Linux on X200, anyone?

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maciejs · #1 Post by **maciejs** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 7:50 am

Hi,

I realize that this laptop has only been announced about a month ago and is on sale of about a week but has anyone have any info about running linux on it?

I checked datasheet and I suppose there could be some issues with intel X4500 graphics and intel wifi link (but those should be taken care rather quick) and perhaps with a sound card and especially Mic (as there were some problems with digital Mic on X300)...

Anybody care to comment on this?

Dead1nside · #2 Post by **Dead1nside** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 5:06 pm

Graphics is supported in the next release of the Intel driver I believe, if not already. Wireless I haven't heard of it being incorporated yet. Motherboard I haven't heard of that being supported but I bet that'll come very quick. Indeed I bet it'll all be here soon in some form or other.

#3 Post by **archer6** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 6:10 pm

maciejs wrote:Hi,

I realize that this laptop has only been announced about a month ago and is on sale of about a week but has anyone have any info about running linux on it?

I checked datasheet and I suppose there could be some issues with intel X4500 graphics and intel wifi link (but those should be taken care rather quick) and perhaps with a sound card and especially Mic (as there were some problems with digital Mic on X300)...

Anybody care to comment on this?

I have a friend that is with Lenovo and he has a pre production X200, that has Ubuntu 8.04.01 installed and running just fine. No mods required, it installed just as quickly and easily as did on my T60 & T60p models (which did not require any tweaks either, ran perfectly after install of 8.04.01)

maciejs · #4 Post by **maciejs** » Thu Aug 14, 2008 7:25 am

That's very good news archer6, thanks for letting us know. I look forward to trying myself.

Thanks again

#5 Post by **archer6** » Thu Aug 14, 2008 2:43 pm

maciejs wrote:That's very good news archer6, thanks for letting us know. I look forward to trying myself.

Thanks again

Your welcome. Last night I had a chance to use it and I'm very impressed. Even with far less resources than my T60, the performance with Ubuntu 8.04.01 was exemplary. Fast, quiet, stable and lots of fun. I highly suggest this setup to anyone who loves ThinkPads and the X200 model.

Cheers.....

maciejs · #6 Post by **maciejs** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 6:14 am

hey archer,

i was just wondering if you know the specification of your friend's X200? the reason i ask is because i'd like to know more about things like GPS or mobile broadband (if he has any in his laptop) and how do they work under linux

#7 Post by **archer6** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 9:54 pm

maciejs wrote:hey archer,

i was just wondering if you know the specification of your friend's X200? the reason i ask is because i'd like to know more about things like GPS or mobile broadband (if he has any in his laptop) and how do they work under linux

I will contact him and report back....

#8 Post by **archer6** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 10:06 pm

maciejs wrote:hey archer,
i was just wondering if you know the specification of your friend's X200?

Here's the exact specs of his X200
-------------------------------------------
ThinkPad X200 - 1 Yr Depot Warranty

ThinkPad X200
7454CTO $1,434.00
Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor P8400 (2.26GHz, 3MB L2, 1066MHz FSB)) 1
Operating system: Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium 1
Operating system language: Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium US English 1
Display type: 12.1 WXGA (1280x800), 2x2 UltraConnect II antenna , WWAN, Camera 1
System graphics: Intel GMA X4500 HD 1
Total memory: 1 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1067MHz SODIMM Memory (1 DIMM) 1
Keyboard: Keyboard US English 1
Pointing device: TrackPoint 1
System expansion slots: 5-1 Media Card Reader and Modem 1
Integrated WiFi wireless LAN adapters: ThinkPad 11b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI Express Adapter III 1
Wireless WWAN accessories: Integrated Wireless Wide Area Network upgradable 1
Battery: ThinkPad X200 Series 4 cell Li-Ion Battery 1
Power cord: Country Pack North America with Line cord & 65W AC

phr · #9 Post by **phr** » Tue Aug 26, 2008 9:01 am

One issue with this is it uses ddr3 ram while the x61 uses ddr2. ddr3 is a little bit faster but a lot more expensive, and the max available factory config has 3gb. I don't know the reason for that: 2gb ddr3 sodimms exist so I'd expect you can populate the machine with 4gb. But that's the max, for now. With ddr2, 4gb sodimms are getting affordable ($180 each) and will keep dropping. So with an x61, I believe you can install 8 gig.

dspeed · #10 Post by **dspeed** » Sun Sep 28, 2008 9:18 am

Just pulled the string on an X200 last night and was wondering if i could find a runnable distro, The Hardy live CD distro booted on my T42 and everything just worked. Didn't use it much on the T42, but had trouble w it losing track of USB ports on another imbedded system which sorta soured me.

Most of my stuff has been running Fedora distros, so I'm likely to try that first; I even have a bootable USB-drive version. <g> Will report back.

On the memory side - is plugging a 4 gb DIMM into the X200 being contemplated? Over the years, I've heard that 'x won't work in a laptop', but I populated our old 701C with the next larger size memory module than the specs supported and it ran well for years. Then I tried a 2 gb card in my Intel 'Little Valley' speced at 1 gb and it runs happily as well. (Don'taask me, I'm a chemist ...).

Dave

#11 Post by **archer6** » Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

dspeed wrote:Just pulled the string on an X200 last night and was wondering if i could find a runnable distro,
On the memory side - is plugging a 4 gb DIMM into the X200 being contemplated?

I just installed Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron in the X200 that belongs to a friend and it's working perfectly. (see prior post for config of X200) As far as memory is concerned I don't know why you would want 4GB since Ubuntu handles memory so well (unlike XP). I have 2GB in my Core Duo 2.0GHz ThinkPad and it's fast, stable and reliable. Seems like unless you are doing some really heavy resource intensive work, that 4GB of ram is a big waste of money.

maciejs · #12 Post by **maciejs** » Sun Oct 12, 2008 4:34 pm

Just found a link that is very much related to this thread. May be of interest to some people.

dspeed wrote:Most of my stuff has been running Fedora distros, so I'm likely to try that first; I even have a bootable USB-drive version. <g> Will report back.

Anything interesting so far?

archer6 wrote:Seems like unless you are doing some really heavy resource intensive work, that 4GB of ram is a big waste of money.

My thoughts exactly. I like to be able to do some serious multitasking on my PC, including running virtual machines so 4gb isn't an over-kill, especially if GPU borrows from it. Another thing is that more RAM will mean that system is more future-proof; however you can always add more memory later if there's need for it and prices generally go down with time.

#13 Post by **archer6** » Sun Oct 12, 2008 5:58 pm

maciejs wrote:I like to be able to do some serious multitasking on my PC, including running virtual machines so 4gb isn't an over-kill, especially if GPU borrows from it. Another thing is that more RAM will mean that system is more future-proof; however you can always add more memory later if there's need for it and prices generally go down with time.

I support your thoughts on this. VM environments do draw a lot from memory, so in that case I think 4GB would be smart. Also as you so rightly mentioned future proofing is a very good thing to do as well. Sounds like you are on a good track with this.

Cheers

#14 Post by **archer6** » Sun Oct 12, 2008 6:01 pm

I forgot to mention in my prior post, that I too have installed Ubuntu 8.04.1 on my X200 and the install went perfectly. No issues to sort out at all. WiFi and everything else worked perfectly after a standard clean install. I did however use the 32bit version whereas I noticed the link you posted the OP used the 64 bit version.

Cheers

maciejs · #15 Post by **maciejs** » Thu Oct 16, 2008 2:17 am

and what about 3d hardware acceleration and sleep/hibernation? those two things along with intel 5300 wifi seem to cause a major headache for some people...

#16 Post by **archer6** » Thu Oct 16, 2008 2:28 pm

maciejs wrote:and what about 3d hardware acceleration and sleep/hibernation? those two things along with intel 5300 wifi seem to cause a major headache for some people...

Great Questions! Frankly over the years no matter if it was a windows or mac OS, I've experienced buggy suspend/hibernate performance. Since I really don't _need_ that feature I don't bother with it. As far as 3d hardware acceleration by every indication I may need to look at that. Since my ThinkPad has two hard drives (1-XP, 1-Linux) I'm still doing all my resource intensive design work on the XP side. It's only been a few months since I've setup Linux and while I use it for everything else, I have not had time to do any benchmarking tests yet.

obino · #17 Post by **obino** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 3:05 pm

I have a x200 (7454 cto) with a 5100 intel running debian unstable. I had to use kernel 2.6.27 (careful with the rc version since they have a nasty bug for the wired network) to have the 5100 to be recognized, and I had to pull the firmware from the intel web site.

I haven't played with the 3D yet, so I'm using the vesa xorg driver (which work resonably for what I'm doing), but I got both suspend and hibernate to work nicely: I reboot only to upgrade kernels

Even the base is nicely recognized (somewhat a suprise I always had issued with docks).

cheers

Linux on X200, anyone?

Linux on X200, anyone?

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