Thinkpads Forum

I'm a ThinkPad veteran, but have never really tried to use Linux. I would like to get my T22 set up for Linux, but require it to be fully functional, including DVD movie playback. Is that possible, and if so, what is the easiest distro to do it with?

I don't want to spend lots of time searching man pages for obscure tweaks to text files, just something I can install and then use with a minimum of fuss.

My machine
T22 2647-3U6
PIII 1.0GHz, 512MB RAM, 30GB 4200 RPM TravelStar
Intel/Xircom Ethernet/Modem mini-PCI combo card
3Com PCMCIA Wireless card (802.11b - X-Jack OfficeConnect

Sounds like you need to try Xandros or Linspire.
Xandros just released their Open Circulation 3.01 version which is free if you download it with bittorrent. http://www.xandros.com/products/home/de ... intro.html

Linspire is soon to be releasing their version 5. http://www.linspire.com/
It is not free but it is the least hassle to get DVD's to play.

Any linux is going to require some effort to get DVD's to play becuase of licensing and encryption.

Thinkpads are fairly receptive to running linux so that will make it easier for you.

I have a T22 (and T20, R40, 390) working with Ubuntu Linux.

see:
http://ubuntulinux.org/

you can get it send to you for free via shipit:
http://shipit.ubuntulinux.org/

the very friendly and newbie-respecting community gathers here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/

you can do a default install on the T22 and follow easy suggestions for Suspend and DVD playback. all you need to do is here:
http://www.ubuntuguide.org/

of course, all the other distros out there are great as well. I do not intend to say Ubuntu is the best, it just works for me.

I have had great experience on the T22 with Sun JDS as well. but this is a non-free distro.

kind regards,
Carsten

...these are a couple of other good Debian based Linux distros that have excellent records with ThinkPads. Or if you want to use a commercial distro, SuSE is the specific version of Linux that IBM has been installing on their Linux-loaded T42p machines. Unfortunately with SuSE you lose out on apt-get goodness and instead wind up in RPM heck.

Zen Linux's installer is actually the official new Debian "Sarge" installer. It's swell, although the result on older ThinkPads requires a bit more tweaking to get it completely up and running. MEPIS has its own installer and a whole cadre of folks swear by it.

I used to advise Knoppix's install-to-HD script, but Klaus Knopper does some iffy things to the Debian directory tree which means headaches when upgrading. Knoppix is a brilliant live CD solution, but not a good installer. Simply MEPIS and Zen Linux offer the possibility of both. Oh yeah, Ubuntu is a great distro to use if you like GNOME. I'm not a big GNOME fan, KDE is my fat desktop of choice. For thin desktops, I really like IceWM. Make sure you still install the GNOME and KDE libraries, though. IceWM can use them to run g-apps and k-apps, and does it with less overhead.

http://www.mepis.org/
http://www.zenlinux.org/drupal/
http://www.novell.com/linux/suse/index.html

You can also use something absolutely default like fedora core 3 + the DAG packages repository and use apt/yum to download mplayer and ffmpeg. It's around 5-15 minutes of work from a fresh install to playing dvds and all flavours of divxes.

http://dag.wieers.com/home-made/apt/