Linux frustrations on T60P

[san]

For a few weeks I have been trying out Ubuntu 7.10 and OpenSuse 10.3.
Initially, they both seemed to be running fine. I spent quite some time getting 3D to work , and finally found out that I needed an old ATI driver to get a stable fglrx driver that worked with compiz-fusion. This trick did it on both distro's.
But , unfortunately , and very disappointingly I should add , things that used to work "out of the box" last year when I ran the previous versions of those distro's the list of problems was almost endles:
- Sound was broke - was able to fix it in Ubuntu, but not Opensuse
- Standby broke completely in Ubuntu, even after a kernel recompile that should have fixed it... In opensuse it seemed to work although entering standby was slow and caused severe display artifacts in the process.
- Wifi worked in Ubuntu relatively painless, but in opensuse it took several minutes to get connected after each boot.

As I see it , most of the problems are due to kernel 2.6.26 but does this (in practice) mean I have to settle with an "ancient" version ubuntu 7.06 / opensuse 10.2 ?
I would like to get Linux up and running on my machine , but kernel recompiles seems to break 10 things for each thing they fixes , PLUS it takes forever to perform a compile.
Should I try the new Ubuntu hardy heron beta or is it just more waste of time... Darn, there are 20 distro's out there and I just need one that works
Hope somebody can help me out here ...

[Superego]

Sorry to hear about your issues. Regarding your standby issue, I'm pretty sure this a bug with compiz-fusion and ATI drivers that breaks standby/hibernate.

As I see it , most of the problems are due to kernel 2.6.26

I would have to agree, especially since the latest stable release is version 2.6.24.3. Maybe you might consider using a slightly older, more stable kernel (e.g. 2.6.24 or 2.6.22)?I haven't used OpenSuse for a while but I know that when I put Ubuntu 7.10 on my T60p everything basically "just worked" (wireless, 3D, etc.) and I was using the generic kernel that came with Ubuntu.

Like I said I haven't used OpenSuse for a while but when I did I had all sorts of problems with wireless and display; with Ubuntu 7.10 things went pretty smooth. With that in mind I would recommend Ubuntu, but maybe hold off on Hardy Heron for a little bit.

[whizkid]

I'm using Fedora 8 on my T60. I use the Livna repository for the video driver (fglrx).

2D and 3D acceleration, suspend to memory, resume, WiFi (intel 3945) all work perfectly for me. It's a very usable distribution for a very good machine.

I *never* compile a kernel. If I wanted that, I'd use Gentoo and tweak one for me. To me, having something just work is not what compiling is about. It's about letting me get to work and writing my own software.