[Wylug-help] Lenovo R61 mini-review

[John Leach]

Hi Chris,

thanks for the update.

I went for "robustness" over spec and went for a Thinkpad R61 (NA01EUK)
in the end which I received on Friday - only just really had chance to
play with it today though.  I put robustness in quotes as I really have
no idea how less robust the N(1|2)00 is - it's all just marketing crap
if you can't actually lay your hands on some kit to test.  The R61 is
rather more pricey than the N100 I was looking at originally - I can't
help but feel maybe it wasn't the right decision.  Buyers remorse ;)

http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Lenovo_ThinkPad_R61_7732_NA01EUK/version.asp

My experience so far:

Ubuntu Feisty would not boot to a live CD without changing SATA mode to
"Compatibility" in the BIOS.

Latest Ubuntu Gobuntu did fine (as did the latest Gutsy tribe cd)

Graphics work perfectly after re-running the configuration and setting
the correct default resolution (1280x800).  The Intel GMA X3100 hardware
is very well supported due to Intel's policy of releasing specs and
funding development (though strangely not on their wireless card, see
below) so it worked in Feisty and Gutsy with all the fancy compiz
graphics too, all with freedom!

Wireless works fine, but I had to install proprietary drivers for this
for some reason - which annoys me as moving away from proprietary ATI
drivers was one factor in my new purchase.  I missed that when
researching -  I do hope it doesn't cause me any problems :/

Wired works fine.

Bluetooth apparently works (is detected and is happily advertising
itself to the world as we speak).

Sound worked on Feisty but not on Gutsy - your fix worked for me too,
thanks very much (many of the other fixes I found didn't work).  Btw,
you don't have to add it to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base which might get
overwritten by an upgrade.  The same line works fine in /etc/modules

Not tried the fingerprint scanner.  I might avoid that - it would be
inconvenient enough for someone to steal my laptop without having them
need to sever my finger in order to use it too.

Suspend and resume works very well - very fast.  My previous laptop was
a pain about this, and often didn't wake the graphics back up after
resume.

Having said that, I have managed to freeze up the machine by changing to
virtual terminal 9 accidentally.  Wondering how stable the graphics
drivers are :/

Runs very quiet and very cool too btw, though my last laptop sounded
like 6 helicopters with streamers tied to the rotor blades and gave out
enough heat energy to power several other smaller laptops so maybe I'm
biased.  Battery life has proved to be pretty awesome too so far.

I didn't agree to the Vista license and have wiped it's partition now
and am hoping to find time to attempt a refund on this from Lenovo.
I'll keep you updated about this if I get around to it.

I hope this is useful too!

John.


On Sun, 2007-09-16 at 10:06 +0100, Chris Myers wrote:
> Thank guys for your replys.
> 
> I finally made my choice & went for the Lenovo 3000 N200 (TY2B4UK):
> 
> http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=4LF3&SearchType=1&SearchTerms=3000+n200&PageMode=3&SearchKey=All&SearchMode=All&NavigationKey=0
> 
> The specs were similar. I sacrificed the 'Thinkpad' brand robustness for 
> a slightly higher spec. I am very pleased with the results.
> 
> In case people are thinking of getting a new laptop here are the details:
> 
> Ubuntu Feisty would not boot to a live CD. However people report that 
> the alternative install works fine (I never tried it).
> 
> Ubuntu Gutsy (tribe 5 alpha) boots to a live CD & installs fine:
> 
> Grahics work perfectly with the native resolution of 1680x1050 using the 
> open source nv driver - If you want to play with compiz-fusion, the 
> proprietary driver works fine too.
> 
> Wireless LAN works perfectly.
> 
> Wired LAN works perfectly.
> 
> Bluetooth works perfectly.
> 
> Webcam works perfectly - In Ekiga, set:
> 
> 	edit>preferences>devices>video devices>V4L2
> 
> Sound does not work out-of-the-box, but this is simply fixed by adding 
> the following to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base
> 
> options snd-hda-intel single_cmd=1 model=lenovo
> 
> The fingerprint scanner is not recognised, but there are projects such 
> as bioapi & thinkfinger. I have not had time to try these out yet.
> 
> 
> I hope this is useful.
> 
> Chris.

-- 
http://johnleach.co.uk