Re: [Hampshire] mandrake 9.1 and ibm thinkpad x30 laptop

m.nuttall@??? wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have picked up a second hand ibm thinkpad x30 laptop and would like to
> install an appropriate linux distro on it. After googling it seems that
> mandrake 9.1 would be a good choice. However with it being an old version i
> cant find it for download.

Just out of interest Martin, why not go for the latest version of
Mandriva, if Madrake/Mandriva is your preference? Granted, I ghave
absolutely no idea how they distribute it these days and as whether it
is available FOC any more.

Your wording (above) implies that you have found a good HOWTO that is
based upon Mandrake 9.1; the name implies that this is pretty ancient
and one would have thought that later versions of the OS would include,
and perhaps even improve upon, those features of 9.1 that make it a good
fit.

The other approach would be to grab some live CDs and give them a bash -
Fedora Core 9 leaps to mind if an RPM-based distro is what you are
after, although I have always encountered issues with their live CDs and
unfortunately FC9 proved to be no exception, effectively dumping me at
the command-line on my Dell D430 when the graphical session hung.
Ubuntu's has established a good reputation for reliability.

Finally, as this machine is new to you and therefore presumably not in
service yet, you could just pick your distro of choice and install it.
The latest releases of the popular distros tend to improve on hardware
detection rather than get worse and seems to be a shame to be going for
an older, obsolete OS as your first choice.

Sean