Running Ubuntu on Lenovo Laptops

[Peter Smout]

On 01/04/14 09:11, Peter Goggin wrote:
> Thank you all for the replies about this topic.
> The four laptops are used for different things.
>
> The X61S is used for emails, web searches and record keeping. The main
> programs are Firefox, Thunderbird and Microsoft office. I know that
> Firefox and Thunderbird run under Ubuntu. I know that LibreOffice
> provides similar functionaliity to MS Office and can save and read files
> in MS format.   This will be the first machine I convert.
> Currently the hard drive has two partitions, One is NTFS and the oither
> smaller one is FAT32. I beleive the FAT32 partition is used to rebuild
> XP on the main partition.  Presumably the Ubuntu installation will
> overwrite both these partitions and format them as a single partion.
> Once this is done I cannot return the system to run XP.  I have all the
> data files backed up to an external hard drive.
>
> I am getting too old to learn many new tricks so I would appreciate
> gudance on how to do the conversion.
>
> How do I transfer my email for the XP version of Thunderbird to the
> Ubuntu version
> What applications come as standard with Ubunto.
>
> The X61S has Intel Core 2Duo LvL7500 (1.6GHz) processor and 2 Gb memory.
> 12.1inch (1024x768 resolution) TFT display, Intel X3100 - integrated
> graphicschipset
>
> Will this be able to run the full Ubuntu LTS release which is due this
> month?
> What desktop would I need to use:

It should run the full Ubuntu fine, as for which choice of GUI (desktop) 
that is a very personal choice, for me Unity is great, a friend and 
fellow convert to *Ubuntu at the same(ish) time as me hates and loathes 
the Unity interface and now uses Xubuntu as his preferred GUI, and 
nothing I do or say will interest him in using Unity ;¬(
I also have another machine (an old desktop, single core 1.5gb RAM, old 
Nvidia graphics card) that I have recently installed the Ubuntu Server 
edition on and put Open-box GUI on with the addition of Cairo Dock to 
give mouse(able) access to popular programs! this seems to work very well.
If in doubt try before you buy (figure of speech as Ubuntu  is free 
software, although donations always welcome) and run the live system 
from USB or CD and try the various GUI's before committing to 1.
you can also install more than 1 GUI on a single install, but this tends 
to double (or treble) up on programs such as text editors, media players 
etc., this does not in my experience cause any problems, but does use 
extra disk space!

I'm sure others will disagree with this statement but I'll make it 
anyway as it helps me keep things sorted in my head:-
Ubuntu is what is under the hood, the choice of Desktop Environment is 
just that a choice, & if you are running Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Kubuntu or 
Edubuntu (or any of the myriad of spin-offs) you are still running 
Ubuntu under the hood!

Hope all goes well, please report back any issues, and note that if you 
which you can install Ubuntu alongside XP and keep XP running on that 
machine (that doesn't help with XP reaching the end of it's natural 
life, much as the beloved Gnome 2 did a couple of years back)

Happy *buntuing I've never looked back and now am completely windows 
free in my personal computing (cant talk work into doing the same 
unfortunately, but will keep trying)

Pete S


> Thanks for any help.
>
>
> Regards
>
> Peter Goggin
>