Right distro for an old Thinkpad T60

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rmcellig
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Right distro for an old Thinkpad T60

#1 Post by rmcellig »

I have an old Thinkpad Lenova T60 that a friend of mine wants me to install linux on for her 15 year old daughter. Her daughter will be doing mostly shocial networking stuff like twitter, facebook, skype etc... I know I can install Pidgin to cover most of her social networking needs. Does Pidgin do Twitter?

What distro would you recomend I install on this laptop that is right for a linux newbie who needs something simple, fast and easy to use (hopefully highly configurable as well.

Immediately I thought of Puppy Linux but I'm sure there are others that I may not be aware of that would work well with the T60. Looking forward to your recomendations!!

starhawk
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#2 Post by starhawk »

That is NOT an old thinkpad, except to "power user" nerds who refresh their hardware every year (or more often). It's got a Core 2 Duo CPU in it, and plenty of RAM.

You could probably put Lighthouse64 or FatDog on there, no problem. I can tell you that Lighthouse64 is still marked as "beta" (and, in my experience, still has a few problems), but I can't say anything about FatDog -- I've never used it.

gerry
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#3 Post by gerry »

I have a T60p, which has (a) the original MS XP, shoved up to one end of the disc, (b) Debian Squeeze, and a Puppy partition where I've tried various Puppies.

Debian works fine, using Gnome desktop, but of course the ATI video driver has to be downloaded and installed seperately (and possibly the wifi firmware as well- can't remember for sure). These seperate downloads are due to Debian's purist views on proprietary software/firmware.

The Puppies I've tried are Exprimo, Slacko, and Wary. All work fine, except for one thing: video resolution. I can only get what I assume is the "native" resolution of the screen - 1680x1050. This would be ok for most people, but I prefer a lower resolution, so that everything on the screen is a bit bigger, and thus more visible/readable. Debian does this with no problem. Wifi works fine with all the Puppies (even Puppy 4.3.1. EDIT: but only xvesa for the display.)

I triple boot using grub4dos installed by one of the Puppies.

And it's not old- date code on a label is 07/08- less than 4 yrs!

Gerry

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#4 Post by Puppyt »

On my 5yo widescreen T60, I have XPpro wasting away unused, because it's dual-booted with 5 Puppy versions (all frugal).

I've just installed Saluki 19 today, but have persistence issues with both Frisbee and panels which I think are known problems that Jemimah and her crew are working on. Keep an eye on that thread :)

MacPup528 and Akita (a series-4 derivative) are also there, working very happily. However, for my mind you can't go past pemasu's derivatives - PolarPup5 (a Lucid/Ubuntu-kinned version) and Exprimo 14 (a Debian-kinned version based on 'Squeeze'). If you check the Exprimo thread you'll see that there are many happy Lenovo users reporting success (http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=70399 errr.... about page 120 of the thread cuts to the chase).

For your specific market, for social networking and detailed help/explanations for users new to Puppy, I recommend you consider 'Legacy OS 4 Mini' at http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=76887. I've been meaning to try it out on the T60...

Check out http://simplicitylinux.org/ for ideas too - I had V 11.10 on the T60 and it was geared with your particular applications in mind - but I've overwritten it with other Puppy bases I plan to develop for my own derivative.

I haven't bothered with the 64-bit /PAE versions of Puppy.
Yet :(

HTH

EDIT: Saluki19 is now working absolutely great in the T60 - I've got all my network/desktop changes persistent between reboots :D
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Monsie
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Right distro for an old Thinkpad T60

#5 Post by Monsie »

Hi rmcellig,

When Lenovo provided Linux support and certification for its Thinkpads, it was with SLED10 on a T60 as mentioned here. Unfortunately, Lenovo ended its support for Suse and the Linux OS only two years later. That said, I have tested OpenSuse 11.4 on my 2007 model Thinkpad R61 and found that it ran very nicely, so you might want to consider it as a possibility if you are looking for a full featured distro with good hardware support and stability.

Monsie
My [u]username[/u] is pronounced: "mun-see". Derived from my surname, it was my nickname throughout high school.

rmcellig
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#6 Post by rmcellig »

First of all I would like to clarify my statement regarding the Lenovo as being old. In my mind, anything older than 2 years is old. I feel this way because technology is moving at such a rapid pace that sometimes it is impossible to keep up with everything going on.

Secondly, I have tried Puppy Linux on the Lenova as well as Ubuntu 11.10 and 12.04 beta, Zorin and Lubuntu. Because I am getting this computer ready for a friend of mine who has never used Linux, I want to make it as easy as possible for her i terms of knowing where everything is, the ability to download whatever software she needs, speed, and stability. My benchmark has always been Ubuntu 10.04. I have this on my Dell Desktop (circa 2001), and although slow at times, works well. I love the ability to drag files and folders to a panel.

I would love it if there is a current distro out there that would have roughly the same functionality as 10.04, and will be around for a while, and is easily maintainable for a newbie.

Now, this person has an iMac that is used by the family. She ha also used PC's before. She will mainly be doing IM stuff, so Pidgin would be a must including the Twitter plugin. I have no problems with that. My problem is finding the right distro.

Keep the ideas and suggestions coming so that maybe I can try a distro out I never used before based on my needs mentioned above.

Thanks!!

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rcrsn51
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#7 Post by rcrsn51 »

rmcellig wrote:Now, this person has an iMac that is used by the family. She ha also used PC's before. She will mainly be doing IM stuff, so Pidgin would be a must including the Twitter plugin. I have no problems with that. My problem is finding the right distro.!
My benchmark has always been Ubuntu 10.04.
So why not give her Ubuntu? She may be more comfortable with it than Puppy.

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jemimah
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#8 Post by jemimah »

Saluki is designed with this type of hardware and user in mind.
It's xfce, pretty well polished by now, and about to be released.

I've been meaning to add more pidgin plugins to the repo. If you want them soon, just remind me.

All you should need to add is the browser she prefers. The included midori should be used as a backup browser only, because it's somewhat unstable.

rmcellig
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#9 Post by rmcellig »

I have settled on Zorin OS which I think is based on 11.04 Ubuntu. Seems like she should be able to navigate quite easily. We'll see but for now, it's Zorin OS. I would use Ubuntu 10.04 but in a year, it will have run it's course as an OS.

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James186282
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#10 Post by James186282 »

I have Lucid 5.2.8-004 running on my T60 and it works very well.

I also cringed when you said it was "old"

Its the best machine I've owned but.... We are not rolling in $. I bought it on EBay from a gent who described it as a "craptop" meaning its not the very latest thing. SIGH...

I think the only thing that took a while was getting video working right. There are a number of different "card types" for the T60 and I kept trying to make Lucid run the wrong driver *Operator error. DO check the model number and find out whats inside (From the Lenove site.

One problem that I still have is the internal modem - If you (or anyone) can figure out how to get the internal modem / fax to work I would be very thankful!
Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer.
Art is everything else we do.
[i]Donald Knuth [/i]

rmcellig
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#11 Post by rmcellig »

I humbly take back what I said regarding the T60. It's just that anything I have that is older than two years is old to me. Even my iMac from late 2006 I consider old. It by no means means that it is not useful anymore. I have a Dell desktop from around 2001 running Ubuntu 10.04 although at times kind of slow. When I run puppy on it, it is fast! :)

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