Thinkpads Forum

You're probably thinking, what is Ray doing in this forum??? Bear with me, this is a story of a Linux noob...

Well, since James (jamiphar) posted a link to a Ubuntu 7.10 Live CD .ISO, I finally decided to see what this thing looks like on a newly arrived 2647-4NU. Downloaded the 712MB file (need a faster DSL line ), burned it on a CD with Nero, tossed it into the T23 and booted it up.

Nice little greeting screen with the various startup options... selected the obvious choice (Start or install Ubuntu). Okay... got the Starting Linux kernel message, then the Ubuntu bouncing orange bar... After much optical drive thrashing and about two screens of text messages...

a strange looking desktop. Dark borders on the top and bottom. Slightly orange in the middle.. with a bunch of weird symbols. After looking at it for several seconds I realized what it was.

It looked like some text had been stretched about 10x the normal height. I could make out the word "System" but it was about 2" high. The cursor seemed to work although it looked more like an elongated triangle. Figuring I had some sort of video driver setup issue, I re-booted the system. Getting back to the startup menu I selected the "safe graphics mode". That resulted in the same (incorrect) desktop. Okay, power off, boot the system and access the BIOS. Change the video HV expansion option to "off". Re-start the system and attempt to load Ubuntu a third time. Still the same problem. Poked around the archives for this problem. Also checked the Ubuntu forum. Couldn't find anything which seemed useful. Considered trying to download another .ISO but I was fairly certain the one I had was fine.

Booted the system again. This time at the main menu along the bottom I saw "F4 VGA". Well, duh! That seemed logical. I was basically getting a stretched out VGA image on an XGA screen. Pushed the F4 key and selected 1024 x 768 x 32 and started the install a fourth time.

That worked! A nice Ubuntu desktop that I had seen in some PC Magazine articles. Played around for a bit launching Firefox (wireless didn't work), Open Office and a terminal window. While obviously slow to load off of the CDROM, all of the programs seemed to be accessible and working as they should.

Here's a final strange thing... I could never duplicate the erroneous video setting. No matter what I did or changed (BIOS HV expansion, F4 video mode on VGA, safe graphics mode, etc.), the Live CD loaded fine. Well, I guess I'll have to get the wireless working and play around with this system some more. I'm not quite ready to give up on WinXP but it certainly doesn't hurt to learn a "new" OS. I use Solaris at work mostly by telnet via my T23 to edit programs with vi and compile them with a custom version of cc. The main consoles use CDE but since they run the GUI for the memory tester, I don't use them that often. I've been a "command line" user for years so I don't use any of the Solaris graphic tools (like File Manager) when I can do what I need to do quicker with a C Shell terminal.

Welcome Ray!

I've had issues with Linux and displays and never really tracked them down. Just move on...

I'm a Fedora user mostly, but have done some Ubuntu work too, mostly on very old machines.

I invite you to take a peak at thinkwiki.org, which has lots of great information.

rkawakami wrote:You're probably thinking, what is Ray doing in this forum??? Bear with me, this is a story of a Linux noob... <snipped>

Well, I guess I'll have to get the wireless working and play around with this system some more. I'm not quite ready to give up on WinXP but it certainly doesn't hurt to learn a "new" OS.

Interesting article, Ray, thanks. I've messed with more than dozen Linux distros over the years and the Ubuntu version you just test drove seems to be about the best one out there.

I could -almost- use it as my operating system of choice, except for the lack of support of many of the ThinkPad Fn+x items that I enjoy so much.

If you have a spare disk, try installing it on a hard drive. It's a remarkably good experience.

Before doing that, see if you can make wireless work. Ubuntu requires some odd fiddling with toggling the wireless on and off until you get the oscillating progress bar after you pick a signal you want to use. Then it seems to lock on ok.

By installing on a disk you then get the message for all the updates and patches (over 175 of them) but that goes remarkably well. Also, if Ubuntu doesn't support a multimedia you like, it will go get the drivers and fix things all up in a really neat automatic way. (some good work there on their part!)

Welcome to the club, Ray

I have debian 4 on on a seperate hdd for my T23 and it is just awesome running it ... I have tweaked it fully to my needs, and it is one awesome OS. Ubuntu runs a lot of daemons by default, make sure you stop those that are not needed (bluetooth, for instance). Also make sure to install the speedstep applet in gnome, otherwise the machine runs too hot.

Thanks for all of the information and tips! I'll have to install Ubuntu on a spare drive and really see what this OS can do. Got several other projects to take care of first, so it might be awhile before I get back to this forum .

Welcome to the "Dark Side" Ray. Make sure to have as much ram as possible.
I just tried some Debian 4 on a desktop machine a few days ago. It may find it's way onto my T60 soon. I like the absence of all the eye candy.

Out of RedHat, SuSe and Ubuntu, I liked Ubuntu the best. It seemed to do everything pretty much correctly, as you noted. I had difficulty getting Java to run properly for a security forum chat room I sometimes go to, and I had to give up on that one. Everything else including Samba seemed to work fine. ... JDH

jdhurst wrote:Everything else including Samba seemed to work fine. ... JDH

Ah, now you're talking! That would be very useful for my work here at home.