I’m typing this on my new laptop. The totally hot Lenovo ThinkPad X200. It’s like 4 generations of improvement over my X23. The best part about it is the 12.1″ 1280×800 resolution LCD screen. The worst part is that Lenovo forced me to buy it with Windows (and now there’s this annoying Windows flag key wedged between the Ctrl and Alt—it’s already been remapped as Ctrl). Thankfully they gave me the option of saving forty bucks by downgrading to Windows Vista Basic.

When it arrived on Monday, I booted it up, just to make sure it worked, and kind of realized this was the first time I was really seeing the infamous Vista. Then I realized my eyes were burning, so I had to look away and turn it off. When I got home I plugged in my external CD-ROM drive, loaded an Ubuntu 8.04 disk I had laying around, and immediately blew Windows away.

And dammit if the Atheros-based wireless card didn’t work when I finally booted into Ubuntu. This made me sad. I thought maybe I could switch out the mini pci wireless card in my old X23 (which works with Ubuntu), but turns out mini pci != mini pci express. Eventually I sucked it up (I’m such an apt-get baby) and found some instructions that essentially amounted to compiling my own HAL (hardware abstraction layer) for Atheros. Now everything is peachy keen. Update: I posted my instructions here: Getting wireless to work in Ubuntu on a Lenovo ThinkPad X200.

Some people probably would use stories like this to demonstrate how Linux is not ready for prime time or the “average” user. However if Lenovo offered Ubuntu preloaded on their laptops (LIKE DELL DOES) they would make damn well sure it had the latest and greatest drivers for their wireless cards. And I’m not exactly an average user. It’s all a question of market share and economies of scale. I’m just trying to do my part.