Today I got my new office laptop, a Lenovo ThinkPad T61p. As it has a Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 CPU, I decided to install only 64-bit operating systems on it. Since the harddisk was 93.2 GB, I divided it into two partitions, 46.6 GB NTFS for Microsoft Windows Vista 64-bit Enterprise, and the other 46.6 GB for ext3 Linux Fedora 8 64-bit. However, since Fedora 8 is not ready yet, I'll have to test Vista for a few weeks first.
The Vista installation went absolutely smooth without any problems, and it was quite fast to install too, just about 30 minutes. Once installed, everything worked fine, but I needed to download NVidia drivers from Lenovo's site, since Vista didn't have the suitable drivers built-in. After the 3D graphics card drivers were installed, I could even enable the Windows Aero theme. This was the first time I've installed Vista and experienced it.
It runs pretty well with all funky stuff enabled, and file transfers seemed even faster than in Windows XP 32-bit. I also installed Notes 8.0 x32 Standard (=Eclipse Java), as I wanted to go full funky mode :) Notes 8 looks damn cool with all the blurred transparent edges on Vista Aero.
In addition to 64-bit programs, I'm also trying to get around with OpenSource/Freeware software only. The first 3rd party software needed was of course an Anti-Virus program. AVG worked OK, and it installed itself also with 64-bit drivers, but unfortunately it could connect over proxy only with a custom port over 3000. So I had to uninstall it, and use avast! Anti-Virus instead, it installs itself also with 64-bit drivers, and it was also able to connect via the proxy using Internet Explorer's proxy settings to the update server.
The T61p has quite decent hardware for an occasional-multimedia business notebook:
- Intel Core 2 Duo T7500
- which means you can install a 32-bit or 64-bit OS, since all Core 2 Duo's are 64-bit CPUs
- NVidia GeForce FX 570M
- this is an awesome choice from Lenovo, since most notebooks still have ATI cards
- however, GeForce 8 Series would be much better like in ASUS G2S notebooks, but the FX Series will have to do for a business where multimedia is not the main area
- 15.4" WUXGA (Widescreen Ultra XGA) at 1920x1200
- very good native resolution, however it would work better on a 17" widescreen, but on the other hand, it makes the T61p slightly smaller and easier to carry around. I used 1680x1050 resolution which looked like it would be the native resolution too, since no pixel blurs occured. In comparison to the T40p or T60p, the T61p is not bigger in depth, but only a few inch wider, no big deal, it's still a very portable notebook. I really like the widescreen trend, and I was quite against the previous highscreen trend, where everyone wanted to make 5:4 ratio LCD's with native resolution of 1280x1024. I'm glad that this stupidity is now over, and manufacturers have started to make more natural displays, the widescreens.
Next things to install and test:
- Notes 8.0.1 64-bit for Windows and Linux (Windows 64-bit version will come out with 8.0.1, the Linux 64-bit version will come out in 8.0.2)
- OpenOffice 2.3 for Windows and Linux
- TeamSpeak 2 for Windows and Linux (Ventrilo doesn't support Linux)
- ext3 driver for Vista 64-bit and NTFS driver for Linux 64-bit
To be continued... |
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| | philip
Wednesday, 14 November 2007 09:59:54 EET |
| | Did you ever get ext3 working with 64-bit Vista? That is a trick I'd like to accomplish.
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| | Mika
Thursday, 06 December 2007 03:41:06 EET |
| | I finished testing Vista x64 Enterprise. There were too many drivers, programs and things not working in Vista, so I had to upgrade to Windows XP SP2.
The most essential things which didn't work were:
- Lotus Quickr 8.0.0.2 Connector didn't work at all (not even in Windows XP compatibility mode)
- ext3 file system driver was not working
- memory usage was too high (Vista used 1.8GB when no programs were running, XP uses only 300MB)
- performance was much slower than in XP
- VNC server was not working (not even in user mode)
- C4 engine editor keyboard went unfunctional from time to time (Alt-Tabbing fixed it temporarily)
- search function didn't find any files
My advise is that before considering to use Vista, make sure that all the programs and drivers you need are working, and make sure that it actually brings some benefit over Windows XP SP2, and also compare the sum of the benefits against sum of the disadvantages over XP.
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