on 16:15 Wed 09 Feb, Celejar (cele...@gmail.com) wrote: > On Tue, 8 Feb 2011 18:24:28 -0800 > "Dr. Ed Morbius" <dredmorb...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > on 15:23 Tue 08 Feb, Celejar (cele...@gmail.com) wrote: > > > > > I'm curious - everyone has always seemed to love ThinkPads, but I've > > > never understood what exactly makes them so popular. I'm not > > > disagreeing or challenging - I've never used one, and I just want to > > > understand why everyone swears by them. > > > > Generally: solid construction, good hardware support for Linux, > > excellent online product information (I don't know if the *1991* 486 > > ThinkPad I'd aquired (originally supporting OS/2) is still listed, but > > it certainly was well into the 2000s). > > > > The keyboards are full-featured and full-sized. > > > > For those who like it (and I do), the Trackpoint has no substitutes. I > > had for a time a work-issued Dell system, with its own variant of the > > Trackpoint. Dell's implementation used a hard, abrasive rubber which > > quickly rubbed your fingers raw. IBM's got an attention to detail here > > (an unfortunately, ThinkPad nibs didn't fit the Dell device). > > > > Under warrantee, support service is excellent. I had my current display > > swapped with 3 days downtime. > > > > One key point to remember is that ThinkPad is no longer an IBM product > > (though there stills eems to be a strong brand relationship between the > > two, including a lot of current info on IBM's website). Under Lenovo's > > guidance, I've seen some warts, and my current T410s has some issues: > > wireless, suspend/hibernate, and display, largely. All work pretty > > reliably much of the time, but with some warts: > > > > - I can't switch from X after starting a GUI session -- console won't > > display. > > > > - After suspending by closing the lid, display won't reactivate. > > > > - Suspend/hibernate periodically doesn't restore. > > > > I'm also not entirely happy with the 1440x900 screen resolution (a > > comperable 17" MacBook Pro offers 1680x1050). > > > > That said, given alternatives, it's the least bad solution, if not one > > that leaves me smiling all the time. > > Thanks for the detailed report. Suspend and wireless are generally the > sorts of things where one runs into problems.
Of these, wireless is the larger hassle. My avoiding use of GNOME/KDE (and hence network-manager and its GUI interfaces) doesn't help matters much. I suspect that if I were to run one or the other, I'd have fewer problems in that department. The suspend/restore behavior is actually pretty reliable. I can think of one recent restart which failed, going back over the past month or two, with 2-3 daily hibernations. It's also very /quick/, especially suspend/restore (to RAM), though hibernate (to disk) ain't too shabby either with SDD -- the longer delay is going through the BIOS + GRUB + initial kernel boot sequence. I've taken to running a pm-suspend-hybrid rather than pm-suspend as a belt-and-braces security measure. I can afford the extra few seconds on shutdown and appreciate the state preservation on restore should I manage to run the battery flat. -- Dr. Ed Morbius, Chief Scientist / | Robot Wrangler / Staff Psychologist | When you seek unlimited power Krell Power Systems Unlimited | Go to Krell! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20110209231843.gk5...@altaira.krellpowersys.exo
