hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr2362.txt

Episode: 2362
Title: HPR2362: Raspbian X86 on Lenovo x61s
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2362/hpr2362.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 01:43:05

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This is an HPR episode 2,362 entitled Raspion X86 on Lenovo X61.
It is hosted by Tony Huma, Tony H1, 212 and in about 11 minutes long and Karima Cleanflag.
The summary is, this is another distro review show.
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Hello Acro Public Radio listeners, this is Tony Hughes from Blackpool in the UK, giving you another show and this time it's about running Raspion X86 on the Lenovo X61 S.
I did a review of with different OS's a couple of weeks ago or a couple of months ago probably now.
As these laptops don't have a DVD drive, normally I would create a big flash drive using a USB image writer in the next mint.
But I'd received a DVD of Raspion with the Magpie magazine which is the Raspion Pi magazine.
So I connected a portable USB DVD drive that I had and used the disk to install to the laptop.
On booting to the DVD drive you get several options including a live session with persistence which allows saving of data and system changes to a flash drive during the session if you're using a live session if you want to.
But the option I chose was to do a complete install to the hard drive.
This gives a simplified DB and installer for new users with no previous experience of installing Linux.
It recommends one of the options at each stage.
The only issue I had with the installer was at the stage where it asks to install Grub.
It does not automatically highlight the main drive, the SDA, as the default recommendation.
Small Grite, but it could confuse any newcomer if they've never had any experience of installing an operating system before.
That said, the install went flawlessly and upon first boot I was left with the pixel desktop with the taskbar at the top of the screen and the shortcut for the recycle bin on the desktop.
Boot time on the laptop with a core 2G around 4G RAM and 120G SSD is about 30 seconds which is good.
Also, it was only using 87MB of the available RAM on start-up which gives an indication of the credentials of an OSF built specifically to run and be backwardly compatible with the original 256MB Pi.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation is still supported hardware that's now 4 or 5 years old but it does mean that if you've still got a 256MB Pi stuck in a cupboard somewhere it's not defunct, you can still use it.
The first job I did was to navigate to the Raspberry Pi config from the menu bar.
You open the menu, look at preferences, Raspberry Pi config and press that and it opens up.
On the first page you get the option to change the password which considering every single Raspberry Pi install of Raspberry Pi starts with the password of Raspberry you want to change that fairly quickly.
Just to stop anyone else messing about with your system really. It won't allow you to choose a weak password you've got to choose something reasonably good.
So I really changed the password. Partly because my memory is terrible and my spelling is even worse.
If I use something that I know and I want to spell, I would have spell it in a pretty good chance that I'll remember it.
After this I connected the laptop to my Wi-Fi network which this happens lawlessly.
It recognized that the network was there. I picked my particular SSID and put in the password and it connected.
I've got an Intel Wi-Fi card in the X61S. I can't comment on how easy or difficult this would be with a piece of equipment with another make of Wi-Fi card.
Maybe someone else could share their experience of connecting Raspberry and to Wi-Fi on their network if they're not running Intel.
The next task I run couple of terminal commands to update the system.
So do update and do upgrade and update all the packages to get security fixes and any package updates that were available.
There's one little bug in the system not quite a happy weather I think maybe.
I know why it's there because it makes it easier for new users who've got no experience with Linux.
It makes it easier for them to be able to update things and not worry about passwords and stuff.
But pseudo runs by default without having to put password in.
It can be fixed and there's a link in the show notes to a page that shows you how to do that but I'm not going to go into that here.
But if you're not using the system for anything that you're security conscious with and you're just playing around with it, don't worry about it.
It's not a major issue.
But if you're going to use it as a SSH to SSH into the machine and stuff like that then maybe you want to think about changing that so that it can only work with pseudo after a password has been put in.
So after completing the upgrades I also added Synaptic Package Manager to the install.
Partly because even though you can use the terminal for adding software and stuff you don't always know the exact package name or whatever that you want to install.
And if you're just hunting for audio, you know, something to do with audio, Synaptic will give you a little rundown on what various bits of software are.
So you can go and have a look and decide what you want to install.
So I installed Synaptic through the terminal and after you've installed it appears in the preference menu as a link to open it up.
Now that does require the password to start it up for some reason.
Terminal doesn't, but Synaptic does, so there's one for you.
One thing that didn't work out at the box was audio.
I had to install some alpha packages and audacity to collect the needed dependencies for the audio to work.
I installed an alpha player, alpha mixer GUI and audacity and after I've done that and rebooted the audio work.
I'm not sure exactly which with the dependencies for audio that weren't working, but by doing that I grabbed them and it now works.
There was no battery monitor installed on the software, so I went and got Batman out of the Synaptic Manager, installed Batman.
So now I can check the battery status, which if you're out and about and you're relying on the battery a lot, that can be quite useful to have.
On the whole, given that Razbrind has been built to be compatible with all the iterations of the Pi, including the new Pi0 etc.
The software installed by default, while minimal, includes all the basics for web use, chromium, for web browsing,
for closing e-mails, for sending e-mails and receiving e-mails, and for office work you've got the full open office suite, which is quite a feat.
I did a little bit of playing around with these and they worked fine.
You've got to remember that the X61S is a quarter-duo with an IAD 4G RAM, so I would expect them to work fairly well.
But on something a little less well-specced, you might find that some of the more resource-heavy packages might slow down a bit, and you might only be able to use one or possibly two at the time.
So, would they use Razbrind's BNX86 as a daily driver?
Well, with a few tweaks, it might be possible, particularly if you've got an older PC or laptop that you want to try and rescue.
On something very low-spec, you might struggle. I need to try it on an old Atom network to see if it will work or, you know,
but I suspect on a Pentium 4 system, which I might try out at the makerspace in the next week or so, because we've got one kicking around for adding distro's to.
And if it's got a couple of giga RAM, it should work reasonably well.
And if you've got, you know, one or two of them kicking around and a couple of kids at home that want a home work system,
and somewhere that they can mess about with software development through scratch or Python or whatever,
some of the stuff that they do at school may be on Raspberry Pi's and they've not got a Pi.
Then it could be quite a good little school student machine.
And you're not throwing something away to, you know, to have to be recycled.
Granted, Pentium 4, it's going to be more hungry on electricity than a modern system,
so take into account how much it's going to cost you to replace that system.
And you can probably run a Pentium 4 for quite a number of years before your electricity costs are going to eat into 300, 400 quid that it costs you to replace a Pentium 4.
So, I've put a link in the show notes to a page on the internet that gives you a link to download the ISO either via HTTP or a torrent.
And give it a go, you know, see what you think of it yourselves and let me know.
So that's it, that's Tony Hughes in Blackpool, signing off for this episode of Hackabubbit Radio. Bye for now.
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