View source for Installing Gentoo on a ThinkPad A30p

==Installing Gentoo Linux on a Thinkpad A30p==

The thinkpad A30p is delivered with Windows 2000 or Windows XP Professional, respectively. These preinstalled versions can be reinstalled via the IBM workarea which is a bootable hidden partition (<tt>/dev/hda2</tt>, approximately 1GB).

===Partitioning===
You can partition the harddisk as you want. If you keep the portage tree (300MB+) and the distfiles directory (fills up with source code packages fast) on a separate partition, you can install Gentoo with X.org and KDE and some development tools on a 3GB partition and have at least 1GB free.

For easy maintenance you should keep <tt>/home</tt> separately.

===Kernel configuration===
I successfully used the kernel versions 2.6.4 and 2.6.7 on my A30p. Any recent kernel should run flawlessly as the A30p is not a difficult computer at all (no ACPI, no wireless).

The '''network''' card is a Intel Pro/100 VE which runs with the ''eepro100'' module. The USB controller works with the ''uhci_hcd'' module.

For '''PCMCIA''' support you have to load the ''yenta_socket'' module and change the configuration file <tt>/etc/conf.d/pcmcia</tt> (replace <tt>PCIC=i82365</tt> with <tt>PCIC=yenta_socket</tt>).

===Sound support===
The sound card which identifies as "Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corp. 82801CA/CAM AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 01)" can be used with the [http://www.alsa-project.org ALSA drivers], namely the ''snd_intel8x0'' module.

===Power management===
The A30p has a stable '''APM''' implementation. Suspend/Resume works very good, even with X11 started.

The Mobile Pentium 3 '''speedstep''' feature can be used for additional power savings. You have to load the module ''speedstep_ich'' and ''speedstep_lib'' module and the desired scaling governor modules (''cpufreq_performance'', ''cpufreq_powersave''). I use a script to switch to slow speed when on battery and to high speed (performance) when on AC power.

===X11 configuration===
I use the ''radeon'' driver with XFree86 6.4.0 for the installed ATI Radeon Mobility M6 LY. It supports dynamic resolution changes via XRANDR and automatically detects the display resolution of 1600x1200 (FlexView display).

The external VGA connector works but I had some problems with cloning view on lower resolutions with certain beamer models. They only worked when the internal display was switched off (FN-F7 toggles between the different modes).

[[Category:ThinkpadA30p]]