Thinkpads Forum

Hello, I have felt a little guilty lately. I have a pirated version of Windows XP on my thinkpad. But, the only think i use it for is to surf the web, check my email, checkout whats going on on facebook, and thats about it. Ubuntu can do all that, so I was thinking of installing it on my IBM ThinkPad T40. Anyone know how it runs on this system? Thanks.

ccookie66 wrote:Hello, I have felt a little guilty lately. I have a pirated version of Windows XP on my thinkpad. But, the only think i use it for is to surf the web, check my email, checkout whats going on on facebook, and thats about it. Ubuntu can do all that, so I was thinking of installing it on my IBM ThinkPad T40. Anyone know how it runs on this system? Thanks.

Go for Xubuntu, mainstream Ubuntu (11.04) is aimed at mid-to-high-end machines (2+ cores, 128+ ATI/nvidia graphic card, ...) and will run poorly on older hardware. Xubuntu (with Xfce instead of GNOME/Unity) is a bit more lightweight and the GUI is more responsive.

If you want _really_ lightweight Ubuntu-like distro, you might want to check out Lubuntu as well.

Just as long as you have the RAM maxed out, you will have no issues with even GNOME on your T40 just as long as you trim down the 'effects' settings. 10.04LTS is as very good and stable release. After install, be sure to download the 'Thinkpad' packages in the package manager program (OSD and volume/brightness controls).

For someone with more WinXXXX experience than Linux, I would suggest KDE for a more familiar feel. But the all-around best window manager in my opinion is GNOME, hands down. Just stay away from Gnome3 for a while (and definitely on our older Thinkpads).

I was just testing Ubuntu 10.10 on a T41 and a T42 both with 512MB RAM, for web use only both Thinkpads run great. I was testing Chrome, Firefox and Thunderbird with no issues at all. What I would avoid is watching HD videos in Youtube or alike...

My 2 cents...

Tasurinchi wrote:...What I would avoid is watching HD videos in Youtube or alike...

2GB of RAM will solve that problem. My wife and I even watch movies (AVI/DVD) with no problem on our Thinkpads (in sig below).

I DID add aluminum heatsinks where those tin sheets used to be which also helped with temperature control and video playback speeds

@Tasurinchi:

Darkwind wrote:Just as long as you have the RAM maxed out

That's the main thing, Ubuntu is a little greedy when it comes to resources... but less so then XP.

Basically if you have an XP machine that runs like you want, switching to linux will be a nicer experience.

I wouldn't recommend GAMERS switch, and by gamers i dont mean Popcap games, solitaire, or facebook games... I mean hardcore 3D gamers.

Also it helps to do a goole search on things like printers, wireless cards, webcams, and any other external accessories you use to make sure people in general dont have easily fixable issues. For most motherboard, video, sound... basic hardware, linux has no issues. But manufacturers need to step up and realize linux is growing, some have like HP or nVidia... others... not so much. Macintosh actually helped, OS/X is basically a close cousin to Linux when it comes to drivers, and the manufacturers pretty much support Mac these days, no skin off their backs to write a Linux driver too

ozzymud wrote:@Tasurinchi:

I was just trying to point to the OP that even with less RAM Ubuntu will work great for what he needs (according to his post). I'm well aware that maxing out the RAM will greatly improve performance but still 720p/1080p will be sluggish in a T40. My maxed out T43p with Ubuntu 10.10 copes well with 720p, but I'm not sure a maxed out T40 will.

(As a side note, the T4x's I was mentioning in my post are being revived for a friend of mine and he won't invest any more money on them as they will be used for basic web browsing).

I was always a Linux fan and I'm currently using Ubuntu or Mint in almost all the TPs from my sig with no big issues at all!

OP can burn a few live CDs and sample them before installing.

Ubuntu works well, but with that little RAM I'd sample AntiX (it runs using under 100MB RAM on my PII 300 Toughbook and would be quite nice on a T40) as well. DSL-N (later kernel than DSL) is also light and fast.

Hello, I have felt a little guilty lately.

I feel dirty running legal copies of XP, and all the AV and anti-malware software is even more annoying.

Want a surfing appliance? Check out these:

http://www.browserlinux.com/

Im running 10.04 on a couple of X30's with PIII's and 512mb of memory. I find it no slower than Winblows 2kPro. I think i actually have 1 machine running on 348mb!
I these 2 little machines will run it half way decent, I have got to believe the T4X machines will run it.

Ron

I'm surprised no one said anything about Mint.

I use that and CrunchBang on my Thinkpads and it's great.

Mint LXDE is fast on lesser notebooks.

If your computer runs XP, then it will run 10.04 better. It's really the best if you want a mainstream, fully supported and constantly updated distro, I've used 10.04 myself a lot and I love it. It's seriously one of the best packages ever. I've since tried a bunch of others, like Mint 9 (which is based off of 10.04) with XFCE, but I find that XFCE is still a little immature for my tastes, Gnome2 was just right and Gnome3 gave me a nervous breakdown. I use 11.10 now with Unity, which I think is an amazing shell, people really should give it a better chance because it's great for what it does. Admitedly it's not aimed towards mouse shortcuts, but a hardcore user should not complain about that because they should already be using keyboard shortcuts (which I use a lot) and thus it works out fine. It's got a few bugs and quirks left but I've certainly jumped on the Unity bandwagon.

So back on track, I'd say definitely go for 10.04 LTS, it's a great system and I think you'll love it. If you find Gnome a bit slow, then try Linux mint 9, mint is based off of ubuntu, and linux mint 9 is based off of the 10.04 version of ubuntu. Just go with the XFCE version of mint if it's speed you want. But like everyone has already said it's more of an issue of ram than CPU.