SuSE 10.1 Linux on IBM T22 Laptop

Nov 2006 - Following the reported collaborationbetween Novell and Microsoft, which I believe is an unnecessary capitulation which could undermine the position of other Linux producers, I cannot in all conscience recommend OpenSuSE to anyone who loves Linux and what it stands for. However the information below is there for those who want it.

T22 specification:

UK keyboard version of this corporate quality laptop, manufactured approx 2000, used obsolete corporate kit. BIOS upgraded in 2005 from IBM site.
900MHz, 512Mb RAM, 20Gb 4500 rpm HDD, one USB 1 port. With IBM port replicator.
Additional equipment Belkin PCMCIA hub giving two powered USB 2.0 sockets. BT Voyager 205 Router/ADSL modem on AOL, and later on BT Total.
Optional Voyager 105 ADSL winmodem with ECIADSL drivers

Conclusion

I would give this 6 out of 10. As you would expect from IBM, SuSE 10.1 and T22 does almost everything Win 2000 does as a "desktop" and approximately twice as fast as Win 2000. SuSE 10.1 has all the drivers I needed for T22 and my peripherals (apart from Canon 9500F scanner but that is Canon's problem), unlike Win 2K which needed downoads. Mobile computing, suspend etc, probably needs more work.
But the YAst speed and complexity problems eventually made me go elsewhere.

Installation of SuSE 10.1

Source: 5 CD set from UK Magazine Linux Format. Additional 6th CD downloaded as .iso for software such as Quanta Plus.
F12 to select boot device (DVD ROM) and boot on CD1. Straight installation with no hitches.
Dual boot using Grub bootloader: Windows 2000 Pro in 6Gb C drive. SuSE 10.1 in 13 Gb - I formatted the 13 GB and allowed the installer to choose sizes for Linux (4.9GB), Swap (761MB) and /home (7.0GB) partitions.

Detected Hardware

Screen - defaults to 1024 x 768
RJ45 ethernet port - Works well.
BT Voyager 205 Router/Modem via RJ45 and Firefox - Works well.
Optional BT Voyager 105 ADSL Modem via USB - also Works well. (drivers in distro, Settings for AOL here)
IBM SONY_CD_RW_CRX700E CD-RW - Works well
IBM HITACHI GD-S200 DVD-ROM - Works with DVD data, not tried it with DVD movies (I don't own any!)
Belkin F5U222 USB 2.0 Notebook card - Works, detects both channels and detects all devices plugged in:-
- HP 3845 printer on USB
- USB memory stick (mounts on Media directory
- Logitech Marble mouse (USB 2 and USB 1)
- Nikon Coolpix 2100 camera (mounts on Media directory)
Canon 9500F scanner - Not supported by Linux at all. Does NOT work.
Sound - Works well, including Live Radio, but you need to wind-up all the volume controls as they all seem to start out low.
Graphics - only office graphics tried - works well. I have no games.
Power Management - Works well, though battery is only half capacity due to age. Although SuSE is supposed to have the best ACPI suppot of all, suspend to Disk fails and does not wake up properly. I have to wake up with the power button and then it reboots back into SuSE but fails with ACPI exception AE_NOT_FOUND, moon light flashes.
Suspend to RAM not tried but most unlikely to work.
Fn/F3 and Fn/F4 do not work. Fn/F7 works (select monitor or screen). Fn/F12 does not work.
Thinkpad button - software loaded automatically but I don't know where to use it. Seems to do nothing.
Centre trackpoint mouse button works. Tap pointer not enabled, not that I use it anyway.

Boot-up Times and other response times

Cold Boot, including log-on of user, 2 minutes 45 seconds. Open Firefox browser into home page, 10 seconds. Open OpenOffice.org into Writer, 20 seconds. (SuSE 10.1 has faster Novell version of OOo)

Additional applications using YaST

Yast is VERY SLOW, and often froze; and complex too - e.g. do I use the "Online Update", or the "Online Update Config", or the "Online Update Setup"? - but that is a feature of SuSE 10.1 until they redesign it.