Laptop Recommendations?

[SteveRiley]

In summary, the culprit was that t540p default boot mode is set to "Both", legacy & UEFi, however, the trick is that legacy is picked first unless manually set otherwise.

I totally forgot about this firmware setting! Yes, I know that ThinkPads allow you to choose UEFI, legacy, or both. If you choose both, you can select which order the system try -- UEFI then legacy, or legacy then UEFI. I've forgotten by now which is the default.

Anyway, glad you got it working!

I'm not sure if this will affect me anyway, but it wont hurt to set the boot mode to UEFI, even if I wipe Windows off the disk.

I run my T520 and X1 in UEFI only boot mode. No legacy emulation junk for me

[MoonRise]

I totally forgot about this firmware setting! Yes, I know that ThinkPads allow you to choose UEFI, legacy, or both. If you choose both, you can select which order the system try -- UEFI then legacy, or legacy then UEFI. I've forgotten by now which is the default.

Got bit by this one too though it never would go to UEFI like it should have and so kept failing boot. Was about to reformat and start over when the installer showed the existing partitions that stated weren't there. Hunted for about an hour when it hit me about this setting and just set it to UEFI only and BINGO!, solved! Horrible setting.

[Chopstick]

So I know what to do about the UEFI setting now ;-) Thanks!

Regarding the caddy, I had a look at it at my local retailer here, and indeed the way it works is that the original DVD clips to the front. However, the things they are selling look really flimsy, so that I will be ordering one that looks a bit more sturdy.
(Teunis, yours doesn't look nearly as flimsy as the one they were trying to sell me.)

[Chopstick]

Yes I'm totally satisfied with the caddy, it's a 12.7 mm one.
Several sites have info what is needed and I believe the T540 is still the same fit.
The UK Amazon site offers them for £8.90.

I never bothered to transplant the cover of the DVD tray.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]5176[/ATTACH]

So, Teunis, with the caddy you have, how do you secure the HDD inside the caddy? Some advertise that you screw it in, but others don't seem to even have holes for screws... and how important would that be anyway? (If it is squeezed in with some rubber nobs, it is probably safer in terms of suppressing vibriation than if it is screwed in, unless there is a vibraitonal resonance with something in the HDD, which is unlikely, I think.)

[MepisReign]

Hello,
Be careful regarding the System76, please review this topic from another forum
http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=35793

I would go with Lenovo any day of the week, I'm a proud owner of 2 oldies, a T400 and a T61, when one of those die I will go with Lenovo again.

Bashing on my friends and forum-mates opinions is not intended.

All the Best

MR

[Chopstick]

Thanks for the info, Teunis - this rubber stick technique makes a lot of sense! I would actually prefer this over screws.
Unfortunately Amazon US does not ship electronics to Canada (I know, it is not obvious, and I suspect it has legal/taxation reasons).
We also pay more, although not as much as you...

[Chopstick]

But then, having the same queen et al.

I was just waiting for this ;-)

[JonoBee]

Hi Chopstick;

Canada Computers sells these adapters (9.5mm white and 12.7mm black) for $16. I know because I bought both. I mistakenly bought the 9.5mm one in error. My Toshiba took the 12.7mm one.

And how it is held in, depends on the notebook. My Toshiba has a single screw in the bottom holding in the DVD drive, and the adapter has a screw mount that matches it.

By the way, if yours takes a 9.5mm one, let me know, I have one here gathering dust.

John

[Chopstick]

Thanks for the offer JonoBee, I do indeed need a 9.5mm. But I already ordered one from Amazon (very similar to the one Teunis has for $18 with shipping and tax). You wouldn't be located in the GTA anyway, would you?

[JonoBee]

You wouldn't be located in the GTA anyway, would you?

No, I am in Ottawa.

Too bad you'd already ordered. Oh well....

If you need any help with the adapter, let me know!

[Chopstick]

Hi Folks,
So I finally have my new Thinkpad. First I have to say that I am very disappointed with Lenovos customer service and the way my order was handled: they cancelled my order without notifying me (allegedly because my email address was not "secure" - it just wasn't Gmail...), and after I finally placed the order againthey weren't able to process my creidt card payment and I had to do a tedious bank transfer (with $25 fees). From my initial order to receiving the laptop it almost took a month!

Now I am installing kubuntu, and first I ran into a lot of trouble, presumably because of this UEFI business. I'm not sure if it is because I used an older installation USB or because I chose the option to just used the entire disk (i.e. let the installer figure out the partitions).
After that I made a new (ubuntu) start disk and configured the partitions manually, and now ubuntu finally boots! Now I only have to do the same with kubuntu (that is all with secure boot and UEFI enabled).
But before I do that, I wanted to get some feedback on the partition setup. I want to have this LVM with full disk encryption (although I don't really know what this LVM really is; I always had this before anyway).
So what I have is this:

A EFI boot partition (at /boot/efi ?) and a ext2 boot partition (unencrypted, mounted at /boot) and the LVM mounted at / (root) containing a single ext4 partition.
The first two partitions are currently 512MB (or MiB?), but hardly any of that space is used (the rest is the LVM/ext4 partition). So Iwas wondering how much space I actually need for the two boot partitions, and do I actually need both of them? (I was thinking that otherwise /boot would end up on the encrypted LVM...)

Btw. I already removed the original HDD and put in my SSD before I did anything. So the entire installation process took placeo n the SSD.

Any suggestions?

Ciao,
Chopstick

[christw]

I have had two Toshibas, one HP and my most recent is a Sony Vaio which I am very happy with. It was a bit dearer than the Toshibas, Asus, Samsung etc to get i7 and an illuminated keyboard but if you like quality like a thinkpad then they are worth a look. You get what you pay for :-)

[DoYouKubuntu]

Forgive me for not going back and reading all the posts in this thread. I just want to throw out one thing: I LOVE my new System76 Kudu Professional laptop. Everything about it just smacks of solid, well-built, quality. I highly recommend it.

PS I wiped its original Ubuntu installation and replaced it with Kubuntu.

[vinnywright]

Forgive me for not going back and reading all the posts in this thread. I just want to throw out one thing: I LOVE my new System76 Kudu Professional laptop. Everything about it just smacks of solid, well-built, quality. I highly recommend it.

PS I wiped its original Ubuntu installation and replaced it with Kubuntu.

could you please tell me your experience with putting Kubuntu on this ,,,,,,,,, I am at the moment thinking of geting one of system 76's systems .
wanted to know if things like the cool back lite key board was easy to get working in Kubuntu (did you get one of the nVidia GPU's) or even if thay would use Kubuntu instead of Ubuntu when I got it .

was thinking of the bonobo extreme but at minimum extras added it was up to around $2000.00,,,,, or the touch screen one ,,,,,if I knew it would still work with Kubuntu,,,,,

or that Leopard extreme desktop with liquid cooling DOooooo I'm salivating/drooling .

,,,,, O ya ,,,,but back to point ,,,,,how did the switch to kubuntu go

VINNY

[DoYouKubuntu]

could you please tell me your experience with putting Kubuntu on this

Vinny, please have a look at the thread I posted after totally borking my new laptop. It gives a rundown of what happened, and why, and how I resolved it all. Bottom line is that installing Kubuntu on a System76 should not be a problem at all.

I am at the moment thinking of geting one of system 76's systems .
wanted to know if things like the cool back lite key board was easy to get working in Kubuntu (did you get one of the nVidia GPU's) or even if thay would use Kubuntu instead of Ubuntu when I got it .

No, I don't think they would. I say that not because I asked them about it, but because I asked them to partition its hard drive to my specifications and they said they couldn't do it. So when I received the laptop, its drive only contained one partition, and everything was installed there. After ~30 years of installing *nix, I'm very, very set in my ways, and I wanted its drive partitioned the way I like it--so that's what I did. Wiped it, partitioned it, installed Kubuntu on it.

was thinking of the bonobo extreme but at minimum extras added it was up to around $2000.00,,,,, or the touch screen one ,,,,,if I knew it would still work with Kubuntu,,,,,

or that Leopard extreme desktop with liquid cooling DOooooo I'm salivating/drooling .

Ha, ha, yeah, I hear you! I brought my Kudu in at ~$1,000--which was more than I'd intended to spend [when I was planning on buying another HP Pavilion laptop]. But I'm very happy with it.