Windows will not do striping on a laptop. You will have to run a different operating system to do this.

Windows drivers have nothing to do with Gentoo, so that is very weird.

Wow, my rebooting frequency is like your XP installing frequency
And the last reboot was to do a BIOS update in Windows. There is really little reason to reboot Linux unless it's to go into Windows and do something.

If I remember correctly, if you have ATI's Hydravision installed, right-clicking the desktop will have a "save icon position" entry that is for this purpose. Then again, I haven't been in Windows for so long I could be wrong.

Are you sure you aren't mixing the AMD and the Intel Prescott up? IIRC, the Prescott has the most insane thermal dissipation.

There are free and non-free versions of Linux available. Some popular ones are Slackware, Suse, Debian, Fedora, and Gentoo. Each is targeted towards a different kind of user...check out http://www.distrowatch.com/ for a nice guide. I personally use Gentoo on my T41, but this is hardly a "beginner di...

My middle mouse button works perfectly and I have my touchpad enabled.

I got it from my university, which has a site license (that's where I got all of my MS software too).

Who said I was running one of those silly operating systems that get spyware/viruses? I do have NAV Corporate Edition in Windows XP, but I hardly ever use it. Last time I started XP to do a BIOS update, I had 5 MB of virus definition updates to install, hehe.

Wow, I can't believe how fast my ThinkPad is running no AV or firewall!

A T41 (which also uses PC2700 like the T42) does indeed work with PC2100 (yes, I have tried).

I am simply pressing Fn+F4, although "apm -s" works too. However, this probably won't work if you have ACPI, as ACPI takes over everything (read the dmesg output and you can see APM letting ACPI take over. I haven't really tried suspend to disk because I don't really need it.

Sure it will, it will just run a little bit slower.

I'm running Gentoo, not Mandrake, but hopefully this still helps. First of all, are you using ACPI or APM? ACPI doesn't work too well (and ACPI suspend b0rks stuff on mine when I unsuspend) so if you are using that, give APM a try. I can reliably suspend and resume my T41 with APM. To get support fo...

This won't disable it completely, but try turning the "palm check" all the way up - that should prevent accidental brushes to the touchpad from moving the mouse.

Sure, go to Display in Control Panel -> Appearance tab -> Advanced and adjust the Icon Spacing (there is a horizontal and vertical setting).

This old laptop didn't happen to be a Dell, did it? My friend is on his 3rd palmrest now (good thing Dell keeps sending him new ones for free because of the CompleteCare warranty). This is absolutely not an issue on the ThinkPad - my wrist area looks as new as it did when I first got it last year.

Thank you for the replies. Since I've read elsewhere on this site that the caps just about outlast the laptop, it sounds like I can save myself the $10 by passing on this. Not really, in my experience. I'm currently on my 2nd cap (since last Oct.), and this one is about to wear out too. I think it ...

My T41 is also very solid and to make the LCD ripple even a tiny bit you have to push the back *really* hard. On a T41p I saw recently, the top cover was also quite flimly and it was easy to cause a ripple on the LCD just by pressing the back lightly. I don't think new T4xs are built as well as T40s...

I have no experience with Mandrake, but in Fedora Core and Gentoo, you do something like this:

iwconfig eth1 key key-as-hex

or

iwconfig eth1 key s:key-as-a-string

where eth1 is my wireless.

To get a graph of CPU speed in SpeedswitchXP, you have to enable it in the options. Once you do that, you really should be able to see it controlling the CPU speed (it's very possible Windows is lying to you about it).

I've never seen a 15" T42, but I can say that I'm perfectly happy with my T41's 14.1" SXGA+ screen and would never trade it for a 15". When it comes to a perfect balance of weight and features, I think the 14.1" is really the way to go. Personally, I think the 14.1" looks much, much nicer too (the 1...

Zeitgeist: I've never actually used either, but from what I understand, the feature you are referring to takes an image of the HD as it currently is and saves it, so you can restore it at a later time. The "recovery CDs" do not simply restore an image, instead, they actually go though the process of...

n3il: Thanks, that's exactly what I figured. I had heard that T42s have the option to create *the* Recovery CDs but I knew that T41s didn't have this since I had to call IBM and request them (heh, and my T41 is so "old" it only has 4 recovery CDs, not 5 or more).

MPCI = mini-pci?

Are you absolutely sure that T41s come with that? I know for a fact that mine did not have the "Click Start, select All Programs, select Access IBM, click Create Rescue Media." option that http://www-306.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-55053 describes. (I am still on the origina...

Sure, but that requires a > 300 MB download. I'm talking about just what comes with the laptop. In that case, T41 -> cannot burn recovery CDs, T42 -> can burn.

With the T41 you cannot burn recovery CDs, but on the T42 I guess you can (I have a T41).

I leave it off when using my notebook at home since it is always on a table. But I will always turn it on when travelling with it just to give it a use. If it may just save my data from a drop, it is worth using. But sometimes, oddly, I just wonder if I just want to be able to use that nifty accele...

No, this is a new feature on T42s.