I installed Mint on a Thinkpad R61. Nice laptop, by the way. Faaaaast. But some things don't work right with Linux.

Problems

Trackpad won't scroll. Is identified (incorrectly) as "N: Name="PS/2 Generic Mouse". It is, I'm pretty sure, an ALPS trackpad, and not a Synaptics one. I gotta do some kernel driver patching or something to make it work.

Suspend-to-RAM did not work, initially. I made some minor changes to configuration files and now it does. See http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-614106.html

Actually, though, that's really about it. It would be very nice to have the trackpad scrolling work, but I'll worry about that later.

I got a Palm Centro from Sprint this week, and, although it has only been a few days, I must say I really like it. However, every phone I have had has had a problem whereby dust and lint get inside the phone and, eventually, between the layers of the screen, thus creating a very hard to view screen. (I think I have too many snot rags in my pocket.) My solution? Shrinkwrap!

I used, for the shrinkwrap material, some "window weatherizer" plastic sheeting, available from, say, Home Depot. More info in a little bit...

Except for a very important problem: the shrinkwrapping didn't fucking work. Oh, well. By "not work", I mean, I was, in fact, able to shrinkwrap the thing, but the wrapping had problems and, only a day later, I pretty much ripped it off.

Problems:

• Wrap over the screen got stretched and wrinkled as I used the touch screen.
• Couldn't hear conversations as well. Solution: poke a hole at the point of the ear hole.
• Others couldn't hear me as well: Solution, well, same as last one, only for the mic.
• Couldn't sync: Solution: cut off the bottom of the shrink wrap.
• Couldn't charge: Same as last solution.
• In and out of pockets rubbed and stretched and distressed the shrinkwrap.
• Camera took gauzy pictures. Solution: Cut hole in wrap around camera.

But no lint! No fingerprints! There has got to be a way to make this work...

Well, by the time I cut all those holes and spent a day with the thing in and out of pocket, the shrinkwrap was pretty much toast. So maybe just a nice leather case attached to my belt. Yes?