Thinkpads Forum

Just wanted to tell everyone that the final Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope release has been online for a couple of hours now. Go here: http://releases.ubuntu.com/jaunty/ and seed like mad like me ... It'll be best to use the torrents instead of putting a lot of load on their servers by using the regular HTTP download

New features: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/release ... 04overview

/Speeder

I have not installed it yet, but I'd rather not install 9.04 until they solve this problem with the wifi.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/352150

I´ll try it out later tonight or tomorrow. I hope the wifi bug doesn´t apply too widely (and I´m curios if Ubuntu 9.04 would work with my Atheros card out of the box as most distros don´t seem to do so...).

Marin85 wrote:I´ll try it out later tonight or tomorrow. I hope the wifi bug doesn´t apply too widely (and I´m curios if Ubuntu 9.04 would work with my Atheros card out of the box as most distros don´t seem to do so...).

All modern distributions work with my AR5418(Thinkpad ABGN) card. Fedora, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Arch, Gentoo, you name it.

My card is ThinkPad Atheros a/b/g (mini PCI-E), and yes, in theory, all modern distros should work with it using madwifi drivers. The fact is that I was able to make only Mandriva 2008 work with it, and after updating the driver (together with the other updates available for Mandriva Spring 2008) I got all wifi problems. I wasn´t able to make my wifi card work with newer versions of madwifi or on other distros. I also had some looong thread on these issues somewhere in this subforum. The card is identified by linux as AR5212, which is basically the well-known ThinkPad Atheros a/b/g card, but unlike many others it simply didn´t want to work under almost any "user-friendly" distro (the problem was that it can see all available wifi networks without problems, but it wasn´t able to establish connection, neither manually nor using some utility like knetwork etc). I haven´t tried the working madwifi version on other distros yet though.(And, yes, I couldn´t find anything useful in the logs that would lead me further to even the smallest clue as to what was happening.) Sorry for going off-topic

Marin

EDIT: If you want to discuss it or want to have a look at the thread, I´ll try to dig it out (and with more luck revive) it for you

Madwifi isn't really developed anymore, and I haven't used it since Fedora 8. I'm talking about ath5k/ath9k, which have made considerable progress the past 3-5 months.

tylerwylie wrote:Madwifi isn't really developed anymore, and I haven't used it since Fedora 8. I'm talking about ath5k/ath9k, which have made considerable progress the past 3-5 months.

To be honest, I haven´t been following any news on the Atheros drivers for Linux at least for the past 5-6 months (including the release of the official Win 7 beta) I guess many things have changed since then, so I should definitely take a look.

That's quite discouraging. I was thinking of installing the latest Kubuntu (9.04) on my Thinkpad T41.

I was curious whether the 2200bg (or 2915abg) Mini-PCI card or an Atheros 11g(?) Mini-PCI card is better in Linux.

It sounds from here that both pose problems?

thinkpad1 wrote:I was curious whether the 2200bg (or 2915abg) Mini-PCI card or an Atheros 11g(?) Mini-PCI card is better in Linux.

It sounds from here that both pose problems?

Form what I have seen, my case seems to be pretty much isolated as most users with ThinkPad Atheros a/b/g wifi card don´t experience such problems (or didn´t experience such problems). So, please, don´t draw any conclusions based on my previous posts. This issue doesn´t feature the new Ubuntu 9.04 as I haven´t tried it out yet (only as virtual machine for a very short while). If you have some time, I would suggest you trying out Jaunty Jackalope for yourself. I´m pretty sure a solution to the Intel problem will be addressed very soon as there are many linux users still using the older Intel cards.

Marin85 wrote:Form what I have seen, my case seems to be pretty much isolated as most users with ThinkPad Atheros a/b/g wifi card don´t experience such problems (or didn´t experience such problems). So, please, don´t draw any conclusions based on my previous posts. This issue doesn´t feature the new Ubuntu 9.04 as I haven´t tried it out yet (only as virtual machine for a very short while). If you have some time, I would suggest you trying out Jaunty Jackalope for yourself. I´m pretty sure a solution to the Intel problem will be addressed very soon as there are many linux users still using the older Intel cards.

Well, what I don't understand is that Atheros now has these 'ath5/9' drivers so should one use them or stay with Madwifi until the ath5 ones are sorted out.

As for the Intel, I suppose they will eventually work but the problems seem to be related to the basic install and I thought they were already in the kernel.

It is just the firmware that is a problem? I thought if I bought one of each, I'll have some insight and experience with either and I can choose the one I'm most comfortable with or have the most success with.

Once again I feel that the newest Linux distros are more compatible to newer machines than to older ones.
That means any distro that was released at around the same time as your laptop, probably functions best.
I've tried both Ubuntu and Kubuntu Jaunty in my X41, not an ancient machine by any standards, but now
my Bluetooth mouse has problems in that it defaults to off on each reboot. It's easier to re-acquire with
Kubuntu, but a pain in Ubuntu, unlike Hardy where I simply push any mouse button to re-acquire.
I ran into a HPLIP network printer problem as well but it's 90% resolved now.
I don't have any wireless difficulties, but I'm sure that's due to the fact that I changed the card to an
Intel B/G a while back
I'll stick with Kubuntu Hardy for a while longer, maybe forever who knows! I like the new interfaces as well
as the boot speed of Jaunty, but I'll give that up for functionality all day long!
Tim S

I've had very good results with the newer versions of Ubuntu on my older ThinkPads, even those with the atheros card. I was going to hold off on 9.04 but just couldn't resist so I installed it this morning on my T42 and everything functions perfectly. Once again reminding me how much I enjoy Ubuntu. It simply get's you up and running right away, then you can do your customizations at your own pace whenever ones time permits.

Also I find that there is such a vast array of support and applications in the repositories that one can do anything they want with it quite easily. Why re-invent the wheel when someone else has already done all the work? So for me it's Ubuntu as my "daily driver Linux" and the others just for fun and to expand my knowledge of the platform. Mandriva 2009 is the next one I have my sights on, but that is down the road a bit.

Cheers...

I must say I'm impressed with this edition. 8.10 seemed unstable upon launch, but this is just rocksolid from the start...

Everything worked OOB ... Wireless, ethernet, bluetooth, hibernation, standby and OSD.

I was able to browse my phones content in a few seconds.

And the boottime with Ext4 is rather nice... I'm getting to the desktop in less than 25 seconds

Consider looking at these tips:
http://www.johannes-eva.net/index.php?p ... ide_jaunty
and
http://lifehacker.com/5227309/top-10-ubuntu-downloads

I installed Kubuntu 9.04 x64 yesterday (with ext3, no ext4 though, but that would be something to try very soon), and I have to say I´m impressed with how things worked compared to 8.10. First of all, I was able to make my Atheros wifi card work with the ath5k without any issues (unthinkable a few months ago), or almost without any. Neither terminal, nor network manager accepted the wifi key in ASCII, but they did in Hex. Off topic, I´m now actually wondering whether this would have done the trick when I was still having those major problems with my Atheros card on many "older" distros (only exception was Mandriva Spring 2008.1). Boot time is noticeably improved, but that is something already announced by Ubuntu developer community. Also, the very annoying bug with the icons disappearing from the advanced compiz configuration utility in KDE is now gone, compiz-fusion itself seems to be running slightly a lot smoother compared to my experience with Kubuntu 8. I´m about to install Cisco VPN client (need to be patched) required for my university network. Life can be fun!

Cheers,

Marin

Marin85 wrote:I installed Kubuntu 9.04 x64 yesterday (with ext3, no ext4 though, but that would be something to try very soon), and I have to say I´m impressed with how things worked compared to 8.10.

Thanks Marin! That was a great report.

I too installed Ubuntu 9.04 with ext3, leaving ext4 for when I have the time to troubleshoot any particular hiccups that may present themselves.

Cheers...

Has anyone tried Kubuntu 9.04 on an X61? An upgrade install from 8.04 failed miserably, but a clean install seems to work, other than the fact that the system will lock up after running fine for an hour or so. When it locks up it is completely unresponsive - i.e. no ability to start a TTY session, stops responding to network pings, etc. The only way out is to shut off power and restart.

I think it's a video issue because just before locking up I can see various video artifacts start to appear on the display. There is a huge thread on the Ubuntu forum about problems with Intel integrated video, but this is with Ubuntu's graphics manager, not Kubuntu's KDE.

If I reboot 9.04 with the old kernel from 8.04 then it works fine but without graphics effects. Anyone else seeing this?

k0lo wrote:Has anyone tried Kubuntu 9.04 on an X61? An upgrade install from 8.04 failed miserably, but a clean install seems to work, other than the fact that the system will lock up after running fine for an hour or so. When it locks up it is completely unresponsive - i.e. no ability to start a TTY session, stops responding to network pings, etc. The only way out is to shut off power and restart.

I think it's a video issue because just before locking up I can see various video artifacts start to appear on the display. There is a huge thread on the Ubuntu forum about problems with Intel integrated video, but this is with Ubuntu's graphics manager, not Kubuntu's KDE.

If I reboot 9.04 with the old kernel from 8.04 then it works fine but without graphics effects. Anyone else seeing this?

It's an issue with the intel driver, you have to build a new one. It's included with the new Fedora

As a self proclaimed member of the group that believes "if its running fine leave it alone", I was determined to ignore Ubuntu 9.04. Especially since several of my ThinkPads are running 8.04 perfectly. Well someone pass me the ranch dressing, as I'm eating my words...ha..ha..ha.
.
Having enjoyed a perfect installation result with 9.04 on my T60, I'm now on a tear. In my case I prefer to wipe the drive and start fresh. So I've done just that with great results on my X60s, T400, and one of my T43's, I'm very pleased. Having used Ubuntu for just over a year, after dabbling with about four other distros, I'm quite satisfied with all the little changes in 9.04.
.
Cheers...

No sound bug in Jaunty with X200/s in an X200 Ultrabase -
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/285834

The above no sound bug on an X200 Ultrabase is solved with the latest Alsa drivers. See this link. I ran the script AlsaUpgrade-1.0.x-rev-1.16 and it worked fine. (This is on Mint 6.0 by the way, but the same bug exists on Ubuntu Jaunty)
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1046137

hmm..i seem to have a strange problem on both my thinkpad x61 and my thinkpad z61t..

i have installed the ubuntu 9.04 on both the machines..everything was great until when i realized that on both my laptops, when i try to go full screen when watching something on youtube its kinda hangs midway while playing the video..(not in HQ)
i mean it plays for a couple of seconds, hangs up completely for a couple of more seconds then plays a couple of secs. and then hangs up and this continues until i exit the full screen..but this does not happen when i m watching somethng from my HDD example a couple of video clips playing in vlc player...

what do you think the problem might be??? i was using the firefox latest version..the systems are up to date with the updates and evrything..