers to include their latest chip is not too surprising.

Honestly, with OSX running so well, I have all the UNIX I need for now. I think I'll wait till there is more support for the t60p before I install linux.

[Ujeni.net]

For those of you coming from a powerbook to the t60p, here's some amazing news:

I use Handbrake to back-up DVDs (handbrake converts the dvd into a high-quality mp4 file at full resolution). On my 15" 1.67 g4 powerbook, I was able to average around 19 to 20 frames processesed per seond: near real time. I just downloaded the universal version of handbrake for OSX and am backing-up a dvd as i type this. I am currently averaging 62 frames processed per second...thats over 3 times faster than the latest powerbook! WOW!! Also, my CPUs (two as far as the OS is concerned) are only peaking at around 70%....loads of power to spare here.

Man, that is incredible.

One last comparison...on my dual 2.0 G5, I got around 55 frames per second. So this 5.5 lb laptop beats a dual 2.0 G5!

[RaysMD]

so, how long does it take to encode a 2 hour movie?

[Ujeni.net]

i just encoded a 2 hour and 22 minute move in about 50 minutes

[Ujeni.net]

I had a unique experience yesterday, I was able to compare a Macbook Pro 2.16 next to my t60p running OSX. I didn't have a lot of time, but I did notice a few interesting things:

1. The MacBook Pro's pixel response is not that much better than the t60p's response. Of course this is just me eye balling it, but dragging the same window on the same background on both machines produced nearly identical results.

2. The screen brightness seems just about the same too. I would say that the t60p might be a little brighter when pluged in. Again, tough to tell...but there was no clear winner here.

3. The t60p is just a tiny bit thinker than the Macbook Pro.

4. I wish the t60p had a built-in camera

5. The speed seemed identical. No surprise here, almost the exact same specs.

Overall, I can't say that I am lusting after the Macbook Pro at all. Mt t60p can dual boot with hardware support while the Macbook pro still has no video support under XP. I'm happy

[csioucs]

Hi! Glad to hear your experience. I am just waiting to install the OSX on my little machine, but I must ask if Office 2004 works or what apps did find out that work?

Thanks

[rocketman]

2. The screen brightness seems just about the same too. I would say that the t60p might be a little brighter when pluged in. Again, tough to tell...but there was no clear winner here.

I'm surprised since the MacBook Pro display is rated at 300nits. I don't think the T60p display is rated that high but it's nice to know it's nice and bright.

[Ujeni.net]

Hi! Glad to hear your experience. I am just waiting to install the OSX on my little machine, but I must ask if Office 2004 works or what apps did find out that work?

Thanks

I haven't played with many apps in OSX yet as few production apps have been released for x86. My guess is that if they work fine on a mac intel machine then they should work fine here too. Check out the osx86 project site...you may find more data there.

[Ujeni.net]

2. The screen brightness seems just about the same too. I would say that the t60p might be a little brighter when pluged in. Again, tough to tell...but there was no clear winner here.

I'm surprised since the MacBook Pro display is rated at 300nits. I don't think the T60p display is rated that high but it's nice to know it's nice and bright.

Yeah, I didn't expect the brightness to compare really. I have noticed that Lenovo's specs seem very accurate where other manufacturers' specs sometimes don't. For example, I get 5.5 hours on this machine just as Lenovo said I would...but I never got the 4.5 hours on the Powerbook that Apple said I would get. Perhaps this extends to screen brightness too. Dunno. I checked it again today by the way, my opinion has not changed.

[pundit]

2. The screen brightness seems just about the same too. I would say that the t60p might be a little brighter when pluged in. Again, tough to tell...but there was no clear winner here.

I'm surprised since the MacBook Pro display is rated at 300nits. I don't think the T60p display is rated that high but it's nice to know it's nice and bright.

The 15" FlexView screen is rated at 200 nits.

[Ujeni.net]

For those if you interested, I did a 3dMark 05 test on my t60p. The results were surprising: 1616.

Ouch!

Then I remembered that I had the ATI drivers optimized for Maya (which I use a lot more than games). I selected "OpenGL Games" optimization and re-ran the test. Result: 3360. Much better. Unreal 2004 flies too. Just goes to show you how powerful driver optimizations can be!

Another quick Macbook Pro comparison...using bootcamp with ATI drivers, a user over at the osx86 project scored 2625.

Looks like I made the right choice

[RonS]

I ran 3DMark05 on my T60p and got 3877, stock drivers. See this thread: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 603#146603