for months on end, i've been scouring the Web for a great laptop deal, preferably a Lenovo-branded one, that would allow me to put Linux in. last year, Lenovo themselves had a SUSE Linux series that kinda straddled the thousand dollar price fence, but that seems to have disappeared eventually. i was either stuck buying a brand new one directly from Lenovo at preferred specs, costing much more than a grand, or find a reputable eBay dealer who sells fairly new Thinkpads. i even flirted with System76 for awhile.
the first laptop i bought back in 2003 was a T42 costing the same prices as today brand new for their replacement models. to date its monitor died due to the humid Philippine weather, but i would say its still running. i've gotten used to the IBM quality and i quite rightly use an R60 at work. however, i got tired of lugging it back and forth every working day, and longed for the day that i got a new one.
so, with the economy tanking and frugality is the name of the game, its quite serendipitous that TigerDirect came out with this promo. ideally, i would like a laptop without an O/S, but it seems Vista is a bane we can never avoid 100%. you can always wipe it out, or install Linux alongside it, which is what i did last night. given my experiences with Windows (yes, XP, even you), i'd rather not have it in my house, thank you. let's just keep it in the office machines.
as soon as i got home, Vista tried to complete the system updates it started when i plugged it in the office network, and couldn't because it wasn't finding my wireless. after a few attempts, i gave up and just used IBM's Access Connections, which found it in less time that you need to read this sentence. stupid, stupid Vista.
now, the shrinking. i need free up some space for Ubuntu, my preferred Linux flavor. my desktop is running Ubuntu for a year now, and my wife has had no issues with it (Flash Media Player on Firefox/YouTube is hit or miss sometimes). for the 160Gb drive, 22 Gb was being used by Vista (22?? WTF?), so that left around 140 Gb. i figured i'd leave around 40 to 50 for the primary drive/OS, and claim 100 for Ubuntu. no dice. it only wanted to shrink up to 40 Gb. oh well.
shut it down, put the Ubuntu installer in, and turned it on again. it took around 10 minutes of fiddling because F2, F10 or the Lenovo Care button wasn't really bringing me to the BIOS to switch boot devices (kept going back to Vista). turns out it was the F1 button (hey, it wasn't in TFM). then Ubuntu gets installed. i figured it works fine, i'll have to do another install later and wipe out the whole disk.
following instructions i got from the interWebs, i used the contiguous space i just freed up and see if i get any problems getting to a happy working point with this N500. my fears were unfounded. Ubuntu found my wireless connection fairly easily (much faster than fiddling with Vista). and after a 15-minute system updates (for 287 packages ... Vista only had 39 and it took forever), i was ready to roll. my videos were working and i can't wait to watch MKV files on the 15-inch vibrant widescreen (it's really vibrant, i tells ya).
one caveat with the $500 price point is the 1 Gb RAM which i accepted and planned to buy additional anyway. it makes Vista crawl (from what i am used to), but Ubuntu trots, without any visible delays.
messing about in Ubuntu, i found out that you could mount the Lenovo rescue drives, and the primary Vista drive, which means (yesssssss!) i don't have to waste space in the Vista drive, which i don't plan to be in often. i can treat it as a separate drive and do whatever the hell i want with it.
still a few tests to be run heading to this weekend; primarily, the DVD burning part. my experience in previous Ubuntu DVD burning is sometimes the disc is unreadable in Windows machines (or maybe it was just bad media). anyway, i can hop back to Vista for burning if i have to (hah! it found a way to be useful).
overall, weight and RAM are cons (for the former, i don't plan to lug it up Bear Mountain; the latter is easily remedied). clean, fast, and aesthetically pleasing (not a Mac, but who cares? you really want to flaunt your spending power in this climate?), i'd recommend this to anyone who wants a cheap desktop replacement - if you are willing to part with Vista, moreso the better.
the first laptop i bought back in 2003 was a T42 costing the same prices as today brand new for their replacement models. to date its monitor died due to the humid Philippine weather, but i would say its still running. i've gotten used to the IBM quality and i quite rightly use an R60 at work. however, i got tired of lugging it back and forth every working day, and longed for the day that i got a new one.
so, with the economy tanking and frugality is the name of the game, its quite serendipitous that TigerDirect came out with this promo. ideally, i would like a laptop without an O/S, but it seems Vista is a bane we can never avoid 100%. you can always wipe it out, or install Linux alongside it, which is what i did last night. given my experiences with Windows (yes, XP, even you), i'd rather not have it in my house, thank you. let's just keep it in the office machines.
as soon as i got home, Vista tried to complete the system updates it started when i plugged it in the office network, and couldn't because it wasn't finding my wireless. after a few attempts, i gave up and just used IBM's Access Connections, which found it in less time that you need to read this sentence. stupid, stupid Vista.
now, the shrinking. i need free up some space for Ubuntu, my preferred Linux flavor. my desktop is running Ubuntu for a year now, and my wife has had no issues with it (Flash Media Player on Firefox/YouTube is hit or miss sometimes). for the 160Gb drive, 22 Gb was being used by Vista (22?? WTF?), so that left around 140 Gb. i figured i'd leave around 40 to 50 for the primary drive/OS, and claim 100 for Ubuntu. no dice. it only wanted to shrink up to 40 Gb. oh well.
shut it down, put the Ubuntu installer in, and turned it on again. it took around 10 minutes of fiddling because F2, F10 or the Lenovo Care button wasn't really bringing me to the BIOS to switch boot devices (kept going back to Vista). turns out it was the F1 button (hey, it wasn't in TFM). then Ubuntu gets installed. i figured it works fine, i'll have to do another install later and wipe out the whole disk.
following instructions i got from the interWebs, i used the contiguous space i just freed up and see if i get any problems getting to a happy working point with this N500. my fears were unfounded. Ubuntu found my wireless connection fairly easily (much faster than fiddling with Vista). and after a 15-minute system updates (for 287 packages ... Vista only had 39 and it took forever), i was ready to roll. my videos were working and i can't wait to watch MKV files on the 15-inch vibrant widescreen (it's really vibrant, i tells ya).
one caveat with the $500 price point is the 1 Gb RAM which i accepted and planned to buy additional anyway. it makes Vista crawl (from what i am used to), but Ubuntu trots, without any visible delays.
messing about in Ubuntu, i found out that you could mount the Lenovo rescue drives, and the primary Vista drive, which means (yesssssss!) i don't have to waste space in the Vista drive, which i don't plan to be in often. i can treat it as a separate drive and do whatever the hell i want with it.
still a few tests to be run heading to this weekend; primarily, the DVD burning part. my experience in previous Ubuntu DVD burning is sometimes the disc is unreadable in Windows machines (or maybe it was just bad media). anyway, i can hop back to Vista for burning if i have to (hah! it found a way to be useful).
overall, weight and RAM are cons (for the former, i don't plan to lug it up Bear Mountain; the latter is easily remedied). clean, fast, and aesthetically pleasing (not a Mac, but who cares? you really want to flaunt your spending power in this climate?), i'd recommend this to anyone who wants a cheap desktop replacement - if you are willing to part with Vista, moreso the better.
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