Transitioning to Linux on Thinkpad T510

I’ve been running various Linux distros on my non-primary computers for ages. Last month I tried transitioning to openSUSE on my primary laptop. In the end I returned to MS W7 because of trivial annoyances with KDE. Fast forward to Christmas and I managed to get myself compromised by a script kiddie. Since I was going to reformat anyway I decided to make the transition full time to Linux. So I bought a new HDD and put ubuntu on it.

This wasn’t the easiest install I’ve done but it was far the worst.

The open source nvidia drivers were unusable due to a nasty bug with screen brightness. The proprietary drivers faired marginally better but required editing xorg.conf to enable managing the screen brightness.

Battery life has been reduced, haven’t actually measured it but I definitely need to plug it in more often.

Perhaps the worst part is that my university appears to be doing something odd with apt-get repositories which causes hash mismatches on the four primary ubuntu repositories. I had to update two of my computers using my cell phone connection.

Of course it wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t list the many positives I’ve ran into. Like no BS when switching to Japanese. Windows is really bad about this, if you don’t have “Professional”,”Ultimate” or server editions of windows you’ll have to resort to hacks to alter the localization. Gnome has a simple GUI to change localization within three clicks and a log out. The coverage of the translation is also superior.

Then there is the use of repositories, really not much to say here that wouldn’t be preaching to the choir.

Now if only school was going so smoothly, I’m exhausted from 7am mornings which wouldn’t be so bad if everyone else in dorm would go to bed on time. This plus the script kiddie has consumed the effort I was planning to put into foomatic. I’m now coming down with a cold as if I wasn’t unproductive enough.

2 thoughts on “Transitioning to Linux on Thinkpad T510

  1. George

    Just checking to see if you still have your t510 up and running. If so is it still running linux?
    I just acquired a t510 and I’m considering installing opensuse 12 or perhaps 13.
    I thought I’d see if you had any recommendations or other suggestions.
    Thanks. George

    Reply
    1. danieru Post author

      Hey George, sorry for the late reply I have comments set to manual approval and haven’t checked the site since I wrote last week’s Friday Report.

      I no longer use the T510, about a year ago I bought a X1 Carbon, but when I did use it Ubuntu ran perfect. Nowadays linux support should be better than ever.

      Reply

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