Ubuntu 7.10 on the IBM Thinkpad T43p
It just works
Today I've installed Ubuntu 7.10 (gutsy) on my IBM Thinkpad T43p.
I am using Ubuntu on the desktop for a few years now with Windows banned to a virtual machine. On the notebook I've stayed with Windows XP which worked fine. In the past using Linux on the notebook meant trouble with encrypted WLAN connections, missing support for hibernate and problems with notebook specific devices.
After booting the Ubuntu live CD the graphical installer was easily launched and ran without problems. The fresh system booted fine and I was a bit surprised when I logged in: It just works – out of the box:
- Ubuntu recognized the internal WLAN adapter, provided a list of available wireless networks, asked for the WPA key and obtained the network config through DHCP
- Ubuntu asked to install a few updates it discovered on its update site
- the new 3D accelerated desktop (compiz) was enabled by default using the open source drivers for ATI cards
- in Firefox scrolling using the right margin of the touchpad just worked
- and finally: hibernating to disk and resuming did not cause any trouble.
I've kept the original Windows XP installation on a separate disk as I intended to restore it after my short trip to Ubuntu, but it seems I will keep Ubuntu and ban XP to a vmware instance.