Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake) Linux on IBM T22 Laptop
Article for Linux-on-Laptops websiteDate Aug 2006
Updated Oct 2006 (6.06.1) and Jan 2007
STOP PRESS Feb 2007 - Canonical, and Linspire anounce collaboration Linspire to use Ubuntu as its base, and Ubuntu to use CNR!
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Hardware Components
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Status under Linux
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Notes
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| Pentium III "coppermine" Processor, 900 MHz. BIOS upgraded in 2005 to latest available. | Works | No special procedure required during installation. |
| 14.1 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 and Sound | Works | No special procedure required during installation |
| 512MB (system maximum), SDRAM, 2DIMMs | Works | No special procedure required during installation |
| 60 GB Fujitsu ATA Hard Drive (replacement) | 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, modem not tested. | No special procedure required during installation |
| IBM HITACHI GD-S200 DVD-ROM Drive | Works | No special procedure required during installation |
| Lithium-Ion Battery | Works, needs replacing! | No special procedure required during installation |
| Onboard Sound Card | Works | No special procedure required during installation |
| HP3845 printer | Works | install with Gnome printer function |
| BT Voyager 205 Router/Modem via RJ45 and Firefox | Works on AOL Silver, and on BT Total Broadband | No special procedure required during installation |
| BT Voyager 220V Router/Modem via RJ45 and Firefox | Out of the box, works on BT Total Broadband only (locked) | No special procedure required during installation |
| Optional Voyager 105 ADSL winmodem with ECIADSL drivers (Download source drivers and synch files from Flashtux ECIADSL | Works | use standard configure/make/install process. Run all eciadsl commands under sudo. Settings for AOL here |
| Belkin F5U222 USB 2.0 Notebook card | Works | No special procedure required during installation Supports two USB2.0 devices. |
| USB memory stick 256Mb | Works | in Belkin card |
| Nikon Coolpix 2100 Camera | Works | In Belkin Card. Seen as a disk drive. |
| Logitech Marble Mouse | Works | In USB 1.1 socket. No special procedure required during installation |
| Canon 9950F scanner | Does NOT Work | No driver in Linux kernel |
Conclusion
Highly Recommended, especially for the Linux enthusiast! Apart from the usual lack of pre-installed codecs and plug-ins, I can't fault it, and it is frequently the top most popular distro. It is a clean leading-edge distro that is also well documented and behaves well. If you don't want to delve into repositories for codecs etc so you can listen to web-radio, maybe you should try Linspire/Freespire first which is a slower but more Windoze-like distro well back from the leading edge which contains many commercial codecs pre-installed.However there are a number of sites which try to automate the download and installation of these elusive codecs. One good source of the additional codecs for Ubuntu is Automatix
As you would expect with an IBM machine allegedly designed for Linux as well as Windoze , Ubuntu 6.06 does everything Win 2000 does as a "desktop" and approximately twice as fast. For a Linux Newbie like me that was useful. Ubuntu is so popular however that the user forum takes hundreds of questions a day and the enthusiasts cannot always answer them all in detail, so I also recommend a good book like Ubuntu Hacks (pub. O'Reilly). You will need the forum for updated repository addresses, especially for legally ambiguous things like codecs.
In comparison, when installing on a freshly formatted drive, Win 2000 needed extensive IBM device driver downloads from the IBM site, whereas Ubuntu had all the drivers I needed for T22 and my peripherals (apart from Canon 9500F scanner but that is Canon's problem). XP of course installs cleanly, but runs like a lame dog even with 512Mb.
Installation of Ubuntu 6.06 LTS
Source: Single CD from UK Magazine Linux User and Developer.Soon after switching on, hit F12 several times to select boot device (DVD ROM) and boot on CD. There have been some complaints in forums about troublesome installations. This was no exception taking four attempts to load. It has since been recommended to try the "Safe Graphics" mode on the initial menu.
The standard option installs a live cd with an install option. Once finally loaded fully through to the Gnome desktop, the install option icon appears. I double clicked this and it went through first time. 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". Also note that the screen to confirm partition options is disabled for about 30 seconds to ensure you read it, so keep clicking on the button til it works!
I would, however, recommend to first defragment any Windoze that you have installed. Having re-installed several distros since first writing this article, I would also recommend to manually repartition the disk with GParted (free download) and reinstall Windoze on FAT32 rather than NTFS, if it allows you to. This lets you read and write to the Windoze partition from Linux. I installed Windows 2000 Pro into 6Gb on my C drive, and loaded Ubuntu into the remaining 13 Gb - I allowed the installer to choose sizes for Linux , Swap and /home partitions.
Detected Hardware
Details.IBM HITACHI GD-S200 DVD-ROM - Works with DVD data. Will play non CSS scrambled DVD movies but sometimes rather jerkily. I originally thought this was because the processor and drive speeds are not quite up to it, however my next trial OS was Freespire which played DVDs perfectly smoothly. Jerky DVDs is a subject which is very common on the Ubuntu forums. Be prepared to spend some time on this subject. In any event you need to install CSS decoders (e.g. libdvdcss2) to play commercial DVDs in most free distros. Details from the user forum, or from sites like Automatix (see below) as it may not be legal where you live.
Sound - Works well, including Live Radio. However no plug-ins are pre-installed so it requires RealPlayer or similar to be installed.
Graphics - only office graphics tried - works well. I have no games.
Web video, trailers etc - need to install RealPlayer and Flash Extensions. Some Flash videos will not play with the current Flash version, e.g. 9.yahoo.com which needs Flash 8.
In the end I got web sound and graphics working after installing everything on offer from Automatix
Volume Control in Ubuntu and the volume adjust keys at top of keyboard seem to be only partially linked, and to get max volume, e.g. to power my sennheiser FM headphones, it seems to need both types of control to be maxed separately.
Power Management - Has basic power save functions such as switch off devices after time period, and options for lid close.
I tried Suspend to RAM (sleep) by activating it in the /etc/default/acpi-support file and setting the suspend on lid close. Unfortunately it went into such a deep sleep that it took the battery removal and a kiss from Prince Charming to wake it up again. Forget suspend on this (and most) laptops unless you want to put in a lot of work. Heck, it's only 90 seconds to boot up in Ubuntu, so switch it off, and cut the CO2.
IBM blue function keys Fn/F3 Fn/F4 Fn/F12 do not work. Fn/F7 (toggle screen output) works when it feels like it.
Thinkpad button - software loaded automatically but I don't know where to use it. Seems to do nothing for me.
Boot-up Times and other response times
Cold Boot, including log-on of user, 1 minutes 45 seconds. HDD falls silent almost immediately at this point. Hardly a flicker on the LED.Opening Firefox browser into home page, another 10 seconds.
Open OpenOffice.org into Spreadsheet with 16 worksheets, 31 seconds ( Starting with OpenOfice closed, and double-click on spreadsheet in file browser,)
Shut down time 24 seconds.
Compare this to Windows 2000 on same laptop; takes 3 minutes 36 seconds to get past virus checker startup, and into desktop, and HDD is still reading constantly for some many minutes after. I did try Win XP but although it worked, the old gal never stopped reading the HDD - ever!
Install extra software
Openoffice.org 2.0 is pre-installed which of course is well on a par with MS Office, and reads and writes MS Office files. However I needed Quanta+ and GFTP for my website maintenance. Both are in the Applications/Add-Remove menu which is the simplest place to start with any additional apps. If what you seek is not there try the System/Administration/Synaptic Package Manager. If at first you don't find it, try enabling additional repositories which is another panel in Synaptic.Software addition was very well behaved and fast (e.g. compared to SuSE Yast2). Auto update enabled by default and updates received at least weekly. (Jan 2007 - for example I just received a brand new version of Openoffice.org 2.0.2)
Additional material
Date Oct 2006</>I decided to upgrade the hard disk to 60GB/5400rpm in place of the 20GB/4200rpm disk. I have spoken to people who have successfully fitted 100GB/7200rpm. It's a simple operation. Having chosen the disk from Maplin's store, I first grounded my wrists with a length of bare wire connected to the radiator pipe in the room to reduce any static. DO NOT wire yourself to the earth pin of the mains, because if the wire slips to the live pin you are DEAD.
Remove the large screw under the laptop below the three audio sockets. With the laptop lid OPEN pull out the cover, containing the three sockets, which has the diskdrive attached to it. Then remove the four screws holding the disk to the thin alloy "caddy". The caddy may be stuck to the disk body with double sided tape, so carefully prise it off. Reverse the procedure to install the new disk. That's it.
Wow - the new disk is so quiet compared to the worn out one!
By this time there were hundreds of updates to v 6.06 so I got v 6.06.1 from The Linux Man. There were only 40 updates after installation. I used the Safe Graphics Mode installation and all went smoothly. Boot time improved to 90 seconds but most other timings are similar.
The old 20 GB disk I installed in a USB mini enclosure. It auto mounted when plugged into the Belkin USB2 port. I installed QtParted from the Applications Add/remove menu to format it to ext3 for general use on Linux.
HPLIP version 1.6.12 was installed from Sourceforge which needed the manual compilation, make and make-install as the self-installing script did not work (stalled). According to Synaptic, HPLIP was already installed but I couldn't find how to get to it. It provided a good interface to the HP Deskjet 3845 printer including showing ink levels, except that Ubuntu seem to have messed up user access to CUPS panel. In the end I started to "lose" the printer every so often. To be safe I reinstalled Ubuntu and steered clear or HPLIP!
Fixing a zapped Ubuntu Master Boot Record!
When installing Freespire in addition to Ubuntu I forgot to un-check the Write MBR in the installer advanced menu. This disabled my boot record for Ubuntu on hd0 and put a new one on hd4 making it impossible to boot Ubuntu. I first tried adding an entry on Freespire's /boot/grub/menu-normal.lst copied from the old menu.lst in my Ubuntu partition. It failed with file not found.I then Googled the problem and came up with thie GRUB reinstatement fix.
First boot up with Ubuntu CD as a Live session.
In Ubuntu Terminal
sudo grub
> find /boot/grub/stage1
this gave me two locations, (hd0,1) and (hd0,4). The 0,1 was the one I wanted reinstated. so next command is
> root (hd0,1)
> setup (hd0)
> quit
