Well, my adventures in Linux continue.  Initially, I was quite happy with Linux Mint, but it soon became clear that it had some stability issues.  Specifically, it would frequently crash when suspending to RAM or hibernating.  On top of that, I was getting kernel panics far too often.  I think the wireless driver was the culprit there, but I wasn’t able to get anywhere with that.  So I decided to try openSUSE 11.1 with KDE 4.2, which I was familiar with from our lab computers.  While openSUSE was far more stable than Linux Mint, it had other problems.  By far the most severe were the graphical issues.  Unlike Linux Mint, openSUSE 11.1 suffered from terribly unresponsive graphics with my integrated Intel gpu.  The worst manifestation of this was very laggy window scrolling, particularly with Firefox.  Then Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) was released in May, so I decided to switch distros again.  I’m glad I did.  Unlike Linux Mint, which, weirdly, is based on Ubuntu, Ubuntu Jaunty has been solid as a rock.  I have had zero crashes in ~3 weeks of usage, and I have no problems with suspend or hibernate.  And unlike openSUSE 11.1, the graphics are quite responsive.  There are still some issues with the linux driver for Intel graphics chips, but I can live with it while the driver is further developed.  So I’m pretty darn happy with Ubuntu 9.04, and I don’t see myself switching distros anytime soon.  Anyone looking for a good linux distro for their Thinkpad would do well to try Jaunty.

As far as desktop environments go, gnome has really grown on me.  It might not be as slick as KDE 4.2, but with some tweaks it can look quite nice.  Below is a picture of my current desktop.  I’m still playing with things, but I’m pretty happy with it.  The dock is the Docky plugin for Gnome-Do, which I prefer over AWN.  My conky configuration is from this site.

Well, I figure it’s time to get back into blogging.  I haven’t had the motivation or the interest for it the last several months.  A number of factors contributed to that, one of them being the decrepitude of my aging G4 iBook.  For one, it just couldn’t keep up with Leopard.  Even after maxing out the RAM at 1.5 GB, it was still a sluggish mess.  And recently, the computer has been running very hot.  After about 30 minutes of usage, it becomes a lap-scorcher.  Oh, and the battery doesn’t hold a charge for longer than 10 minutes.  Basically, it’s just a miserable experience using that thing, so I’ve decided to put the old iBook out to pasture.

It took me a while to decide on a replacement.  The immediate choice was a new Mac.  I think OS X is the best operating system currently available, and I generally like the Mac design esthetic.  The problem with that option was, of course, price.  I wanted a 15″ screen, which is only available on the Macbook Pro, meaning I’d have to spend at least $1900 for a new Mac.  So I decided against the Mac in favor of a PC laptop running Linux.  I loathe Windows–hard.  After a bit of research, I settled on a Lenovo Thinkpad T500.  Thinkpads are very solid machines, with a build quality that rivals Macs.  Combine that with a bitchin’ online sale, and I was sold.

I’m currently dual booting Linux Mint and Windows.  The Linux Mint install was almost flawless.  The only thing that didn’t work right away was flash video, but I got that taken care of in a matter of minutes.  Compiz-Fusion 3D compositing works great with the Intel integrated graphics chip; the only issue being some slight window tearing when windows are moved, but this seems to be a problem with Compiz on just about every video card as far as I can tell.  Wireless works perfectly, as do the Lenovo volume and mute hotkeys.  I’ll probably spend a few weeks with Linux Mint to see how I feel about the Gnome desktop.  After that I’ll likely install openSUSE 11.1 to test out KDE.  Whichever I like best will become the permanent distro.  So I’ll probably have post up in the future about my experience installing openSUSE.