linux on X40

[SomeGuyfromHK]

I am trying to climb the learning cliff of linux again... and here are the questions: what distribution should I try? where can I find reference for newbies (there are tons of HOWTOs out there but they are even harder to read than political philosophy)? anyone here has linux installed as the primary OS?

Please help.

[K0LO]

Hi. I don't have an X40, but I do have an X41T and have Kubuntu Linux installed on it. Ubuntu/Kubuntu are very nice distributions and have a lot of ongoing development at the moment. (Ubuntu is Gnome-based and Kubuntu is KDE-based, but otherwise they're the same).

Kubuntu runs very nicely on the X41T, and most of the features just worked out-of-the-box. Immediately after installation the following were working -- ethernet, wireless, video, sound, keyboard, IBM Fn-keys, laptop power management including suspend-to-RAM, USB, Bluetooth, and the trackpoint device. I could see all of the Windows computers on the LAN, browse the internet -- I was amazed! However, I'm still working on getting the Wacom pen drivers working, encrypted wireless, and hibernate, but I'll get there eventually.

Both distributions have live CDs, so you could try one of them out risk-free before you decide to install. http://www.ubuntu.com or http://www.kubuntu.org

Here's a good resource http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkWiki for any Linux distribution on any ThinkPad. Have fun learning; I know I am!

Mark

[amgdoc]

i use knoppix through my CD + 1 GB USB stick. I use the CD to bootup and the USB has entire knoppix files need to run it.

[seneca]

Well, if you are brave enough, you could try OpenBSD. It's very secure and has excellent support for thinkpads because the developers all have thinkpads...

But otherwise, Kubuntu (that's with KDE) or Ubuntu ( Gnome ), both works really good on any centrino laptop.

[dizzyspell]

ethernet, wireless, video, sound, keyboard, IBM Fn-keys, laptop power management including suspend-to-RAM, USB, Bluetooth, and the trackpoint device

It's impressive that all those things work out of the box.

The X-series don't have an optical drive, so what would be a good way of getting the OS on the laptop? Also, can someone tell how many gigs such a linux OS takes up?

[K0LO]

The "easiest" way is to borrow an external USB optical drive from a friend. I think that Knoppix has an article on how to install from a bootable USB thumb drive; you could try that.

The default Kubuntu install took about 2 GB plus 1 GB for the swap partition. You should probably allow about 8 GB total for the whole works, unless you plan on filling your home directory up with tons of mp3s or whatever, then adjust accordingly.