My Frivolous Blog

I have been trying to get the soundcard to work on my ThinkPad X31 with Fedora Core 2/3. It never worked (or, I should say, I was never able to get it to work) even after I tried installing several packages/modules, configuration changes, etc. as recommended in web pages found on the ‘net. Because this laptop also runs Windows XP, and sound card works just fine on Windows XP, it was very frustrating to boot up Windows XP whenever I needed sound. I had to fix it…this was driving me crazy.

Somewhere on the ‘net I read about Ubuntu and I gave it a try yesterday night. I downloaded Ubuntu Live and burned a CD, fired up my laptop and sound worked without me having to do anything! However, my Cisco Aeronet PCMCIA wireless card, which works just fine with FC3, didn’t work with Ubuntu. I didn’t have the energy to get wireless to work…although I was excited that sound was working.

I played with Ubuntu for an hour or so and shutdown the laptop. After that exercise, I was in a dilemma: install Ubuntu and lose wireless access—and maybe spend time to get it to work—but get sound or live with working wireless but without sound. In the environment I am in, wireless has more use to me than sound…most of the time. I thought about it for a while and decided to postpone decision-making for a week or two.

Then this miracle happened! I powered up my laptop this morning and loaded the default OS, Fedora Core 3, and I started hearing a loud hum—I recognized it as the feedback from mic. I can’t describe how musical that (usually annoying sound) sounded to my ears! When the system was running I muted the various mics and line ins and tried Play test sound with System Settings -> Soundcard Detection and I actually heard the test sound for the first time. I haven’t stopped playing music since the test was complete.

Since I haven’t changed anything on the laptop, my question is: How did this happen? Did Ubuntu test-drive have anything to do with this? Not having a reasonable answer, I think it had everything to do with it. It has literally given voice to my laptop!

I guess I will be sticking with FC3 for a while now. Now that all the hardware on this laptop is working fine, just like all my favorite software is, there is no need for me to spend time moving to any other distro. If I ever change my mind, I will certainly consider installing Ubuntu on this ThinkPad X31. Thank you, Ubuntu.