How I set up Windows Vista and Linux on my T61

In January 2008 I bought a Lenovo ThinkPad T61 with the following main hardware characteristics:

• Intel Core Duo CPU with 2 GHz
• 2 GB RAM
• 120 GB HDD

It came with Windows Vista Business preinstalled. I wanted to install additionally a Linux distribution.

Creating recovery media

First of all I created recovery disks using the ThinkVantage tools in Windows Vista. I was asked to insert a blank CD-ROM. The Start Recovery Disk was created. Then I subsequently inserted two blank DVDs. These became the Product Recovery Disks 1 and 2.

On a first try, a blue screen with error messages was shown shortly and then the screen turned black before the first recovery disk was created. When I restarted Windows, I got the message that recovery media can not be created. When I turned the notebook off, waited some seconds and turned it on again, I could create all recovery disks without any further problems.

Updating the BIOS

There was an official BIOS update from Lenovo available, which was necessary to fix several hardware problems. I had to download an iso file from the lenovo web site, burn it to a CD and restart my notebook with this bootable CD. The BIOS update was fast and without problems.

Partitioning the hard disk and installing Linux

Starting Linux from disk

I decided to install Kubuntu 7.10, so I downloaded the respective iso file of the install/live DVD for 64-bit computers and burnt it to a DVD. When I booted my notebook with the Kubuntu DVD and chose the option "Start or install Kubuntu", the screen turned black. Maybe I did not wait long enough, but at some moment I decided to boot again and choose the option "Start Kubuntu in safe graphics mode". The screen turned black again, but this time after a few moments a nice Kubuntu desktop appeared.

Changing the Windows partitions

The hard disk of my ThinkPad came with two NTFS partitions: a small one for ThinkVantage Rescue and Recovery and the main Windows partition consuming the rest of the hard disk. I used the Linux tool QTParted from the Kubuntu live DVD to shrink the main Windows partition to 40 GB and to create a new NTFS partition of 20 GB, which I labelled windata.

Due to the resizing of the Windows partition, chkdsk was run automatically the next time I started Windows. Everything was found to be okay.

On a later occasion with Windows booted, I moved all Windows user data to the windata partition. This can be done in Windows Vista by right-clicking on each respective folder and changing the path property, e.g. from C:\Users\snaumann\Documents to D:\Users\snaumann\Documents. You have to confirm that a new folder on the target partition shall be created and that all files shall be moved. And you have to do this for each user for every folder (i.e. from Contacts to Videos). I read that there is a method to move them all in one go, but for those few users I have on my notebook this method seemed to be more time-consuming than moving them one by one.

Installing Linux

I installed Linux by simply clicking on the "Install" button on the desktop I got from the Kubuntu DVD. The installation was mainly quick and easy! The only aspect that required some caution was the partitioning for Linux (step 4 in the installation process).

I chose to set up the partitions manually within the Kubuntu installer. I picked the free space and added a new ext3 type partition of 20 GB, which I mounted on /. Then I added a 4 GB swap partition and finally an ext3 partition occupying the remaining disk space. I mounted this last partition on /home. Since I already had three primary partitions, each hard disk drive can only hold up to four and I wanted to add three partitions, all these had to be logical partitions. The following table shows how my hard disk (/dev/sda) looked like in the end.

There a certainly other and probably better ways to do all this, but you have to be aware of two things:

• The Kubuntu installer can not create NTFS partitions.
• QTParted can not resize ext3 partitions.

In consequence, you can neither do it completely with the Kubuntu installer if you want an additional NTFS partition for Windows data nor let the Kubuntu installer fill up the remaining disk space with an ext3 partition and resize it later with QTParted in order to add further partitions.

Configuring Linux

Configuring the bootloader

Kubuntu automatically installed and configured the multiboot bootloader GRUB. When booting I get a simple menu where I can choose which system to load. Right after the Kubuntu installation, both Kubuntu and Windows could already be started without any problems - nice! I only wanted to make minor changes to the GRUB menu. This was done by editing the file menu.lst in the directory /boot/grub. To be on the safe side, I made a backup of the original file before editing it:

sudo cp /boot/grub/menu.lst /boot/grub/menu.lst-backup
sudo pico /boot/grub/menu.lst

In menu.lst you can easily change the titles and the order of the different options for booting. You can specify which option is chosen by default and how many seconds shall be waited before choosing it. If you don't like the editor pico and have others already installed (maybe KEdit or Emacs), you can obviously also use them instead.

Hardware

Some things worked out of the box (keyboard light, touchpad, ...).

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External Devices

Many external devices worked perfectly out of the box, e.g. my Logitech mouse, an Iomega external hard disk drive or my USB memory stick.

Printer

To install my HP Deskjet 6540, I ran the command sudo hp-setup, which detected the printer connected via USB. Then I could configure the printer using the HPLIP Toolbox in KMenu > System. There were no problems printing both in color or in grayscale and also with automatic duplex.

Software

Several programs were available on the Kubuntu DVD but not installed automatically (e.g. Emacs, Firefox and Thunderbird, KCalc, KEdit, KView and QTParted). They could be installed easily using the Kubuntu tool for adding/removing applications in the KMenu.

Other programs (e.g. Gimp) were not available on the Kubuntu DVD but could be installed via http connection using the same tool for adding/removing applications. Fur this purpose, I had to edit my sources.list first (uncomment some lines using sudo kedit /etc/apt/sources.list) and then do a sudo apt-get update.

Some applications could not be installed using the tool for adding/removing but from the command line:

Thunderbird

I wanted to share my Thunderbird mail folders and address book between Windows and Linux. With Thunderbird installed and configured under Windows, I installed Thunderbird under Linux, started it and then followed the wizard to setup an e-mail account. Right after this, I created symbolic links between my Thunderbird profiles under Linux and Windows using these steps in a Linux shell:

cd ~/.mozilla-thunderbird/cdhjlkmt.default

rm virtualFolders.dat
rm -r Mail/

ln -s "/media/sda2/Users/snaumann/AppData/Roaming/Thunderbird/Profiles/8ilkmnbtz.default/abook.mab"
ln -s "/media/sda2/Users/snaumann/AppData/Roaming/Thunderbird/Profiles/8ilkmnbtz.default/virtualFolders.dat"
ln -s "/media/sda2/Users/snaumann/AppData/Roaming/Thunderbird/Profiles/8ilkmnbtz.default/Mail/"

The directory names cdhjlkmt.default and 8ilkmnbtz.default are just examples for those randomly generated by Thunderbird during installation.

ROOT

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Useful links

• http://www.kubuntu.org
• http://www.thinkwiki.org (including instructions on installing Ubuntu 7.10 on a ThinkPad T61)