Ubuntu 7.04 and Thinkpad T40 General Questions

[lilserenity]

Hello,

I have done some searching before posting this so I'm not gonna ask how's this etc. when the answer is a few messages down already, at least I hope not

Yesterday I downloaded the latest Ubuntu 7.04 iso and tried it out on my brother's desktop PC which I am fixing up. It's faster than my T40 with a Radeon 9250 128MB and Pentium D 805, but it rekindled my more then passing interest in using a Linux based OS again; as I got on very well with the UNIX bits and bobs of Mac OS X's BSD underpinnings (didn't care hugely for the Mac side of things except there were some neat apps)

My work is in web development and in my past time I do a lot of writing and graphics work. As such my work is juswt the same to do on Linux as it is on Windows. My plan is this:

- Use Ubuntu as my default OS
- Keep a small XP installation for apps that I will need time to time such as Corel Painter, IE7, Access 2002 and iTunes (something tells me I need to catch up ripping my library to CDRW and capture again)
- Use Wine or puirchase CrossoverOffice (whatever it's called now!) to run IE6, Office 97 and Photoshop 7. IE6 is only there as I will need to debug the websites I develop (an inevitability with IE6 and even 7 in some cases!) through having Firefox will be a saviour for most things.

Anyway, apart from the geeky aspect, there is something about a UNIX based system that I feel more at home with, though I'm far from an XP hater, or indeed an MS basher as I like their software, well XP and Office 97 I do

Anyway my only questions are...

1. TV Output. I've established all of my setup will work on Ubuntu, even my USB modem but I do like to have the TV Outpiut working so I can play DVDs on a telly. Is this working?

2. The internal modem. Not often that I need to work this but I've not found an explicit mention to say this is working? I gather that even the crappy Intel 2100B wireless will work, at least driver wise (although actually getting on a wireless network with it is always a fun time!)

3. Any other general issues of T40 usage on |Ubuntu. From what I gather it pretty much all works and is a good computer to use a Linux platform on.

I think that's it thank you!! I plan on getting a nice large 160GB 5400RPM hard disk for the T40, o I can have a 120GB Ubuntu partition and a 40GB XP partition.

Vicky

[carbon_unit]

This might help: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Installation . It looks like it is as easy as pie on a T40.
You may want to look into using a Virtual machine to run all your windows apps and avoid a separate XP install. Look at Xen, VirtualBox, or Vmware Server.
Xen and VirtualBox should be available through Synaptic in Ubuntu. Vmware is free after registration at www.vmware.com/download/server/

[lilserenity]

That's a great idea That makes things easier still.

Now I just have to work out whether to splash out £55 on a Hitachi 160GB 5400RPM HD 8MB Cache. Good deal really...

I suppose I could, couldn't I

Thanks!

Vicky

[lilserenity]

Edited because I got things working!

Ok, I have had some luck at last and I think I am slowly getting back in the swing of things.

I got Ubuntu 7.04 installed again (3rd time lucky and I am posting from it now in Firefox. I also got Beryl working through using a simple instance of:

sudo apt-get install beryl beryl-manager emerald-themes

And then using the Beryl Manager app. Actually surprisingly with a bit of tweaking the modifications are actually pretty slick on what is the relatively ancient Radeon 7500 32MB. I don't think I'll bother with Beryl though, it's a gimmick and it looks neat but I did notice that menus didn't always respond straight away, etc. and I need a snappy GUI over any fancy eye candy.

Also, I am very pleasantly surprised at my Intel 2100B Wireless card which has always been shockingly poor in Windows XP, it is now finally useful in Ubuntu! Suffice to say it's picked up a few wireless networks and maintained connections.

I've also successfully got my USB Speedtouch 330 modem working.

Everything I have tried so far works and this is unusually good! My last things to try are screen spanning via the VGA output and TV Output via the SVideo output.

I understand modem support on Ubuntu isn't great so I have yet to try that.

I'll collate all my notes together for future users too.

I'm not going to do a huge amount more with this install as I don't want to waste my time when I shall be installing a 160gb hard disk in this next week.

I can see myself being very happy using Ubuntu. And OpenOffice.org 2 Writer supports alignment of a text box to the margins/pages relative to top/middle/bottom etc. Something that *could* possibly replace Word there me-thinks... (The former feature is critical for me as I lay out a few books and 'guessing'/'estimating' the bottom is not good enough, has to look slick!)

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I got the Hitachi 5K160 btw for £55, which may not sound too good in USD with the pound very strong at the mo (£1=$2!!) but it's about £20 cheaper than anywhere else I could find one.

I'm currently playing with Ubuntu on a spare 60GB WD Scorpio (5400rpm/2MB cache) and leaving my 40GB WinXP HD well alone! Oddly enough I thought thye 60gb disk was dead, as Win XP startup CD, Windows 98SE boot disk and Ubuntu refused to format it, oddly booting into Mac OS X and formatting it with Disk Utility worked...

Onwards )

Vicky

[meat]

I am not sure you are able to run Beryl with and ATI 7500. I believe the minimum is the 9500, but someone is free to correct me.

[lilserenity]

Ok, since last night I am going great guns with this Ubuntu thing.

Apart from the hardware noted above that I haven't tested, I have got Wine working great with Office 97 (may well be retired for OpenOffice.org if I get on with it) and Bookshelf 99 (essential software for a writer, which btw: apologies for all the typos above, it's a new 'curved' keyboard and at 2am, it is quite the thing after 18 years of using 'straight' keyboards)

So as a recap, so far I have with a great deal of ease (overall) with a passing knowledge of UNIX file systems and the command line:

- Installed Ubuntu (easier than falling off a cliff)
- Installed and got Beryl to load on startup (works fairly well on a Radeon 7500, I'm sure it would fly on a Radeon 9200 or newer)
- Installed Microsoft Core Web fonts (msttcorefonts or something)
- Installed my USB Speedtouch 330 Modem
- All hardware tested except VGA, Svideo and v90 Modem
- Wine installed and configured w/registry tweak for font smoothing and Office 97 and Bookshelf 99 installed and working
- and a bunch of other things
- Windows Media Video codecs (easy)
- Adobe Flash (easy)

I'm going to document this for my sake when I put the proper new hard disk in and also for others too.

Hmm, what a pleasant experience I can honestly say though that I get confused with UNIX/Linux at the best of times and a bit of terminal knowledge helped me on a few things but some of the above is possible with only a GUI based knowledge.

Right I gotta stop being geeky and get myself down the hair salon...

[lilserenity]

I think this will be best for me to write up in a proper fashion sometime but I have got the TV out working a treat.

Basically I only use the TV out to play DVDs on a TV, so I created a script to use atitvout and load up VLC which was the only player that would work A OK, using MPlayer with libdvdcss2 installed caused some weird business with the display and corrupted it. Totem I couldn't get to play a DVD at all, not yet anyway. As such VLC is working a treat. If I want to do something else via TV Out, I'll just make another script. Anyway, no one can deny this is a bit of a bugger compared to Windows if you're an average Joe; but ATI's binary driver for later Radeon chipsets may solve this I believe? it's only since I am using the older Mobile 7500.

VGA Out: I rarely use the VGA out but my next thing will be to try and move beyond simple mirroring of the 1024x768 display but move on up to having mirrored or split displays. Could be quite the task for my skillset!

v90 modem: Not even tried, but I am told it can be made to work so we will see.

In all, leaves two things to configure; but overall--I consider my Ubuntu install to be absolutely functional, very good OS. Now i just have to see if running Office 97 via Wine is going to be a suitable solution or if to go the VM route. If anything I'll slowly move over to OpenOffice.org.

Great stuff but it proves to get the most out of even Ubuntu, that whilst it gets so many things right for the consumer, there are still some significant road blocks I will discuss for the average PC user switching from Windows. Main thing is though that I am a happy bunny

Vicky

[Temetka]

I am running Fedora 7 on my T41p. I have a few questions for you:

What are you using to get the windows codes installed and working?

How easy was it to set up wine and office 97? Could it be done with office 2000 as I can't find my office 97 disc anymore.

Thanks.

[lilserenity]

Ok I'm not sure of the exact way you'd do this with Fedora but there are a couple of options that I would recommend, one is to use Wine directly which actually isn't that difficult to get rigged up (at least in Ubuntu it was just a case of using Synaptics Pkg Manager, and checking Wine and then using the terminal to make use of it) or you have Codeweavers Crossover which uses Wine as well, but gives a very nice front end for a small sum of $39.

Wine cannot run every Windows app, but it does pretty well with Photoshop 7, Office 97 and I am told Office 2000 as well.

I am pretty satisifed that it works as it should do, although I found that Crossover configured OLE correctly, whereas I haven't investgated this fully with Wine yet. Basically using Insert -> Object didn't work etc.

Either way, I have found that Excel, Powerpoint, Word (all 97) and Photoshop 7 have worked without any problems.

More info is available here:

Wine: http://www.winehq.org
Codeweavers Crossover: http://www.codeweavers.com

Hope this helps

Vicky