Ubuntu Linux on my IBM Thinkpad

Linux for human beings

Originally uploaded by Santosh Dawara.

More pictures of the Ubuntu Live CD booting up on my Thinkpad.

I am very impressed by Ubuntu. After watching or hearing of several friends installing the International Linux distribution, I thought I would give it a try. I got the Live CD of their website, burnt it to Disc and booted up. The boot up process was a little slower than I expected – being a Live CD, that was quickly forgiven. I was most impressed by the GNome Window Manager.

Pleasures: Apart from the fact that its Linux and is Open? None yet.

Basics:

• The Ubuntu installation ships with GNome optimized for the OS.
• Clean fonts, professional icons, great user experience.
• Ubuntu invite hardware feedback after you install, the feedback is used to update a HW DB.
• The O.S is quick and responsive unlike older versions of Linux where you ‘felt’ like you were using a WindowManager over the O.S.
• Wireless network access was configured out of the box
• My external NTFS-formatted drive was immediately mounted over USB.
• Hard drive tools now show the drive size in MB instead of blocks.
• Most Thinkpad laptop management functionality was available to me, including power source details.

Dissapointments:

• Mp3′s won’t play in the player that ships with Ubuntu (RhythmBox 0.9.0 for GNome).
• My Thinkpad T43 scroll button was inactive. I probably will have to figure out what needs to be done to get it work.

I have been using Linux since 1999 thanks to Praveen who introduced me to it.