Fresh Kubuntu Install on a Circa 2003 T40

[.46caliber]

I have had this T40 since the summer of 2003. I had two warranty issues that IBM took care of and seriously impressed me.

Last week I pulled the T40 apart and blew out the dust, applied fresh thermal compound, and threw in a new 80GB 5400RPM WD hard drive.

I loaded an install of Kubuntu 10.04 LTS. I can honestly say, it's faster than new.

Between linux and the faster HDD, it works great.

Any of you that are resurrecting an old Thinkpad, seriously consider Ubuntu or Kubuntu. If you are leary of leaving Windows, try Kubuntu, it is an easy switch. All the hardware works with my T40 save for the volume controls and the scroll button for the track point.

[.46caliber]

If any of you knows how to get the volume controls or scroll button working, I'd love to know. It's hard not having the scroll button.

[l.butler]

I've recently installed Mint 8 on a T22 and CrunchBang 904 on a T23. Both are derivatives of Ubuntu and both had working volume control, but I recall that Mint started each desktop session with the volume muted. Perhaps this is an Ubuntu feature?

As for the scrolling, take a look at the thinkwiki page:

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_co ... #Scrolling

Btw, the KDE desktop is great but it's rather heavy on older hardware, so you might consider a lighter desktop. Personally, I use icewm and fluxbox. You can install these alternative window managers and choose which to use at login, i.e. there's no need to install a new OS.

[.46caliber]

Thanks for the link, I'll be sure to check it out.

KDE has run fine on my machine, it has had some upgrades though. It's still running the 1.3Ghz processor, but, I added a 512 stick of memory. When I opened the laptop for cleaning, I moved the 512 stick to the internal slot so I can pull the OEM 256 if I need to from the memory door and get more.

I also replaced teh OEM 4200 RPM drive with a Western 5400 rpm drive. It runs plenty fast. I have not seen any problems.

No hiccups with the WiFi either. The only bugs have been the scroll button and the volume control buttons.

I'm downloading the current version of Ubuntu and may give that a try, but I've gathered a lot of people here have tried a Mint and are really happy with it, so I'll check out that distro as well. I'm pretty new to the linux game, but it has made my old ThinkPad run as fast or faster, than new with XP Pro.

[jronald]

I have uBuntu 10.04 on both a T30 and an X30. After spending a few hours on the T30 over the weekend, It is doing everything I want and need it to. I added a widget at the bottom of the screen that tracks the CPU Temp and Fan Speed for me. It has a custom paint job in the old reddish color (dont really like the purple). I have yet to figure out how to change the purple. I even added the Ubuntu/ATI/P4 stickers back to the palm rest just for giggles!

Ron

[natgab]

Hi guys,

I'm a new Thinkpad owner, and I'm having a bit of trouble getting Xubuntu loaded on my laptop (bad USB flash drive).

But I was wondering if anybody had experience using wireless with WEP? Problem is that my brother set it to non-broadcast SSID, so I don't know if that is causing a problem. I'm writing this from the laptop, but on XP. Anybody know if it some kind of hardware problem or is it just something in Linux/Ubuntu that I have to adjust. My laptop has an Atherors wifi.

BTW: I tried Puppy Linux 5 on the X40 on a flash drive, I think I will add that apart from Xubuntu.

[ThinkRob]

But I was wondering if anybody had experience using wireless with WEP? Problem is that my brother set it to non-broadcast SSID, so I don't know if that is causing a problem. I'm writing this from the laptop, but on XP. Anybody know if it some kind of hardware problem or is it just something in Linux/Ubuntu that I have to adjust. My laptop has an Atherors wifi.

The Atheros card should support WEP just fine.

That said, neither WEP nor "hidden" SSIDs are meaningful security measures nowadays. I'd recommend either switching to WPA2 or simply running an open access point -- IMO a false sense of security is worse than no security at all.

[natgab]

The Atheros card should support WEP just fine.

That said, neither WEP nor "hidden" SSIDs are meaningful security measures nowadays. I'd recommend either switching to WPA2 or simply running an open access point -- IMO a false sense of security is worse than no security at all.

My cable company is sending us a new modem, I think I will ask my brother about the network. I already asked him to see if he can change it from hidden to broadcast the SSID. Since I have read some post in the Ubuntu forum saying that it has trouble with hidden networks. OS X and XP work on the network fine.

I currently have to use XP on my Thinkpad for wifi. When I dual booted my old Apple Powerbook G3 it also did not connect to the network in Ubuntu. But I blamed it on PPC Linux being the [censored] child of the family.

[thinkpad1]

I've had issues with the ATI 9000 card found in some T4x machines. Anyone else running Ubuntu ever have any video issues with their ATI Radeon cards? I guess this is mostly applicable to the R200 series.... not sure if it applies to R300 and up.

The issues include enabling desktop effects and running 3D apps like Google Earth.

Anyway, I recommend trying other DEs, too. I find LXDE to be a good DE to try and everything seems to run snappy. I haven't tried Kubuntu lately. I guess they're at KDE 4.4 or 4.5 by now?

[Tasurinchi]

Anyone else running Ubuntu ever have any video issues with their ATI Radeon cards?

Not on my T43p, neither a test installation I did around a year ago on a R50 with an ATI-9000.

I had issues with my ex-X31, the latest Ubuntu distros lacked of support for the specific model (an M6 I think). The older Ubuntu distros prior to 9.04 were working fine on that machine (and also on a T30 I used to have some years ago)

[moronoxyd]

I've had issues with the ATI 9000 card found in some T4x machines. Anyone else running Ubuntu ever have any video issues with their ATI Radeon cards?

Yes, Ubuntu 9.10 and 10.04 have some problems with ATI cards.
That has to do with the switch to KMS (kernel mode setting), and some X servers for older cards that don't support that.

You should check some ubuntu boards/wikis to find lots of tips on how to solve the problem or at least reduce the impact.