I finally broke down and purchased a new laptop.
My old trusty companion was a System76 Darter Ultra (revision 2). It was a great little machine with a 12.1″ screen, as much processor and RAM (4gig after purchase) as I need, and Ubuntu pre-installed. I can’t say enough about the people at System76; a small company out of Denver, Colorado where you know pretty much the whole company by first name. Carl is the owner; Tom is the guy answering your support questions; Erik is in charge of sales; and one of their daughters or nieces helps stuff envelopes on the weekends. I’m sure there are more people involved, but those three people I have had personal communication with via email and/or phone and every time it was great.
Why am I telling you how much I love System76? Because I feel bad not sticking with them for my latest purchase. I now have a Lenovo X200s. Another 12.1″ screen machine that is really light and works great.
Why did I switch my supplier? Honestly, because I wanted a machine that had a little better structural build quality (my Darter was a MSI barebones and started having structural issues near its 3rd year of life) and the X200s is just a little “better” (lighter and higher resolution).
So far, everything is working great out of the box*! The best part is I had a 160gig Intel SSD waiting to be put in it when it arrived. As soon as I replaced the harddrive I installed Lucid using a USB flash drive which was extremely quick. What that means is I never booted the original drive and thus never even saw the Windows 7 logo. :)
This machine, with the SSD drive, simply just screams. Best upgrade investment I ever made.
Action pics:
writing this blog post at my work office:
* The only thing not working correctly is two finger scrolling using the nipple and third mouse button (there is no trackpad). I tried the adding the hal quirk identified here, but it didn’t work. Haven’t messed with it too much, really.
Dude… these Thinkpads look like old laptops… seriously, why is there STILL that awful red dot in the middle of the keyboard to be used as a mouse? The first laptops used that… LOL
Anyway, nice purchase :P
But, if I didn’t live in Brazil, I would support System76 and buy a laptop from them, that’s for sure… even if it’s not “a Lenovo”, I’m sure everything will run smoothly on Linux :)
Posted by Vitor on January 27th, 2010.
Hey Greg,
The x200s is really amazing especially with the Intel SSD. Lucid is booting in 8s according to bootchart on mine !
For that scrolling issue, that actually changed a bit in Lucid, currently I’m using a script doing:
stgraber@castiana:~$ cat fix-mouse.sh
xinput set-int-prop 10 “Evdev Wheel Emulation” 8 1
xinput set-int-prop 10 “Evdev Wheel Emulation Axes” 8 6 7 4 5
xinput set-int-prop 10 “Evdev Wheel Emulation Button” 8 2
That “10″ should be replaced by whatever the mouse’s ID is (though is seems to be consistently 10 here).
Hope it helps.
Posted by Stephane on January 27th, 2010.
That is an awesome machine.
I’m very happy with my Pangolian (5th revision) and the Starling (1st revision). The Pang is a hair heavier (especially with battery) than I might like, but it just sits on my desk. It’s a desktop replacement. I wanted the Starling for travel. It’s now perfect for that use, especially now with the fixed wireless card and drivers. ;)
Did you want a smaller screen because of portability? I figure a 12.1″ is good compromise between resolution and portability.
Glad you have an awesome machine. I envy the 160 gig SSD. ;)
Amy
Posted by gamerchick02 on January 28th, 2010.
@Victor: Yeah, they’re are a bit “old school” looking, but I kinda like that since they are fairly well made still (not as well as they used to be, but better than most other non-apple laptops).
@Stephane: Thanks for the tip. I tried it and I got an error, so I’ll keep digging, and maybe ping you on IRC :).
@Amy: Yeah, I like the smaller screen for portability/weight. And with a 1440×900 resolution I’m very happy with everything I can see.
Posted by Greg on January 29th, 2010.
Hey Greg.
I disagree with your assessment on S76, would you like me to do a blog post about them? I don’t usually check blogs so send me an email…
Posted by Freddy Martinez on January 30th, 2010.
What I replied to Freddy via email with:
—————————————-
I wouldn’t tell you NOT to blog about it, of course.
I’d be curious to hear your experience.
Posted by Greg on January 30th, 2010.
[...] the purchase of a new laptop, I have to re-setup my email’s (and other applications’) configuration. Luckily, I keep [...]
Posted by Consilience — New Laptop: Setting up Email on January 30th, 2010.
I love my T61. I’ve had it for 3+ years now, and it’s still going very strong. I’m eager to update the RAM to 8GB, seeing as though that is what the slots support on the board. The battery on the other hand, probably should get replaced soon. I only get 90 minutes out of it these days.
However, I love the look and style of the Thinkpads. I can’t stand Dell or HP computers, or any other manufacturer, because they try to add this lame “space age” look with painted silver, and what not. Ugly as hell. The Thinkpads are quite sexy, with the matte finish, the red trackpoint, and the straight-black look. And they’re built like a freaking tank.
Anyway, sweet laptop (now that you’ve had it for almost a year, and you know this anyway).
Posted by Aaron Toponce on December 1st, 2010.