Ubuntu on the Thinkpad X41
After watching performance continue to drop on my Thinkpad X41 tablet PC, I ditched Windows 7 and switched to Ubuntu 9.04 (a.k.a. – Jaunty Jackalope). The upgrade to Ubuntu took less than an hour and there were no obvious problems. I have wireless connectivity, the Sun Java 6 JDK installed, a working Skype client, and Subversion (actually RapidSVN).
Getting audio working with Skype was a bit of work, but overall, I’m very happy with the experience.
Update #1: I discovered the volume buttons control the speakers at a hardware level and do not sync with the software volume (kinda like the volume knob of your speakers). And using the mute button kills the audio completely, requiring a reboot. Oh well, everything can’t be perfect.
Update #2: Got the swivel screen working so that the display rotates when I rotate the screen. Awesome instructions can be found over at ThinkWiki.
Update #3: Okay, so the mute button is not a toggle. It just sends the volume level to zero and you use the increase volume button to raise it back up again. Thanks to syzygy for the tip.
Category: Hardware, Software 2 comments »
October 23rd, 2009 at 8:14 pm
On my Thinkpad X41, the physical volume buttons work perfectly under Ubuntu and Gentoo (it has Gentoo on it currently). One thing to note about the mute button, however, is that it is not a toggle switch. Pushing the mute button will only mute the audio, it will not un-mute. To get sound back, press either the volume up or down buttons. Some people find this behavior awkward, but I like it since I can hit mute on boot and know that it will be muted. Useful when starting the computer during class or a meeting where a startup sound is unwelcome.
October 24th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Good to know. I’ll test that out tomorrow.