Re: question concerning T42 and the IBM sale
* justin joseph <justinjoseph007@gmail.com> [2006 May 12 23:26 -0500]:
> hello,
>
> I am planning to buy an IBM thinkpad T42 from the US. I have stayed
> in the southermost part of India and have never moved from here. I
> intend to ask my wife to get the laptop for me, she has currently gone
> to the US.
>
> I understand from the IBM website that a sale is going on and the T42
> with model number 2379R5U is available for 1099 USD. Is this laptop
> and the current price a good buy. I would especially like to know if
> I can install GNU/Linux sarge on it and get all the specific harware
> like the video card working with the right drivers. I don't want to
> get stuck up with generic drivers.
I had a T42 from June of last year to February of this year. I had
KNOPPIX and Debian Sid installed and used Sid the most. Everything
"just worked" and it took a little effort to get ACPI working the way I
wanted it to, but it wasn't too big of a task. The modem worked well
with the non-free Conexant driver and the wireless worked great with the
Madwifi driver.
> The below link is that of the T42 am planning to buy:
> http://www-131.ibm.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?productId=8770329&storeId=10000001&langId=-1&categoryId=2049168&dualCurrId=1000073&catalogId=-840
>From what I see, this model is slighty faster than the one I had.
> I see that the graphics card is ATI radeon 7500, 32Mb. Does this
> card have full compatibility with GNU/Linux and is this card suitable
> and sufficient for me. I intend to use the laptop mostly for
> programming, C programming mostly and not GUI design or programming.
> But would like to have 3d because anyway the card does seem to have
> that capability.
I had Xorg 6.9.0 installed and 3D worked flawlessly.
> I am also concerned whether this laptop is too much out of date and if
> IBM is tricking people into clearing its prehistoric stocks.
For me it had plenty of power (my personal laptop is a T23) and is in no
way prehistoric and I think would be a reliable machine for several
years. It is a nice unit, strongly built, quite light weight
considering its strength and durability.
> I have never owned a laptop like most here and I hope the list
> understands the relevance of the question.
As for installing Linux, I would advise getting a second hard drive as a
warranty claim will most surely require the machine have the original XP
load installed. Based on my experience the odds of a warranty claim
would seem to be low, but one never knows.
At some point I plan on buying a T42 and I still have my hard drive with
Linux on it that I can drop right in.
HTH,
- Nate >>
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