ideaPad systems announced

[wyth]

I recently had a final meltdown on my old Gateway laptop.  I'd looked at Lenovo/IBM's in the past, but first eked out every last bit of life from my machine.

I run a writing center at my university, managing a crew of 30 tutors, hundreds of students, at multiple locations.  There's a lot of file checking and web work to be done.  I started using linux as a way to get a better grip on some of the work I had to do, and now can't live without it.

So when my old laptop would only show half a screen, I finally went out and availed of a rebate deal on an Ideapad Y510.  Vista came installed, and it was dog slow and not supported nor recommended by my university (no university computers here will ever have vista on them).  I nixed that and put Ubuntu 7.10 on it.

Everything worked just about out of the box.  I know some people had trouble with sound on the Y410, but sound works on the Y510, and I've had no other hardware issues.  I've not gotten the video camera to work, but then again I've not tried -- too busy.  It doesn't pick up on some of the multimedia features, but those seemed pretty windows specific, and aren't all that necessary (the orange volume control on the side does work).  Wireless and all that was a snap -- no set-up at all.

My only issues are with the touchpad.  The buttons feel a little soft, and the pad itself is a bit close to the keyboard, so my thumb is constantly bumping it when I type, which moves the cursor arond in the document. This may be in part bad habits developed from working on my old behemoth of a laptop.

Overall, I think Ubuntu on a Y510 is a fantastic option, and I'm very happy with the machine.  I know Lenovo is now offering Thinkpads with Suse Linux pre-installed; I hope they consider supporting Ubuntu on this more home/home office-aimed model, because it's a great fit.

[JaneL Community SuperMod]

Glad to hear you're happy with your Y510, Wyth!

I was in Office Depot at lunch to pick up a few things and went through the notebook display to take a peek at one.  It was locked down, of course, and I didn't have time to get someone to unlock it for me and listen to their sales pitch.  I did play on it a little, though.  I liked the keyboard feel - nice and solid.  No TrackPoint, of course, and I still don't understand the non-standard layout for Insert/Delete/Home/End/PgUp/PgDn.  But just straight typing on the keyboard felt good.

[Mark_Lenovo Administrator]

Wyth,

Thanks for sharing your experiences on the Y510 with Ubuntu.

I hope that as time permits, you'll revisit the forum and perhaps share more of your experiences in the Linux section as well as the IdeaPad section.   I'm sure there will be others who would feel emboldened by your pioneering effort and will follow suit.   Glad to hear so many features worked right away, and I hope you can update the community if you get the camera up and running.  That will be a popular topic, I'm sure.

Best wishes, and thanks again!

Message Edited by Mark_Lenovo on 02-07-2008 10:19 AM

[wyth]

I believe the hard disk sits just under the right-front corner of the machine, so the keyboard had to be crunched a bit to get everything to fit.  It means a little self-retraining on how to type, but no big deal.  The touchpad is forcing me to use better typing posture; I can't slop my hands on the keyboard anymore, or I bump the touchpad and move the cursor someplace else in the document.  This is annoying at first, but as I'm adjusting, I'm probably doing something better for my wrists. I was also able to get the sound working better than it was before by following this guide (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SoundTroubleshooting) and installing the latest alsa drivers.  With that, the multimedia functions also worked.  I should look into that web cam.  I still haven't tried to set that up.

[kgodoy]

I also threw in Ubuntu 7.10 as soon as I turned the machine on, before booting into Vista. I noticed that it had a 30GB partition where Vista lives and the rest was just an empty NTFS partition (250GB hard drive). I resized the partition and installed Ubuntu. Like Wyth mentioned, Ubuntu pretty much worked right out the box. There were some exceptions for me though. You will NOT be able to run the desktop effects in Ubuntu on this machine right away because the GM965 integrated chipset (if that's what you have) is disabled for compiz by default due to some issues. But you can force it to work as some people have but its not very stable. The webcam works under Cheese but not on Camorarama. Also, although it reads the SD cards, I can't get it to read my Memorystick. Hibernate and Standby also do not work properly because when the machine comes back up, wireless gets turned off and Fn + F5 does not turn it back on. I have to turn it back on from Vista. I guess these are not really problems with the laptop itself, rather Linux support. But I'm happy with Ubuntu on it though as it has much more of what I need than Vista or XP. One thing that does bother me is the fact that this laptop heats up quite a bit, specifically in the area where my left palm rests when typing. I have to take breaks every few minutes because the heat gets my wrist real hot and it feels uncomfortable. I do like the sturdiness of the machine, its well built. It's definitely sleek and good for $600 that I'm going to end up paying for it after rebates. -KenG

[wyth]

KenG:

First, I'd love to know how you got the camera working.  The two things I'm still having an issue with are that and getting Skype to work.

Also, you're right that the hibernate and standby aren't quite there, and that's an OS issue.  I have a Dell desktop with Ubuntu 7.10 pre-installed and it doesn't work on that, either, and it's never worked on my older machines.  But if you lose networking after sleep, here's a couple things to try.

First, right-click on the network manager, disable networking completely, then re-enable it.

Or, try editing /etc/default/acpi-support and change

# Add services to this list to stop them before suspend and restart them in
# the resume process.
STOP_SERVICES=""

to

# Add services to this list to stop them before suspend and restart them in
# the resume process.
STOP_SERVICES="networking"

I haven't tested that yet, but I've read good things.

EDIT: I tried out STOP_SERVICES="networking"; I didn't have wireless when I came out of standby, but all I needed to do was switch the wireless switch on the front of the machine to off and then on again.  It takes a few seconds, but it found the network and linked back up in short order.  I'm writing this after coming out of sleep mode.

Just found I did not have sound after coming out of sleep mode.  Can probably add that in STOP_SERVICES -- will check.

Also managed to get Ekiga to recognize the camera last night, although the image was upside-down.  Seems this is the same camera as the Acer OrbiCam (lsusb gives an ID of 5986:0200), and that's an issue others have had with the built-in camera.

Still no decent Skype.  I have a usb headset, and can't get the Y510 to recognize it as such under Linux.  More digging to do.


Message Edited by wyth on 02-12-2008 06:34 AM

Message Edited by wyth on 02-12-2008 06:40 AM

[wyth]

Quick word on heat:

Most laptops today run pretty hot.  It's due in part to the processor, in part to the hard drive, and in large part to the screen -- they're doing more work than ever before. My old (OLD) laptop ran about as hot as this, but I realized something today that will help with heat:

I have to work on my computer all day.  I recently had an eye appointment as asked about what was the best brightness setting for a computer screen.  The optometrist said you generally want to keep your screen at a level similar to the ambient light in the room.

Since bright lights can strain your eyes, in my offices, I have some medium cfc bulbs in torchieres that put out a pretty soft, mid-level light.  So I adjusted my screen accordingly -- it's set at about 30% brightness (under Preferences - Power Management).  However, I noticed that when I increase that level, the machine gets proportionally hotter. 

So if your machine is starting to brand your hands, try adjusting the screen brightness.  Even at 30%, my screen is plenty readable, very easy on the eyes, and my machine is cooler than my old (OLD) laptop.

[ecoupons]

Hello,

This is a question for someone at Lenovo.

How come the IdeaPad line is not sold on Lenovo.com?

It would be great to customize and order directly from Lenovo instead of going through Office Depot, Tiger Direct etc.

Thanks.

[fsrc]

Hey,
I am an avid and very satisfied user of the Thinkpad laptop for the last 8 years.
I caught site of the Y510 IdeaPad on Ebay for $699 and had to get one. I have been reading up on people's comments regarding Linux (esp. Ubuntu Gutsy) on this machine and was slightly disappointed by the 3 things that everyone seems to be having issues with. I use Ubuntu Gutsy on my T60 Thinkpad and have been using Ubuntu Linux on many Thinkpads for some time now, so I hoped to be able to use Ubuntu on the IdeaPad with relatively good functionality and ease.

So the three main areas seem to be:

1) The Integrated Webcam
2) The 5.1 Surround Sound System
3) Compiz-Fusion Effects (Graphic Card related)

Now I was wondering if Lenovo was going to be shipping out SLED with these machines as an alternative to M$ Windows? If so, are all these above features working fluently?
I would even purchase SLED for $50 if I knew it was going to work.

Well, I hope I can get Ubuntu working well on this machine... otherwise its back for sale on Ebay as "Near New".... - ha

Cheers
Jack

[wyth]

There was a fix for the subwoofer posted over at the Ubuntu forums.  First, you'll need to set up the latest alsa drivers.  I already posted about that here (it's long, so just go there to follow it).

Then do the following:

In the command line:

sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base

Add the following to the end, or change to this if you've already added something:

options snd-hda-intel model=lenovo-ms7195-dig

After a reboot, you may need to go to System - Preferences - Sound and set everything to Auto.  In the volume control preferences, you'll see a slider for LFE -- that's your subwoofer. It sounds great, too.