Kubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft) Linux on IBM 600x Laptop

Article for Linux-on-Laptops website
Date December 2006

Hardware Components	Status under Linux	Notes
Pentium III Processor (Coppermine), 498 MHz 256k cache	Works	No special procedure required during installation.
13.3in. TFT Display	Works	defaults to 1024 x 768 No special procedure required during installation
Trackpoint	Works	No special procedure required during installation
Keyboard (UK)	Works	No special procedure required during installation
On-board Video	Works	No special procedure required during installation
313MB (64Mb system plus 2x128 PC133 )	Works	No special procedure required during installation
20 GB Hitachi ATA Hard Drive (replacement salvaged from T22)	Works	No special procedure required during installation
Modular Floppy Drive	Not tested	floppy drive lost
Integrated 10/100 Network Card with 56k modem	RJ45 ethernet works, 56kmodem not tested.	No special procedure required during installation
IBM internal CD-ROM Drive	Works	No special procedure required during installation
Lithium-Ion Battery	Missing - mains only!	No special procedure required during installation
Onboard Sound Card	Works	No special procedure required during installation
BT Voyager 220V Router/Modem via RJ45 and Konqueror	Works	No special procedure required during installation
USB memory stick 256Mb	Works	in USB1 socket
LG GSA 2164D external DVR+_RW	Works in USB1 port	Works. Plays DVDs VERY jerkily in half second bursts.

This test using Kernel 2.6.17

Conclusion

Not Recommended for beginners, and in my opinion buggy as a beta. Seems to be too many errors on installing extra apps. Default browser is Konqueror with no codecs or plug-ins at all, so nothing will stream or play, not even BBC radio, without extensive delving into the manual and user forums. This is a barebones distro for the enthusiast, not as a first distro. However it does boot and run fast for surfing, and the Openoffice software runs very well for an old laptop like this.

Installation of Kubuntu 6.10

Source: Single CD from The Linux Man (UK (£1.99) )
F12 to select boot device (DVD ROM) and boot on CD. There have been some complaints in forums about troublesome installations of 6.06 so I used Safe Graphics mode from the start, and it loaded and ran in LiveCD mode perfectly. Clicking on the Install icon started the actual install process.
Note that if you already have O/S you want to keep, e.g. Windows or another Distro, use the partition option that takes the "largest free space available". It also politely reminded me that it would install the Grub on my zero partition, which is where the existing Ubuntu 6.06 resided. The Grub menu was written with Kubuntu options first and Ubuntu options second. Existing Ubuntu swap partition was used.

Detected Hardware

Details.
LG GSA 2164D external USB DVR+_RW - Works with DVD data. Will play movies but very jerkily. DMA seems impossible to enable on USB in Lunux, but my experiences with Ubuntu suggest that even if it could it would still not be smooth on this age of PC.
Sound - Works , but I tried listening to BBC Live Radio. Amarok failed as no decoder was available. I tried Firefox but it also requires RealPlayer to be installed from Firefox/Tools/Extensions/more extensions/RealPlayer. This first meant installing Firefox as this is not pre-installed surprisingly. By the time I got it to work I lost the energy to install the additional plug-ins. Again my experience with Ubuntu 6.06 suggests there would be a lot of work (for a beginner) to get all BBC formats working. (Ref Freespire Linux 1.0.13 - it all works forst time!)
Graphics - only office graphics tried - works fine..
IBM blue function keys Fn/F3 Fn/F4 Fn/F12 do not work. Fn/F7 (toggle screen output) works when it feels like it.

Boot-up Times and other response times

Cold Boot, including log-on of user, 2 minutes 35 seconds. HDD falls silent almost immediately at this point. Hardly a flicker on the LED.
Opening Firefox (not provided!) browser into home page, another 19 seconds.
Open OpenOffice.org into Spreadsheet with 16 worksheets, 42 seconds ( Starting with OpenOfice closed, and double-click on spreadsheet in file browser,)
Remember this is an old 500MHx boiler - pretty impressive I think.
Shut down time 40 seconds. Sometimes freezes and has to be forced off with on/off switch.

Install extra software

Using Applications/Add-Remove, and also Adept package manager - both were very fast (e.g. compared to SuSE Yast2) but Adept almost always gave an error message "error committing changes.....etc" apparently 39% thru the install, although the installs seemed to be OK. I installed Firefox and the messages said it failed at 39%, but it seemed all OK.
Surely Firefox should be pre-installed or on the Add/Remove panel, not deep in the Adept system??
Auto update enabled by default and updates received on day 1.