Jeff Malterre

Well, I picked up a new Thinkpad X61 and it quickly became my favorite notebook. It’s extremely small and light-weight (weighing only 2.7lbs). One of the reasons I went with IBM is mainly because everything works out of the box with Linux. This first thing I did was create a complete partition backup image. I was pretty happy with the notebook’s performance with Vista, however I don’t like Vista…

I installed Ubuntu 7.10 via a net-install disc (able to do this with UltraBase docking station.) Generally speaking, everything important worked without any additional configuration on my part. Some features didn’t work, so I did some research to get them working (wasn’t hard.)

Overall, I’m very happy. The only thing I’m worried about is the temperature. I guess you can’t expect perfect air ventilation with such a small notebook. One thing I did read (and also confirm) is that the wireless card generates a lot of heat. It’s located roughly around the area you’re right hand would rest while typing. It becomes so hot, that I’d rather disable the built in Intel wireless card, and use one of my wireless PC Cards.

I read a few people saying that sound did not work out of the box, but I believe they were using older kernel versions. Make sure you use the latest possible kernel available to you. On Ubuntu 7.10, the only thing I had to do was change the GNOME volume from MIC to PCM.

Here are some references I used to help get things working:

Ubuntu Gusty Gibbon 7.10 on X61s - forum.thinkpads.org
On demand frequency governor, CPU frequency scaling, tap-to-click, middle mouse wheel for scrolling, and enabling Compiz Fusion with Intel X3100 graphics.

X61 – thinkwiki.org
A lot of great information here.

I will update this post when new updates are available.