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[Pilcher, Fred]

Stephen lamented:

> Gentle Reader,
>  
> Here are my experiences with a brand new IBM Lenovo Notebook
> Computer, purchased two days ago (and it left the factory exactly
> one month ago) factory loaded with Windows Vista Home Premium.

For what it may be worth, let me add my experiences with a brand new HP Pavillion dv9000, also loaded with Vista, purchased a couple of weeks ago.

There were no Vista disks. There is, however, a system that allowed me to make one (and only one) image, which I did onto a DVD +R, which failed 95% of the way through the burn. Having no more +R DVDs, I inserted a blank -R. The system recognised that the previous image had failed and was prepared to let me try again, but would not, under any circumstances, recognise the -R in the drive. To the shop, then, to buy another couple of +Rs - and I was allowed to start again. (The drive is perfectly happy to burn -Rs, but just not in this particular case - I had to use precisely the same type that I'd started with.) The burn was successful this time, so I have an image of the virgin system that I'll have to try to use in the event that anything goes wrong. Knowing how reliable and resiliant burnt DVDs are, I'm completely confident that I'll be able to restore a perfect system five years from now. Of course, since it's an image, I'll lose everything, but that's a small price to pay, right?

So, armed with a total sense of confidence, I resized the partition (Using Windows - I believe that Vista will not recognise partitions that it, itself, hasn't changed or created) and installed Open SuSE. All went well. GRUB set itself up for dual boot, and everything was fine. 

Though SuSE recognised all the components (wireless, webcam, TV tuner, Bluetooth mouse), none of them worked. I could live with that, but not the lack of wireless, and I'm a newbie, so I didn't feel at all confident recompiling the kernel to install the drivers. At a friend's recommendation I installed Kubuntu. Bingo. Wireless was up and working, thought he webcam, bluetooth mouse and TV card were recognised and listed, but not working. After two weeks with Kubuntu, I've decided I don't like it.  Apt is great, but I've had a lot of hassles getting other software installed. I think I'll go back to SuSE and work out how to get the wireless working.

Anyway, the laptop has this cute little switch on the front that disables the wireless and bluetooth. Flip the switch to "off", boot Vista and watch teevee. Flip the switch to "on", boot Linux and do everything else.

So - boot Vista, uninstall Norton's (it actually uninstalled first go - they've obviously fixed the bug that stopped you from uninstalling it), install AVG - you never know. I had to let it connect, of course, to install AVG, and Vista obviously automatically registered itself, since it went off without my permission and updated itself. I'm not concerned. I can put up with Vista's problems - for me it's only a means of watching teevee, and it will never connect to the Internet again thanks to the dinky little switch. I hope I can solve all the other driver issues with SuSE, but as long as I can get the wireless connectivity, I'm happy.

It's a lovely machine, though would you believe it - it has a shiny screen! I thought that, like digital watches, we'd decided that highly reflective screens weren't a Good Idea some years back. Clearly not.

Fred 
  
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