Linux on a T520

[Dennis Kibbe]

On Thu, 2011-08-25 at 18:53 -0700, KevinO wrote:
> Anybody running Linux on a Lenovo Thinkpad T520?
> 
> I'm thinking of ordering one while they're on sale and then turning it into a
> dual-boot machine. (pre-installed with Windows 7 Pro 64 bit)
> 
> What I'm mostly wondering about is hardware compatibility and whether a
> bleeding-edge distribution like Fedora or the latest Ubuntu would be required to
> get all of the hardware to work. (I'd prefer something a little more stable like
> CentOS, for example)
> 
> All comments are very appreciated.
> 
> TIA

If you can get your hands on one try running the CentOS LiveCD or create
a liveUSB. The issues you are likely to run into are the Wifi card,
ThinkPad APCI and the Ethernet port. Most likely only the wifi will
require some extra work. Make sure you try suspend and hibernation to be
sure CentOS can return from those states.

CentOS uses an older kernel than, say, Fedora, so you might find Fedora
handles things better then CentOS. It does on my X100e.

Try posting on the CentOS forum or IRC channel to see if anyone is
running CentOS on that model. Also I notice that Emperor Linux sells
that model so you might look on their site for more information.

Dennis Kibbe
-- 
Adjunct Faculty
Linux Operating System and System Administration
Business and Information Systems
Mesa Community College, Mesa, Arizona