Ubuntu 7.10. on x61 tablet

I am wondering why so few post here are on Linux related topics. Are they all in the Ubuntu forum? But I would be interested to get it running on a tablet and discuss the pen input specific issues. And I have the impression that Ubuntu is much better suited for tablet PCs than most people might think of.

So here is my first impression what I get in Ubuntu 7.10. on my x61t:

I installed it using unetbootin. No CD required, just installed over Internet. Only problem was to shrink the Vista partition which only worked when choosing 5GB size for the new Linux partition. Apparently this was the largest free disk fragment on my drive. Took me an hour to get everything downloaded and installed over my 6kbit/s DSL, just a few simple clicks and inputs such as desired username where required.

Out of the box everything is working. Sound, WLAN (3945abg), SXGA+, pen, fan control, video, brightness adjustment, most hotkeys, powersaving, you name it.

Cellwriter works fine on a per character basis, but I expect better accuracy after training. It does auto-training so you do not have to do anything about it, just use it. I expect it to be on par with Vista recognition (lower input speed because of separate letter mode is compensated by the better recognition and correction features).

Power consumption is 10,7 Watt on idle and low Brightness incl. WLAN. Seems to be some Watts less than using Vista. I did not yet run a full test, but apparently I can get 5h out of it in my normal usage scenarios (never got more than 4 hours under Vista).

As a bonus, letter rendering is a bit better under Ubuntu due to elaborate hinting algorithms. Moreover, trackpoint support is more accurate. Also middle click and scrolling works. Everything else I came across so far in the User interface is much smoother, more responsive and apparently way better integrated and super convenient. Look and feel is quite Windows-like. Settings and configurations have graphic user interface. Installation of new apps is super convenient using the Debian packet manager, which again comes with graphic front end. No expert knowledge required.

Let me emphasize this again: I did not have to do any low level optimizations, all this is out of the box.

 

Well, I also just installed Ubuntu on my R1F and I also must say, pretty much everything works. Except for powersaving apparently (I get 3.5 hrs on Vista and 2.5 under Ubuntu) and my Tablet.
It doesn't seem to recognize it, which is kind of annoying, especially since I have no clue what to do about that.
Did you install anything for tablet support?

 

Hi Grinner,

nice to see some Ubuntu people around here. I have no solid background in Linux so I do not know if I can help.

But I know you need some proprietary acpi module to support power options. IBM/Lenovo does provide it for all their machines. Don't know what ASUS does. Anyway the installation did auto-recognize it and it is working correctly with suspend do ram, for example.

What I did additionally:
Run powerTop with root rights by typing <sudo powerTop> and just accept all the power optimization settings. This did reduce power consumption by 2 watts in my case.

Installed and run Thinkpad_fan_control (http://www.gambitchess.org/moin.py/ThinkPad_Fan_Control) installs with a simple mousclick. Then you get a superquiet device (actually the fan is never spinning in office usage).

For tablet support I only installed cellwriter so far. Wacom pen was running out of the box (acctually it required uncommenting 3 lines in the xorg.conf file). This should work for all Wacom devices. There seems to be a bunch of other tablet related software I am going to try...

 

You probably need to edit your xorg file (/etc/X11/xorg.conf). Your tablet might show up as a usb device. Could you reply with the output of "lsusb" and paste your xorg.conf file here?

 

Yay for an Ubuntu thread! I can't help but be pleased by how well ubuntu runs on my x41. XP takes way too much memory and is very insecure. I hadn't used windows for several years when I bought my tablet 8/06, but I was afraid it wouldn't work well under linux. Much to my surprise, I just needed to edit my xorg.conf a bit and add a few acpi events!

 

Anyone run Ubuntu on the fujitsu T2010? I wanted to install it on a flash drive to test it out, but the only thing I have that could work is a 8GB SDHC card, so I'm not sure if that would work.

 

You need a bootable device. Don't know if you could configure boot over LAN, might be difficult. Anyway, SD card will not be bootable. So you need a USB stick of at least 1GB or an USB external CD/DVD drive.

 

That's what I thought. *sigh I'll need to get a memory stick then

 

If you simply want to see if it will work on your system try the live boot CD because if it works there it'll work when installed. Or if you want a little more configurability, try VMWare Player. I just started using it again and it's nice. You can get a premade Ubuntu image from them and run it on your system for free on top of your Windows install so you can completely test it. It's also free which is nice.

 

Hi,
Here's my output of lsusb:

So apparently there is the Wacom device, just I have no idea on how to enable it. Could you please tell me?
Thanks!