The Alternate Reality, Episode 6: The Near-Death experience
Mat Newman September 15 2011 18:06:24
As many people noticed (especially after Ed Brill pointed out during the OGS) I wasn't carrying around my normal T61P Thinkpad for the duration of the AusLUG conference. Instead, I had the "Aircraft Carrier" - as it has become know - the mighty Lenovo W701DS Thinkpad.Yes ... OK ... it IS big for a Laptop. But you would expect that from a machine that has two of everything, Screens, Disks (actually 3 since I have another in the Ultrabay slot) and processors. I love it. It is an absolute powerhouse of a workhorse, and has no trouble running a dozen server VM's simultaneously which I often use for testing, proof-of-concept and training. It's really cool to be able to do the testing and POC's while on-site at a customer: You want to know what? Oh, let me try that out for you!
Ubuntu 11.04 x64 with more than a few gig of memory and a couple terrabytes of Disk running ESX - No problem! Yeah OK, even though it's a lappy it IS more powerful than many of my customer's server's, and running Linux it's just a little - well, not so little - rocket ship
For the last year the 701 has normally sat in my Hotel room while I am at a conference, but alas the Friday morning before AusLUG on my way to Sydney I put my trusty 5 year old T61P to sleep in the Qantas club lounge in Hobart, and when I tried to wake it on the plane, it wouldn't. Investigations later revealed a dead mother-board. OK. Replacement is a few weeks away, what to do in the meantime...
Dead laptop. All that information just sitting on it's disk waiting to be revived.
When I returned from the conference ISW's uber-tech, Dan Bryan stepped in: "Mat, I have a spare X201 that you can borrow". He DID stress "borrow" a number of times :-)
Right, so now I have a 'little' machine that won't take up two tray-tables on an airliner, but what about my poor dead little T61's disk full information that was really what I needed.
Solution: Pull the disk from the T61, slide it straight into the X201 and boot.
Remember I run Ubuntu Linux.
An initial warning after GRUB that the graphics needed to be reconfigured (the T61 has an Nvidia chip while the X201 is Intel), 6 clicks later and then ... straight back to life!
And back to work. No issue with data since I have almost everything in Notes, a lot of stuff in Connections, and dribs'n'drabs in Ubuntu1 and DropBox.
- Replicate Notes
- Synch Ubuntu1 and DropBox
All is good with the world, back up to date and running like a champion. No OS rebuild or re-install, no driver garbage, no complaints about SSID signatures, etc, etc...
Missing the larger screen on the T61, but grateful that I have a "small" laptop again to do work during "disconnected" time - like now on a plane home - and even more confident that when the T61's mother-board replacement arrives, it will just be a matter of switching the disk back out again.
Linux. Like Lotus Notes, This ... Stuff ... Just ... Works!
Life with Ubuntu Linux just gets better and better, even with a "near-death" experience!