Thinkpads Forum

I am getting a T43p very soon. I am going to run one with linux and the other with xp. Which would make a better linux machine?

hi....

Not sure what you going to use the 'linux' versions for ,,,, but I/we have had approx 200 t60p and 61p's runnning "IBM linux" in the 'field' for years - never had any issues. IBM do still sell thinkpads with LINUX - factory installed to select few of its busienss customers. we are one of them!

T60p & T61p runs flawlessly - but am not so sure of other linux ie Ubuntu etc ,,,
our newer machines - Some of W Series are now running RED HAT....And you might want to check the forums here for more details....

Cheers

ausmike wrote:hi....

Not sure what you going to use the 'linux' versions for ,,,, but I/we have had approx 200 t60p and 61p's runnning "IBM linux" in the 'field' for years - never had any issues. IBM do still sell thinkpads with LINUX - factory installed to select few of its busienss customers. we are one of them!

T60p & T61p runs flawlessly - but am not so sure of other linux ie Ubuntu etc ,,,
our newer machines - Some of W Series are now running RED HAT....And you might want to check the forums here for more details....

Cheers

I plan on running Arch Linux. I am just worried about the ati driver problems the most.

Can't comment on Arch but if both machines have versions of the FireGL then you'll have the same problem on either. However, that "problem" was largely with 3D capability and, at least with the distros I use, has become less of a problem since last year. Certainly on my T43p I can't get flawless 3D graphics performance, but again depends on exactly what you want to use the machines for as to whether that technical shortcoming equates to a useability issue - I don't need the 3D stuff so turn it off & the machine plays fine ! Just don't go throwing the fglrx driver at it !!

IG

I run Kubuntu 8.04 LTS on a T43p and it runs perfectly. I am able to multi-boot other OS's so I've tried some later Ubuntus but not been completely satisfied. I prefer KDE3 and use the ATI 3D acceleration and my issues with later releases have been related to these; I haven't been able to get all KDE3 features perfect on later releases (where it is not officially supported), but my biggest issue is lack of ATI full driver support on latest kernels.

I believe ATI support is coming back soon in latest (ie zen) kernels, Arch and Gentoo and such will probably pick these up soonest, but otherwise I favor an older, more thinkpad-age-appropriate release. Ubuntu LTS still gets bug fixes so it's a simple choice if you don't mind that it's a bit old. I don't expect that many people share my preference for KDE3...

I also ran Ubuntu 8.04 on some T60's. It ran perfectly out of the box. IIRC older Ubuntus were not perfectly supported out of the box, so T60 seems to prefer more current linux.

I tried Arch a while ago, it reminded me of what I did & didn't like about FreeBSD, you have to configure and integrate everything yourself, if you're an old guy this is a lot of work!

I run 32 bit Ubuntu 9.10 on a T60 and the 64 bit version on a T61. Works flawlessly on both machines. In fact, especially handling of wireless connectivity is much easier under Ubuntu than it is under Win XP on the same machines.

Moved to the Linux forum.

I had Kubuntu 8.04 running on T43 when I still had one and it was working well. It was either in 8.10 or 9.04 when ATI removed the graphic card from the list of supported cards of their catalyst driver, so you will have to use the open source driver. This is actually not a bad things unless, maybe, you're a gamer. Otherwise, for daily stuff the open source driver uses much less resources and is more responsive than the the proprietary driver. Some people running Arch are using the latest RC kernel (I think it's 3.4?) with the latest open source drivers and they are very impressed (this adds power management to many of the cards).
As for T60, we have one at the office which I tried Kubuntu on for a bit for no particular reason. It worked well but I can't remember if the ATI card was still supported as proprietary or whether you'd need to use the open source drivers.

In other words, I think you'll be happy with either model running Linux, but I had two non-Linux related issues with T43 -- the first is the hard drive issue, and the other is the GPU soldering issue. You can find more information about both in other sections of this forum, the GPU is the more serious one.

T43 graphics will probably get better support with the open source radeon driver right?

http://www.x.org/wiki/radeon

Other than that, the rest should work fine.

I'm running Arch on my T60p and my W510 and haven't had any problems. Granted I haven't touched my T60p for a while now but the cards are nearly identical....R500 series for the T60p and R600 series for the W500. Your best bet is to look over the ATI page on Arch's wiki. The performance of the proprietary drivers is better than the open-source; however the propietary drivers aren't officially supported in Arch Linux and tend to be buggier. Here's a quick overview of the drivers available:

radeon: This an open-source driver that's pretty stable. It's works with GPUs up to R700 (R800 maybe...not sure). The R500s (i.e. your T60p) have full 2D and 3D support (R600 and above have limited 3D support, e.g. Compiz works, but may lack in performance). Also it'll run fine on your T43p (R300 series). I use this in both of my machines without an issue.

radeonhd: radeon driver for newer ATI cards. Supposedly my W500 should work with this but all I get is blurry/distorted screen. Doesn't matter for your T60p because I don't think it would even support this driver.

catalyst (aka fglrx): ATI proprietary driver, not officially supported in Arch Linux. It does have better 3D performance than the radeon drivers, but it tends to be a little buggier. Also, there are some differences in available features (see here.

Looking over Thinkwiki it looks either machine should do fine with all of the ACPI fectures (thinkpad buttons, battery thresholds, etc.) Some of the older T series had limited feautres and your T43p only list one "unknown" on Thinkwiki's page. Overall, you're going to be fine with either. Also, if you haven't used Arch before you're going to love it!

I'm running Arch on on my T41 with a radeon mobility and it is purring along. It doesn't really matter which Linux you use on which machine - they will both work beautifully.

Note that both also support battery charge threshold so be sure to install the tp_smapi package - check the ArchWiki or even better the thinkwiki page on it to see what it can do.

Considering that Ubuntu 9.10 runs darn near perfect on my X41T, I'd say it should run just fine on either of those machines are they are packing way more in terms of GPU and CPU power than my machine does.

Pick a distro of choice and go with it.

i believe 8.04 or 8.10 was the last to support fglrx for the r300's. fglrx no longer supports r300 cards; 9.3 was the last release. and for me radeon sucked in all of them through 9.10 (slow slow responsiveness with compiz on or off, flickering video). radeon is finally working well in the 10.04 beta.