I just installed the latest beta of Ubuntu 7.10 on my old IBM T30. Unlike the last time I tried this, both the wireless and the video worked first try. Woot! I ran the movie player and attempted to stream a video off my slug and it calmly downloaded the required codecs and then played it perfectly.

Of course, I can’t run the fancy desktop effects, but I couldn’t do this on the old version either, and at least it now notices that it can’t run them instead of attempting to switch and leaving the UI in a busted state.

This spirit of helpfulness carries through in other places too. When I booted the first time, it warned me that my battery was “busted” because the capacity was down to 32%. Yup, that seems busted to me. Anybody know of a good source of T30 batteries in Ottawa?

Anyway, I probably won’t start using the laptop for anything important until the Gibbon comes off beta in a couple of weeks, but man it sure is nice to have found a way to make the old beast useful again. As usual, Ubuntu feels much snappier then WinXP did on this box.