My New Laptop - ThinkPad x61s
6 November 2007
Since my Macbook was stolen in July, I have been meaning to buy a new laptop since the insurance money came, but I just never got around to it, until last week.
I am a fan of small and mobile 'legacy-free' laptops, think 'notebook' rather than 'desktop replacement'. I go around the city on foot, so weight and size are really important to me.
A 'legacy-free' laptop means that it is free of all the random stuff that is not important any more, such as a parallel port (for 1980-90s printers), a serial port (for even older devices) and PS/2 connectors (for 1980-90s mice). All these have been replaced by USB. Floppy disks have also long been surpassed by USB sticks and Ethernet as a means of transferring files. Not having these legacy ports allows the weight to be far less.
So to cut a short story shorter, I quite liked the X series ThinkPads that I had seen around, these are the lightest ThinkPads you can get in the west (they also make a really tiny one for Japan only).
Originally designed in Milan and based on a Japanese lunchbox, the Thinkpad is an enduring icon of computing history. After the fall of civilisation, the giant radioactive cockroaches will be playing Enemy Territory on their Thinkpads.
Hands up if you are thinking, "I've been reading this stupid blog for two and a half years, and we still haven't seen any exciting bedroom action, just a load of rants about Linux and technology". Well not to disappoint, here are some exclusive bedroom pics....
If you are wondering why the next photo is in a strange orange light, that is because it is evening and I turned the flash off so we are just left with the ecological low-watt light bulb:
Hardware
So it is a ThinkPad x61s, which I bought from the Linux Emporium, a local business that sells hardware that works with Linux.
This particular laptop has a 120GB Hard Drive and 1 GB RAM. Everything else is basically Intel all the way: Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, Intel Graphics, Intel Wireless card, Intel Gigabit Ethernet port, Intel soundchip and so on.
Pre-installed OS
When I bought the Macbook, it was my main hobby for a week to install Linux and get everything working on it, and there were a few things I never did get to work.
In contrast, being from the Linux Emporium, the ThinkPad came installed with Ubuntu 7.10, an impressive feat since Gutsy Gibbon came out only a couple of days before I bought it, and everything just works: wireless, the external projector port, suspend and hibernate. I don't know how much that is to do with the guys at the LE or because the ThinkPad has far more standard components, probably a bit of both.
The laptop came with a choice of both GNOME and KDE, and a user account was setup already for me. On the desktop was a letter (350 words) from the LE giving helpful instructions about how to use the laptop.
So in summary, I'm really happy with my laptop so far. On the topic of ThinkPads on Linux, I found a cool site called the ThinkWiki, it is a community of ThinkPad owners using Linux on their ThinkPads.
1 andylockran says...
I must say that my experience with the ThinkPad and GNU/Linux was also a really good one. Everything is very generic, which means it's really easy to find drivers.. intel most of the way. I think the one I had was an X22 - which was really nice and small. Perfect laptop. I now have the compaq nc4000. am writing this comment on it actually - stuck between junctions 26 and 27 after a nasty multiple vehicle pile-up.. I may be a while!
Posted at 6:24 p.m. on November 6, 2007
2 Simon Stanford says...
So no gentoo for the ThinkPad then?
Are you a convert to Ubuntu?
Why not go the whole hog and use KDE, get the full experience :o)
Posted at 7:30 p.m. on November 6, 2007
3 Zeth says...
>So no gentoo for the ThinkPad then?
Well I can't use up all the fun in one post can I? :)
> Why not go the whole hog and use KDE
Again, watch this space for my thoughts of KDE apps!
Posted at 10:06 p.m. on November 6, 2007