My Linux hunt is over and my quest for the perfect distro for my ThinkPad 600e has officially ended.

After a few days of using Fedora, Dave suggested that I try Mandrake. I’ve used Mandrake before, as I found a copy of version 7(?) floating around my desk. I went ahead and downloaded Mandrake 10, even went as far as downloading all three disks that were available for download. The install was blasted 80 minutes, with minimum packages. Install was painless as it was graphical. I prefer text mode, but they both get the job done.

When it was up and running, everything worked, except sound of course. I found Mandrake to be very slow on my machine and didn’t really like the package management. I think I’m just completely biased and Debian won my heart at first install. As I’ve never liked anything since.

I gave Mandrake a whirl for a few days but continued pining for Debian. Once again, I caved and decided to delve back into Debian. This time I downloaded a 110MB copy of the latest Sarge image for a bare minimum install and crossed my fingers and hoped my Nic would be detected during install. It was! apt-get install kde, logged in, apt-get update, apt-get dist-upgrade, reboot…sound aside, everything was flawless and speedy.

After a few apt-get installs and customizing, I set out to find a sound fix. I came across one of the forums on LinuxQuestions.org, same thread I’d been reading since the beginning of this mission, only this time someone posted a new fix. I’ve already tried every Thinkpad600e fix that I came across, this one, however, was new so I followed the quick one minute directions, and rebooted.

The sound error didn’t pop up but I refused to let my hopes get up. I threw in Sleater-Kinney’s One Beat album and BAM! Sound works perfectly!

Huge thanks go to jhalford for posting the info and even bigger thanks to blissex on the Debian support on IRC for providing the fix to jhalford.