Thinkpads Forum

I tried Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, BackTrack, Mepis, PCLOS, gOS, Slackware, but none of them are as easy as Windows in terms of funcionality. Most of the buttons don't work out-of-the-box, i.e: FN+F3, FN+F5, FN+F7, etc. These limitations may be the reasons of why I don't completely migrate to Linux. I'll be happy if current ThinkVantage softwares can run on linux.


Could you suggest me the most user friendly linux distro specialized for thinkpads? Debian based distro is preferred.

If Ubuntu wasn't easy enough for you, then I'm not sure I can name another distribution of linux that'll be able to help.

If you want something as easy as Windows then just use Windows.

Personally I haven't found anything as versatile as PCLOS and its very Windows-esque (KDE), and Very Thinkpad friendly. If you find it less 'usable' perhaps its because you've been using Windows so long. The workarounds and fixes are out there for nearly all the issue I've come across (No sound, no Fn function... etc), you just have to be willing to find them and learn.

Windows is fine, but remember that it took a learning curve too. Nothing will supplant years of familiarization in a couple hours.

Good luck in your search.

Thanks for your replies... I am considering in trying Gnome version of PCLinuxOS...

Since Suse is available on new Thinkpads I suppose that will get you as close to having Thinkvantage software as anything. According to this Lenovo doesn't have the Fn keys working either so I doubt you will find a current distro with the keys working right out of the box.

Well, today I just installed the latest Ubuntu 8.04. I'm pretty happy with this distro! Hehe... Compiz works flawlessly with ATI proprietary driver. I added XMMS and Google Earth, they both work well without any problem. I will try to tweak the system tomorrow, and see if it can do what Thinkvantage softwares can do. God bless thinkwiki site.

I had to replace sluggish Firefox 3 with Firefox 2 though. Do you guys also feel that the Firefox 3 makes your system sluggish?

carbon_unit wrote:According to this Lenovo doesn't have the Fn keys working either so I doubt you will find a current distro with the keys working right out of the box.

Fn keys work on Gusty out of the box.

pailhead wrote:Fn keys work on Gusty out of the box.

It's Gutsy ... not Gusty.

Gusty Gibbon, the flatulent ape.

denisky wrote:Well, today I just installed the latest Ubuntu 8.04. I'm pretty happy with this distro! Hehe... Compiz works flawlessly with ATI proprietary driver. I added XMMS and Google Earth, they both work well without any problem. I will try to tweak the system tomorrow, and see if it can do what Thinkvantage softwares can do. God bless thinkwiki site.

I had to replace sluggish Firefox 3 with Firefox 2 though. Do you guys also feel that the Firefox 3 makes your system sluggish?

Short answer, No.
While I don't subjectively notice a lot of difference between the two on my T20, what difference I do feel is slightly to FF3's advantage.

So guys, what is the conclusion then?

has anyone got the FN keys working in Ubuntu?

I absolutely MUST have access to the volume and mute buttons, and the Fn+F7 function (I make a lot of presentations at work with my Thinkpad connected to a projector)

Any info would be great.

vadarfone, The volume buttons work fine, Fn+F7 I'm not so sure about. Check the Ubuntu forums.

@vadarfone
We probably have the same T42 with the ATI Mobility Radeon 9600.

I am currently using Mandriva 2008.1 Powerpack. This version comes with the propriatary ATI driver installed. For me, everything seems to work properly with this driver except Fn + F7 or the ATI Catalyst Control Center. If I try to add a second display from CCC, both displays become corrupted. I have not yet tried changing the driver.

The previous version of Mandriva I had installed was 2007.1 Free. This version does not come with the Propriatary ATI driver, but rather the X.org driver. I can't remember if I ever tried using a second display with the X.org driver. I later installed the Propriatary ATI driver I downloaded from ATI's site. With this driver I was able to switch displays from the ATI Catalyst Control Center, but Fn + F7 did not do anything with the X server running. When I logged out of KDE, then Fn + F7 would switch displays.

Here is an update from my previous post. Today I installed the latest driver (as of yesterday) downloaded from ATI - I found out after the fact that a newer driver was posted today.

I had the same problem as before enabling the second display on the VGA port. Turns out that I needed to reduce the resolution from SXGA+ (what my T42 has) to XGA (what the external monitor is) BEFORE enabling the second display. This probably would have worked with the original driver that came with Mandriva 2008.1 Powerpack, but I didn't try it.

Bottom Line: Mandriva and ATI support using both displays. You must use ATI's Catalyst Control Center to manage them though. Fn + F7 will not switch displays. Again, I have the ATI Mobility Radeon 9600.

I hope someday we will have linux distro specifically designed for our beloved thinkpads .

Its name may be "ThinxPad", "TPLinux" or something .

Over the years I have found SuSE to be the most compatible with my T23 and T41p I used to own. Most things worked out of the box (minus some of the fn keys) and performance was good.

That being said I might download and tryout the latest ubuntu with compiz and see how it is.

Another vote for SUSE here.
I have tried almost every versions of SuSE since 8.2 till 11 (I used only KDE) on TP600 to
A31P to T42P but never used Fn-F7 with external monitor

I am evaluating Ubuntu 8.4 now which is Gnome. All TP buttons seams ok: sound volume (with some screen applet showing volume level), screen brightness (very cool), bluetooth on/off, standby, hibernate.
just have to confirm Fn-F7. Power management keeps it kewl ... The Ubuntu 8.4 looks very tempting and I might stick with it pending test of Java EE staff.

Interestingly, I was looking at the release notes of one of the older ATI linux drivers on ATI's site and they made the comment that that driver supported Fn + F7 on ThinkPad notebooks.

I recently installed the next to the latest driver from ATI, and Fn + F7 did not work. All my other hotkeys work though. I did not see any reference in the release notes for this driver mentioning Fn + F7 support on ThinkPads. I believe ATI no longer provides support for this feature. As such, this will be a problem with any ATI equipped ThinkPad with a modern distro.

This post is coming to you live from Mint Linux.

Not only does everything minus fn+f7 work, it works great!

This edition of Linux is by far the easiest I have ever used and I am very very impressed with it. So much so that I wiped SuSE 11 and am now using Mint as my Linux on this T42.

Installing software updates was extremely easy to do and going to their software page you can install more packages in a quick efficient and easy manner.

I did make a few minor tweaks to boot and the UI (die mint theme, die).

The system wakes from sleep nicely (haven't yet tried hibernation) and it auto re-connects to my wireless AP. No graphics or sound problems upon waking from sleep. It just works.

I'd give Mint Elyssa another shot if you haven't. Even then you can always dual boot between XP and Linux.

Temetka wrote:

die mint theme, die

carbon_unit wrote:Since Suse is available on new Thinkpads I suppose that will get you as close to having Thinkvantage software as anything.

I wish I could find the CD's or iso's for the version of SuSE Linux Enterprise Edition that Lenovo installs on Thinkpads

That would be great!

What do you expect to have there compare to OpenSuse?
Stupid "Nowell support Registration" of some kind?
I wonder if one can install packages from Community Repos like videolan and packman on SLED ....
I am sure it is not worth it ...

Harryc wrote:

carbon_unit wrote:Since Suse is available on new Thinkpads I suppose that will get you as close to having Thinkvantage software as anything.

I wish I could find the CD's or iso's for the version of SuSE Linux Enterprise Edition that Lenovo installs on Thinkpads

Yes, of course. I expect to compare OpenSUSE to Stupid "Nowell support Registration" of some kind. You guessed it.

Come on, take a plunge: Gentoo Linux.

It was nice of you to attach the "twisted" emoticon to your statement about Gentoo!!

One of the best sites around as far as Thinkpad support goes is www.thinkwiki.org. There is a wealth of info about details, by model, of driver and user interaction with the various functions, and keys, on a Thinkpad. And being a wiki, you can add your own stuff, also!!

I am happy to report that upon installing Ubuntu 8.04 on my T60 2007-73U, everything works properly.....
Nearly too good to be true, based on all the issues I've read about with various other distros.
In fact I was so pleased and confident after the T60 install went well, I did an install on my X60s.
Once again, everything worked. I'm feeling like I better stop talking now, before something goes wrong.....

Cheers... _No_ Make That Three Cheers for Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron!

i've got xubuntu (lightweight ubuntu), archlinux and gentoo on this thinkpad and i most always use gentoo. i have all the distro's sharing /boot and /home. xubuntu is slick and easy to use. arch is a tinkerers dream come true and gentoo imho is the rolls royce of linux's. sometimes takes work getting it running to your needs but when you do, the lion roars. the forums.gentoo.org are really friendly and no problem is too great. great support and cutting edge by "ACCEPT_KEYWORDS=~your architecture" in make.conf will give you new and beta packages, if that's your choice. gunna give mint and 64 bit pcbsd a try shortly (oh the joy of a large hard disk). i've tried redhat, mandrake, puppy, debian, ubuntu, kbuntu, pclos, and many others that have since disappeared. as you may have guessed i'm a gentoo afficianado and have used gentoo since 2001 as my main os. i have xp on a separate old laptop so i can do my "business activity statement" every quarter.
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To all you more experienced Linux-heads out there, what would be the best Linux for a TP 600E with 128k (or is it 256k) of memory and a 10gb hard drive?

the choices are great. a look here http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Minimal_Linux_distros will help. as i've said b4 xubuntu is relatively full featured and runs well on low spec machines. puppy might be an option but have a look at the above link.

AKelley728 wrote:To all you more experienced Linux-heads out there, what would be the best Linux for a TP 600E with 128k (or is it 256k) of memory and a 10gb hard drive?

I run Puppy Linux ver. 4.0 on my ThinkPad 600e, and it works really well.
With just 128k ram, and a 10GB hard drive. Puppy ver 4.0 is fast, fun and easy to learn.
Also included is a link to OSDisc which is a great place to purchase a CD from for only $1.95 I got mine in only 3 days after I placed the order.

Here are some Puppy links for you.
http://www.puppylinux.com/
http://www.osdisc.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi/ ... inux/puppy
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/puppy-71/