Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope on Thinkpad T61

Before upgrading to Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope (64-bit) on my Thinkpad T61 laptop, I wondered whether it would be worth it. How much of a time commitment would it be? What about functionality — would everything still be in pieces after the upgrade? What kind of an enhanced user experience would I expect?

After all, I am currently in the middle of my final exams and cannot afford to spend a whole evening upgrading the operating system. My previous experience upgrading from Hardy Heron (8.04) to Intrepid Ibex (8.10) was, by no means, a smooth-sail. There were numerous glitches: both the fingerprint-reader and scrolling-emulation functions were broken out of the box. After much exploration, the above-mentioned bugs were eventually fixed. How did it work out this time around?

In medias res

Probably due to the huge number of users upgrading through the mirrors concurrently, it did take a while for all the new packages to be downloaded (all 1000+ of them), lasting around just over an hour. On top of that, it took around half-an-hour for the rest of the installation processes to wrap up (on an Intel Core2 Duo T8300 processor @ 2.40GHz with 2 GB of ram).

Look ‘n feel

Slick.

Overall the user interface looks great — though I’m not sure how much I appreciate the new gnome log-on screen (somewhat Vista-like). Some cool, new applets have been added for volume-control and network manager. I haven’t done a whole ton of exploring yet, but I’m guessing that there are probably more tricks in store. Though, I have to say, things feel somewhat slower. Even with all visual effects turned off, it feels as though things are lagging behind just a little bit.

**Update — Intel 965 GM Graphics

Here’s a quick fix for the decrease in performance of Intel graphics cards (in my case, a 965 GM) after the upgrade to Intrepid:

mkdir -p ~/.config/compiz/ && echo SKIP_CHECKS=yes >> ~/.config/compiz/compiz-manager

The patient has survived the operation!

There was hardly any “junk” installed and both the fingerprint-reader and scroll-emulation functions worked out of the box! The only difference that I noticed in ThinkFinger is that more pressure is needed in order for the swipe to proceed.

And, unlike last time, unnecessary packages such as Gnome games, Evolution…etc. — ones that have already been removed — were not installed again. Efficient.

Further more, it appears that Jaunty uses less memory. Currently, with multiple tabs opened in Firefox, Thunderbird running, among others, the memory usage rests at around 500 MB. This is a lot less than the usual ~1 GB that I get. Perhaps 64-bit operations have been more more efficient?

Have you upgraded? How do you like Jaunty Jackalope?

27 Responses to “Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope on Thinkpad T61”

Tysune on April 26th, 2009

I’m going to be trying out this OS sometime over the next few weeks.

Don’t be surprised if I start e-mailing for help. lol

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- Eastwood on April 26th, 2009
  
  Welcome to the scene
  
  Oh, and there’s really not a lot to worry about: you can simply burn the .iso image and run it as a Live CD before committing to the installation.
  
  Reply
paytyler on April 26th, 2009

I have a ThinkPad T61, T9300 2.5 Ghz duo core, 4 Gb RAM.

I installed Jaunty this morning and so far I am really liking it! right now i have my harddrive dummied down in compatibility mode so that windows that work in my dual boot and it still booted waay faster than the Ibex. You said it felt slow to you? This is the fastest ubuntu distro i’ve felt. but i didn’t just upgrade, i reformatted everything and started fresh.

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- Eastwood on April 26th, 2009
  
  Yeah, booting time is really fast. But graphics wise — I’m using an Intel 965 GM — things are a bit slower than Intrepid Ibex. Minimising windows shows these black boxes and the graphical progress bar lags a bit, as well.
  
  That’s a crazy machine you got there! 4 GB of ram?! What do you do with all that?
  
  Reply
  - begray on May 1st, 2009
    
    Did you try to switch AccelMethod to UXA in xorg.conf? On my 950GM it gives smoothness of Intrepid in Jaunty.
    
    Reply
    - Eastwood on May 1st, 2009
      
      With kernel upgrades and all, the process looks kinda complicated…
      
      Reply
      - begray on May 23rd, 2009
        
        For me it gave performance gain even on default Jaunty installation.
plutino on April 26th, 2009

Is your volume control keys working? I upgraded to xubuntu 9.04 but only found that the volume control keys stop working.

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- Eastwood on April 26th, 2009
  
  Hmm… my volume keys seem to work perfectly well. Anyone else experienced an issue with the volume-control buttons?
  
  Reply
- Looshi on April 27th, 2009
  
  I’m having the same issue on a t400 with Xubuntu 9.04 installed.
  
  Reply
Toodamfast on April 27th, 2009

2 problems on my T61: (32 bit)

wireless will not connect after a suspend (atheros)

clicking on restart hangs at a black screen and I must power the machine off with the power button.
(clicking on shut down works just fine)

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- Eastwood on April 27th, 2009
  
  I’d like to remind everyone to report your bugs:
  
  https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs
  
  Reply
Fred on April 27th, 2009

I just installed Jaunty on a T61 as well, though I used the 32 bit version. Everything worked great. Couple observations and a question: It does seem that it is a bit slower doing graphics than 8.10. Gimp sometimes lags for example.

Question: I want to add more memory, as much as possible. Can I add up to 8GB with the 64 bit version? I always thought you needed a 64 bit CPU to run the 64 bit version. Why is this suddenly an option?

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- Eastwood on April 27th, 2009
  
  Unless you were doing some unbelievably crazy computing, I don’t really see why you’d need so much RAM. Having tons of unused memory doesn’t make anything run faster.
  
  You do need a 64-bit CPU to run a 64-bit OS. Mine, an Intel Core2 Duo T8300, for example, is 64-bit.
  
  Reply
phishman9 on April 30th, 2009

Upgrade went fine for me on my T61; no flaws. I’m also running the Intel 965 GM and this is the only area that seems to be a downgrade. I used to be able to put visual effects on “normal” but now can’t even get to that level.

When I try to look for hardware drivers, it says there aren’t any. Maybe this Intel driver doesn’t have a 9.04 version yet?

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phishman9 on April 30th, 2009

Nevermind, found this fix:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1134798

Apparently the Intel drivers are blacklisted for some reason…so far everything with visuals is working OK.

Reply
- Eastwood on April 30th, 2009
  
  Thanks for sharing!
  
  Before applying the fix, while minimizing windows, did you get any black frame-trails? If so, did the fix correct this issue?
  
  Reply
  - phishman9 on May 1st, 2009
    
    Nope, none, works just like Ibex as far as the graphics go. And I know exactly what you’re talking about with the black squares minimizing when the video drivers were disabled; non-existent now.
    
    I’ve had this fix running for a couple days with no issues. My only concern is why the Intel drivers would have been “banned” in the first place.
    
    Reply
  - phishman9 on May 1st, 2009
    
    Sorry, I realized my last post was misleading in answering your question. Yes, I did have the black squares minimizing windows before. After applying the fix listed in the link, they went away and video performance functions like it should.
    
    Reply
    - Eastwood on May 1st, 2009
      
      That fix worked like magic! Thanks!
      
      Changes reflected in post.
      
      Reply
blah on May 7th, 2009

3d visual effects were turned off for i965 graphics cards because of severe stability problems. I have experienced X freezing and requiring a hard boot on my Dell D630.

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Raf on May 9th, 2009

Hi,
Can you please tell me how you fixed the scrolling with trackpoint for Ubuntu 8.10? I’ve been searching on the internet for over a week and I can’t find *anything*.

Thanks

Reply
- Eastwood on May 10th, 2009
  
  Here you go:
  
  http://www.eastwoodzhao.com/ubuntu-810-intrepid-ibex-thinkpad-middle-button-scrolling-emulatewheel/
  
  Reply
hurt138 on May 20th, 2009

I see a huge performance increase on my Thinkpad T61 with this version of Ubuntu when compared to the last version.

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neocortex on July 2nd, 2009

It seems that Hibernate (suspend to disk) does not work. I got that ugly flashing capslock light which apparently indicates kernel crash.

PM

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- Eastwood on July 3rd, 2009
  
  Works fine for me
  
  Reply
techman on August 27th, 2009

Jaunty on my desktop is really good but my T61 is very slow.

Reply