What Ubuntu is best for Lenovo Laptop?

[GaryTaig]

On 25/04/14 22:24, Marius Gedminas wrote:

[SNIP]

>> 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).

Good tip. Marius.  Thanks.
Like many other things, I had ignored SSDs (had no perceived need for 
higher speed) but will be buying one for my working machine RSN.


[SNIP]
>> 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.

The BIOS refers to "USB Diskette" but Yes, it works.  Ripper.
I had already tried the F12 on boot, but not with a USB stick in the slot.

[SNIP]
> 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.

Definitely planning to go down that path. In fact I'll be having a look 
at all of them.

> 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

Greatly appreciate your comments Marius.
GaryT