Current mood:	satisfied
Current music:	So Beautiful - Dashboard Confessional
Entry tags:	geeky, review

Ubuntu Feisty on the Thinkpad X60
VMware recently bought me one of the new Core 2 Duo revisions of the X60 with 2 gigs of RAM. Although it came with XP installed, that wasn't of very much use to me as a Linux developer so I installed the latest version of Ubuntu Linux on it instead. To ensure the security of any source code on the machine, I am storing it inside a TryeCrypt disk.

Unlike the last time I tried running Linux on a Thinkpad (Fedora Core on a T42p over 2 years ago) or Ubuntu on a laptop (Dapper on an Aluminium Powerbook about a year ago), this time both power management (suspend-to-RAM and hibernate) and wireless networking actually work. The UI for connecting to a wireless network isn't as intuitive as that of OS X but no worse than that of Windows XP. Then again, OS X Tiger doesn't allow explicit hibernation.

The relatively low XVGA screen resolution (1024x768) on the 12 inch LCD has been frustrating after getting used to the high res displays I have on my desktop systems at home (1920x1200) and work (1600x1200x2) but I suppose that's the price of portability - the X60 is incredibly light at barely over 3 lbs - and a long battery life (nearly 5 hours on a regular battery). I can even deal with the lack of a touchpad. My only real gripe is that I can't adjust the screen brightness without crashing X11.

Update: I was able to get the screen brightness adjustment buttons on the keyboard to work (by unloading a kernel module that was causing the problem) but have discovered that the ethernet card drivers don't seem to like it when I suspend the system.