Linux/TP42: If you want it to work out of the box...

[Edward Mendelson]

A few days, when I posted a message about problems with Fedora Core 3 and a TP42, one reply (not particularly helpful), said: "If you want it to work out of the box, stick to Windows."

That comment seems to me to be unfair to Linux, and I've been trying a few freely downloadable distros with my T42 2373JTU (Radeon 7500, Atheros b/g wireless chip, no Bluetooth, no fingerprint reader). Here are some reports:

SUSE 9.2 (free FTP-based download): everything worked out of the box, including wireless. After using the configuration program, suspend/resume worked perfectly. (Only problem: I can connect to Windows machines on my network by IP address, not name, but presumably that needs only a minor fix in the settings.)

Ubuntu 4.10: didn't get a chance to test everything, but wireless worked out of the box, also networking. Very impressed by this.

What didn't work out of the box: Xandros Desktop 3 - Atheros wireless not supported. Fedora Core 3 - Atheros wireless not supported.

Any additions to this list would of course be welcome.

[stgreek]

A few days, when I posted a message about problems with Fedora Core 3 and a TP42, one reply (not particularly helpful), said: "If you want it to work out of the box, stick to Windows."

That comment seems to me to be unfair to Linux, and I've been trying a few freely downloadable distros with my T42 2373JTU (Radeon 7500, Atheros b/g wireless chip, no Bluetooth, no fingerprint reader). Here are some reports:

SUSE 9.2 (free FTP-based download): everything worked out of the box, including wireless. After using the configuration program, suspend/resume worked perfectly. (Only problem: I can connect to Windows machines on my network by IP address, not name, but presumably that needs only a minor fix in the settings.)

Ubuntu 4.10: didn't get a chance to test everything, but wireless worked out of the box, also networking. Very impressed by this.

What didn't work out of the box: Xandros Desktop 3 - Atheros wireless not supported. Fedora Core 3 - Atheros wireless not supported.

Any additions to this list would of course be welcome.

Gentoo works perfectly, but there is no "out of the box", since the distro has no "auto-installer". But using the standard installation manual, everything works on a Thinkpad (and you have greater control over acpi/apm stuff than in desktop distros). Slackware also works fine.

[toolshed]

I dont think it is unfair to say Linux is not an out of the box solution I have been using linux forever now. Hardware has always been a problem, it has came a heck of long way since RH5,6,7 or whatever.

However, if you willing to ask questions..like you did then I am sure someone will help you. Linux has lots of hardware support, but if you are looking to click an exe and then for it to magically work...then you are using the wrong OS.

Linux works out of the box for most stuff....the problem is that Driver vendors dont release drivers...and our linux community has to create them...Not everyone packages RPMs, not ever distro packages the drivers(because of various reasons) will you quit using RH because it does not have MP3 support....

Linux is an OS that you tweak....not ever distro will have everything that want....that is the reason there are so many distros....people design and package them differently.

"A few days, when I posted a message about problems with Fedora Core 3 and a TP42, one reply (not particularly helpful), said: "If you want it to work out of the box, stick to Windows.""

Well, I hate to say it man....but I went out of my way to help you. Linux is not a OS, you just give up on and say I cant figure it out.....Linux is not point and click...it is terminal base OS and there is still alot of hacking that you have to do....But everyone in the Linux community well help solve whatever problem you have as long as you put forth an effort.....Windows is a magic box, but if you want to know how the magic works...then there is Linux....simple as that.


BTW, there is thinkpad-linux sites, I mean their howtos to setup your T42 with Fedora....I mean how much out of the box do you want.....

Sorry, if I sound like I am ranting, but I just dont understand where you are coming from.....Linux is hands on. That is where the power of Linux comes from...it is 100% configurable....and most everything can be hacked or tweaked.....

[Edward Mendelson]

No offence meant, and I hope none taken. I realize that you were trying to help, and I'm certainly used to spending a lot of time setting up Linux (evidence: my page on configuring DOSEMU in RedHat 7 at http://wpdos.org/linux.html, still, I think, one of the two best guides to using it)

But I was hoping to get an answer to this specific question: "Which distros work out of the box on a T42?" It turns out that the answer is "At least two, SUSE and Ubuntu." The answer isn't "None; you'll have to do some manual labor to get it working."

Where it's necessary to do hands-on labor to get things working, I'm perfectly willing to do it, but I was fairly confident that Linux had matured to the point where all the hardware on a TP42 would work without further effort.

There were days when I was perfectly willing to go through this kind of hands-on labor, but now I'd rather not reinvent the wheel if someone else has made wheels that work perfectly well. I hope the information about SUSE and Ubuntu is useful to other people also. A lot of other people on the forum had already recommended SUSE, and they were right.

P.S. After doing a FTP-install of SUSE over the weekend (it took half a day for the files to download completely to the installer), I now see that there's a full SUSE 9.2 DVD attached to the cover of the UK Magazine Linux Format. Certainly worth having for anyone who doesn't want to download 2-3GB.

[jdhurst]

I wouldn't get too hung up about out-of-the box. Any Windows system needs care in setting up so as to work reliably. So too it is with Linux. My take (with RH6 - 9, Gentoo, and SuSE 9.0) is that later Linux distros are not too bad at installation. I could never get Gentoo working satisfactorily (but I am fairly sure that was a VMware incompatibility). ... JD Hurst

[Edward Mendelson]

Oh, I'm not hung up on it. I just prefer it to work basically well. Even Ubuntu needed some tweaking, and I spent a lot of time on partitioning in its text-based interface, but it's always nice to get at least the hardware working from the start.

One benefit for me is that I finally spent some time with a Debian-based distro - Ubuntu. DOSEMU set itself up instantly; only minor tweaking was needed to get rid of a startup message. Nice to be able to get to work so quickly...