Ubuntu 13.04 on a Lenovo T430 - a mini review, and good experience

[pastoralchicken]

So, after 5 years, my employer finally chipped in and got me a new laptop, a Lenovo T430 with the Optimus chipset. I wrangled my way into putting Ubuntu on the thing instead of Windows 8, and I have to say, it's effing smoooooth.

The only thing I don't yet have working is the fingerprint reader, and I should have that working shortly. Everything else is working great, including the Intel/Nvidia graphics setup. I had to install Bumblebee to make that work, which involved adding a couple PPAs to the mix, but that was it. Battery life seems pretty awesome once that's set up.

Suspend works great. The laptop boots in what seems like 4 seconds (seriously!).

I also enabled TRIM support for the SSD, and /tmp is now a ramdisk.

I'm pleasantly surprised at how well Ubuntu 13.04 is running, especially after all the fun of the initial Unity releases.

Upgrades rock.

 

[antiwraith]

I just installed Ubuntu in a VM, damn thing detected the Bluetooth on my Host OS and worked with it. Out of the box!

I'm seriously impressed. I even like Unity (first time messing with it, been away from Linux for a few years). I need to play around with it some more......I've got an older Dell laptop. I wonder how well it detects the hardware out of the box? I hate HATE messing around with device drivers. That is what has always kept me away from linux in the past.

 

[Wheels Of Confusion]

Ubuntu is very good about detecting your hardware and installing the appropriate drivers. I would say "unusually good," but really most distros do it well these days.
If there isn't an open source version of the driver for your hardware, you're likely to be offered a proprietary one as a dialog button to confirm for installation.

 

[pastoralchicken]

In case anyone is curious, I got triple monitor working with an out-of-the-box install of Ubuntu 13.04.

Here’s how:

I have the 3-port 90w dock from IBM.

* Install Ubuntu 13.04 on the T430, but do not dock the laptop while you’re installing.
* Reboot.
* Once the login prompt comes up, dock the laptop. The third display will come on!
* Use the “Display” widget to config your desktop layout.
* You’re done!

I will note that if you boot the laptop while docked, the third display *will not* come up.

I will further note that I did not install the proprietary nvidia drivers, and I did not install Bumblebee. Just stock Ubuntu 13.04.

Second note: if you install bumblebee in the config above, the triple monitor trick stops working. Even if you remove bumblebee and the associated packages, triple monitor stays broken.

 

[- mpr -]

I'm runnning 13.04 on a X201 (upgraded with no problems from 12.10) and everything just works. I have Windows 8 on another partition (I need it for Lightroom) and 13.04 is noticeably faster both in booting and general UI "snapiness".
Linux is far more useable compared to a few years ago, partly because the distros have improved and also because so much more is done via a web browser anyway that it matters less which O/S you're running.
I'm not a rabid windows hater either - windows 8 is fine IMO just that Ubuntu 13.04 is better for me.

EDIT: Oh and docking works fine also...

 

[Omega Supreme]

I just recently installed 13.04 on my cheapo HP laptop (came with Windows 8), and after dealing with quite a few headaches getting it installed and working properly, I've finally got it all set up just the way I want it. I really like Unity, and don't really get all of the fuss that some people have made about it. Ubuntu's install process was quite nice, and despite the problem I had with the video drivers (Hint: Don't install proprietary drivers until AFTER the OS does it's initial updates), everything is running smooth. I haven't had to boot into Windows 8 in almost a week now, and if I can get my games to run in WINE, I won't ever have to do so again.

 

[hictio]

Maybe I have a lemon, but my experience (Linux Mint Maya 64 bits) on the T430 it is far from silky smooth
I have problems shutting down the laptop (it reboots instead) and then I get a random total lockup (I mean total as in the only solution is a hard reboot).

 

[M. Jones]

I'm running a T430 with Intel HD4000 graphics and SSD. All Thinkpad functionality and special functional keys work out of the box in Ubuntu 12.10 and 13.04, although in restrospect a machine capable of 1080p on the LCD would have been better in order to have simultaneous display on LCD and mini-DisplayPort output at the same resolution. I'm using Xubuntu on that machine, which uses XFCE.

I haven't tried the Bluetooth nor fingerprint-reader nor smartcard-reader; in fact I don't think I've done much with the WiFI at all yet, even though it has the Intel Ultimate-N 6300 for 802.11a/b/g/n and Bluetooth.

An install of 13.04 with Unity on a random older full-sized Dell XPS laptop similarly lacked drama.

 

[stmiller]

Cool. I'm on a T430s with Debian wheezy - it rocks!