It has arrived
Right, I take back every unfriendly thing I've said about Bluelink. They managed to get my new z60m laptop (and I may well be the first one to install linux on that machine, according to Tux Mobil) in Deventer the day after they took delivery themselves. It's a gorgeous machine. Pictures and howto-install later... I'm making recovery cd's right now.
Update
Apart from the singularly sticky Centrino and Windows stickers, and the silly location of the Escape key (which may be the final straw for my vi addiction), there's really very little wrong with this laptop. It's sturdy, got a gorgeous screen, a keyboard with a great feel -- almost as if I'm typing on a full-size keyboard -- and installing Linux seems pretty easy.
Kubuntu wasn't able to downsize the Windows partition, but SuSE 10 was. And SuSE has very, very beautiful screen fonts and in general a very polished install. But I also wanted to try Kubuntu, which I'm upgrading right now, while also restoring my home directory from the disk of my old Dell. (Which, despite promises hasn't been returned, repaired, to me before Christmas.) Bad Dell.
Updated update
Installing Kubuntu Breezy Linux on the IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad z60m:
- Suspend to ram works -- out of the box, if not with the fn-f4.
- Suspend to disk works -- out of the box
- After running sudo apt-get install libdvdread3; sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/examples/install-css.sh, dvd playback works, practically out of the box
- X11 works, right resolution and everything. I haven't tested 3D acceleration with the ATI X600, but dvd playback is smooth and that's what counts
- Sound works
- The drives are approached by default using the SATA drivers, which apparently implies DMA, which is good
- Mounting usd drives works (restored my home dir that way). However, Kubuntu mounts all partitions on the same mountpoint. Didn't know that was possible.
- Connecting to my camera works
- Wireless -- would have worked out of the box if the detection hadn't preferred the open, unprotected, default settings wlan of my neighbours.
- Wired network works
SuSE shows much the same, except that SuSE enables all the wierd and wonderful thinkpad buttons out of the box, including the suspend button.
The permanently running fans are a "feature" of many newer Thinkpads, according to ThinkWiki.
All I can say is, I wish every laptop were as linux-compatible as this one. There's not much heroics in this report -- if I find it necessary to do somethinge extraordinary I'll update this entry.