What Ubuntu is best for Lenovo Laptop?

[Marius Gedminas]

On Fri, Apr 25, 2014 at 03:42:25AM +1000, GaryTaig wrote:
> We have a Lenovo Thinkpad that runs WinXP and I want to load the
> most suitable version of Ubuntu.  Not necessarily the latest.
> 
> ThinkPad R500
> Core 2 Duo P8400
> 2.26 GHz
> 2048MB RAM
> BIOS V207 (Feb 2009)

It's not that old.  I was running Ubuntu 12.04 on a ThinkPad T61 bought
in 2007.  1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo, 1 GB RAM originally (upgraded to 3 GB at
some point).  HDD upgraded to an Intel SSD a bit later (best upgrade
ever, made it feel like a new machine).

> Is there a Ubuntu that's likely to load and run without mishap?
> I'm not keen on the latest; 14.04 sounds nice but there is no time
> for experimenting, or trying to discover why a broken installation
> isn't working.

14.04 may have some rough edges since it's so recent (and fewer people
test pre-releases compared to releases).  It may be worth a try.

> It will be used on the Internet, has WiFi and Bluetooth etc. and can
> boot from a CD.  Has plenty of USB slots but appears NOT to be able
> to boot directly from USB... only from a USB diskette.

Have you tried it?  Plug in a USB drive, turn it on, press F12 at the
boot splash screen to get the boot device menu.  You should see the USB
drive in there.

> Is Ubuntu the most suitable?  I've been running it on a desktop
> machine for several years, I think the first version was about 7 or
> 8, currently 10.04 LTS.
> 
> What is Kubuntu?  Have seen it mentioned but never gave it more than
> a passing glance; always snowed under.

It uses the KDE desktop instead of Unity.  You may like it if you like
hundreds of configuration options to tweak the smallest thing.

(I don't like it.)

> Is there a Ubuntu specifically for Laptops?

No; the regular Ubuntu is supposed to work well on laptops.

> Perhaps one needs to cast the mind in a wider arc?

When the multitude of available choices overwhelms me, I go for the
upstream default.

(I guess this is why I like GNOME.  Which is ironic, since the default
on Ubuntu is Unity.  Hey, I tried out GNOME Shell out of curiosity
and liked it better.)

> Any help, leads, pointers greatly appreciated.

Get a small USB key.  Copy the data off it.  Write the Ubuntu Desktop
14.04 CD image (32-bit) to it, boot from it, see how it feels, maybe,
then install it.

Note: don't write the CD image as a file in the USB key, write it on top
of the entire drive (in Linux it would be 'sudo dd
if=ubuntu-desktop-14.04.iso of=/dev/sdb', assuming /dev/sdb is the USB
drive; on Windows I've no idea).

Marius Gedminas
-- 
The UNIX philosophy basically involves giving you enough rope to
hang yourself.  And then a couple of feet more, just to be sure.
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