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IBM Thinkpad T21
Reviews Views Date of last review
7 6523 12-26-2006
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Recommended By Average Price Average Rating
86% of reviewers $320.00 7.6
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Description: 2nd user T21, installed suse8.1pro, from single dvd.- dec 2002.

1 meg ram
20G HDD
red knobbly thing in middle of kbd as a mouse (really easy to use)

Newbie - 1st time install or used linux - went on a dream.

Dual boots to win too.

Only real problem was modem, a winmodem, but located driver though not unuf knowledge to install it, went to local LUG for help.

I was such a newbie had to contact suse support to find out how to read a floppy.

Has 8meg graphics card, can never get the battery to last more than 1.5hrs in linux though on win it lasts twice that.

Will freeze if in sleep model, with phone line attached and phone rings..
Keywords: t21 800mhz tpad thinkpad suse8.1pro
/sbin/lspci output: 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX Host bridge (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX AGP bridge (rev 03)
00:02.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1450 (rev 03)
00:02.1 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1450 (rev 03)
00:03.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corp. 82557/8/9 [Ethernet Pro 100] (rev 09)
00:03.1 Serial controller: Xircom Mini-PCI V.90 56k Modem
00:05.0 Multimedia audio controller: Cirrus Logic CS 4614/22/24 [CrystalClear SoundFusion Audio Accelerator] (rev 01)
00:07.0 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA (rev 02)
00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01)
00:07.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB (rev 01)
00:07.3 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 03)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: S3 Inc. 86C270-294 Savage/IX-MV (rev 11)


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Old 08-14-2004, 11:49 AM   #1
darin3200
 
Registered: Dec 2002
Distribution: Gentoo!
Posts: 1,153
Would you recommend the product? yes | Price you paid?: $450.00 | Rating: 9

Kernel (uname -r): 2.6.7
Distribution: Mandrake, Gentoo, Slackware, Knoppix



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Everything thing works great. You always need to remeber to compile your own support in if you making your own kernel.
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Old 10-11-2005, 10:33 PM   #2
Dragineez
 
Registered: Oct 2005
Distribution: Ubuntu
Posts: 272
Would you recommend the product? no | Price you paid?: $360.00 | Rating: 1

Kernel (uname -r): 2.6.13-1.1526
Distribution: FC4


1st laptop. 15% into the install, just stopped. BIOS flaw introduced by the install. Laptop then failed POST. Motherboard replacement required to fix so it is now a doorstop.

Install appeared to go flawlessly. No sound. STFW to fix. Multiple and various attempts over a couple of weeks all failed.

System either refuses to boot or boots sporadically. ACPI LNKC conflict halts boot. STFW to fix. Multiple and various attempts over a couple of weeks all failed.

Rescue CD attempts, reinstall attempts, and replace with a different distro all failed. Same ACPI error in all of them.

Carting it off to the local LUG failed.

Installed Windows XP - works like a champ. Total time for WinXP to resolve all issues, a little under 90 minutes.
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Old 01-15-2006, 07:36 AM   #3
gt_swagger
 
Registered: Apr 2004
Distribution: Gentoo
Posts: 37
Would you recommend the product? yes | Price you paid?: $150.00 | Rating: 10

Kernel (uname -r):
Distribution:


Pros:
- Everything works -- almost everything "just works".
- Extremely well built.
- The sound quality on headphones sounds *exceptionally* clear and good. Better than the Audigy card in my desktop, disturbingly enough.

Cons:
- PC100 SODIMM RAM is getting very expensive these days, so if you happen to have one low on RAM it may cost you to upgrade that.
- lm_sensors **may possibly destroy this laptop** You thus only have a thermal zone reading via ACPI, which I think is disturbingly off -- it reads nearly 80C under load.

A few useful utilities for this model:
* app-laptop/thinkpad
Available versions: 3.2 4.1 4.3 4.3-r1 4.8 5.7 5.8
Installed: 5.8
Homepage: http://tpctl.sourceforge.net
Description: Thinkpad system control kernel modules

* app-laptop/ibm-acpi
Available versions: 0.11-r1
Installed: 0.11-r1
Homepage: http://ibm-acpi.sourceforge.net
Description: IBM ThinkPad ACPI extras
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Old 02-05-2006, 09:27 AM   #4
paynejp
 
Registered: Feb 2006
Distribution: Mandriva 2006
Posts: 4
Would you recommend the product? yes | Price you paid?: None indicated | Rating: 8

Kernel (uname -r): 2.6.12-12mdk
Distribution: Mandriva 2006


Used laptop, runs Mandriva 2006 and Ubuntu perfectly. Suspend mode works. Battery indicator has a mind of its own, sometimes flashes until a reboot. Very pleased.
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Old 07-21-2006, 03:44 PM   #5
nachothecheesyone
 
Registered: Jul 2006
Distribution: SuSE 10.0
Posts: 1
Would you recommend the product? yes | Price you paid?: None indicated | Rating: 7

Kernel (uname -r):
Distribution: SuSE 10.0


Looks and runs great, few issues though:

-- PCMCIA Support not "out-of-the-box", you'll have to configure your cards yourself. For some reason Hot Swapping from Ultrabay 2000 or PC Cards just doesn't work.

-- For some reason, every 30 seconds the system goes into a small freeze (less than 5 seconds) where keyboard input and mouse input is halted. Then, after the freeze, the input is parsed as if all of it is done at once. Still trying to diagnose what that's coming from...

-- Using the TEAC CD-RW Ultrabay drive, burning is a snap.

-- Monitor on my system worked fine (I heard somewhere on a SuSE Linux install, that the distro didn't setup the display properly after installation and came up with an error message during every boot sequence.)

-- Modem worked fine as well.
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Old 08-23-2006, 09:51 AM   #6
sonicbhoc
 
Registered: Aug 2006
Distribution: Gentoo
Posts: 73
Would you recommend the product? yes | Price you paid?: None indicated | Rating: 8

Kernel (uname -r):
Distribution: Gentoo Linux, PCLinuxOS


Under PCLinuxOS, everything is detected properly except for the video card. You have to set up DRI yourself, and double the amount of video RAM in the xorg.conf. I didn't try to install thinkpad, and ibm-acpi was built into the kernel.
Ultrabayd was installed, but I forget to try and use it... i end up just taking the drive out, and it freezes the whole machine.

Under Gentoo, almost everything worked perfectly, including Ultrabay (although it wasn't proper, I could just take the drive out and replace it with something else at will without the PC freezing on me)

Under both distros, the FN+F# combos did not work, aside from the one that toggles monitor and LCD support.
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Old 12-26-2006, 08:49 PM   #7
ludist
 
Registered: Nov 2005
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 122
Would you recommend the product? yes | Price you paid?: None indicated | Rating: 10

Kernel (uname -r): 2.6.16.9
Distribution: Slackware 10.1


Everything working except that:

I din't tested the modem.

For ibm_acpi (you want this) you need a 2.6.14<? (I don't remember) kernel.

Hotswap in ultrabay does NOT work :-( But You can Install 2nd hard disk or dvd or battery.

System is up for 130 days without problem!
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