Installation instructions for the ThinkPad X24

Specific installation notes for the ThinkPad X24.

General Notes

If you don't have a CD-ROM solution, please look at Installation on ThinkPads without CD-ROM drive.

Distro specific Instructions

Debian 4.0 Etch

Miscellaneous

Use a default depth of 16 in xorg.conf alongwith the radeon driver. The radeonfb patch will fix the problem with high power drain in ACPI sleep

inserting a flash card into my X24 with kernel 2.6.22 (same result with 2.6.18-3,4,5) initially resulted in 'kernel: hde:<4>hde: lost interrupt' messages. changing interrupt settings of the serial, the IRDA and the parallel port in the BIOS solved the problem.

Ubuntu 7.10 - Gutsy Gibbon

Suspend to RAM

With some modifications Suspend to RAM works fine on a IBM Thinkpad X24. Known problems:

• The radeon driver seems to be unstable in conjunction with the built-in ATI Radeon Mobility M6 LY.
• The Network Manager has to be stopped before suspend and reloaded after resume.

Graphics driver

By default Ubuntu uses the ati/radeon graphics driver. You have to switch to vesa and set up a working display configuration. Either you use the new Screen and Graphics Dialog (System > Administration) or editing /etc/X11/xorg.conf directly.

• In Screen and Graphics Dialog choose Graphics Card Tab and select the vesa driver. On Screen Tab select the standard LCD Panel 1024x768. After setting the right resolution you have to restart the X-Server (Logout/Login or restart Ubuntu).
• Alternatively you could edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Following configuration works:

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"Failsafe Device"
	Boardname	"vesa"
	Busid		"PCI:1:0:0"
	Driver		"vesa"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"Failsafe Monitor"
	Vendorname	"Generic LCD Display"
	Modelname	"LCD Panel 1024x768"
	Horizsync	31.5 - 48.0
	Vertrefresh	56.0 - 65.0
  modeline  "640x480@60" 25.2 640 656 752 800 480 490 492 525 -vsync -hsync
  modeline  "800x600@56" 36.0 800 824 896 1024 600 601 603 625 +hsync +vsync
  modeline  "800x600@60" 40.0 800 840 968 1056 600 601 605 628 +hsync +vsync
  modeline  "1024x768@60" 65.0 1024 1048 1184 1344 768 771 777 806 -vsync -hsync
	Gamma	1.0
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier	"Default Screen"
	Device		"Failsafe Device"
	Monitor		"Failsafe Monitor"
	Defaultdepth	24
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth	24
		Modes	"1024x768@60" "800x600@60" "800x600@56" "640x480@60"
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Network Manager

To start/stop the Network Manager create following 2 files:

/etc/acpi/suspend.d/07-network-manager.sh

#!/bin/sh
/etc/dbus-1/event.d/25NetworkManager stop

/etc/acpi/resume.d/63-network-manager.sh

#!/bin/sh
/etc/dbus-1/event.d/25NetworkManager start

Found on: WifiDocs/NetworkManager

Ubuntu 7.04 - Feisty Fawn

Video Adapter

By default Ubuntu sets the ati driver in xorg.conf. It is a wrapper which points (on the X24) to the radeon driver. You could simply displace ati by radeon. If you want use desktop effects you have to lower the depth to 16. On depth 24 the video adapter does not provide direct rendering, which is necessary for an acceptable animation performance.

Wireless LAN Mini-PCI Adapter

There are 3 drivers shipped with the standard kernel of Ubuntu: orinoco_pci (WEP), prism2_pci (WEP) and hostap_pci (WEP/WPA/WPA2). All 3 are active by default. Usually the orinoco driver should be used in a standard installation. With a blacklist you could activate/deactivate a special driver. You can provide a blacklist by creating a file in /etc/modprobe.d.

orinoco

The recommended driver is the orinoco_pci. If you want use the orinoco driver you have to create a file in /etc/modprobe.d where you blacklist the other 2 drivers:

/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-wlan

  blacklist hostap
  blacklist hostap_pci
  blacklist prism2_pci

hostap

If you want use WPA or WPA2 encryption with your wireless lan adapter you have to use the hostap driver. But be aware. (In combination with the network manager) You could have trouble with mounting/unmounting filesystems. The blacklist in /etc/modprobe.d should look like this:

/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-wlan

  blacklist hermes
  blacklist orinoco
  blacklist orinoco_pci
  blacklist prism2_pci

If you have trouble to connect to an access point you should check the firmware version of your wireless adapter:

  > dmesg | grep wifi
  ...
  wifi0: NIC: id=0x8013 v1.0.0
  wifi0: PRI: id=0x15 v1.1.0
  wifi0: STA: id=0x1f v1.4.9

With some older versions the hostap driver have some stability issues. I use the combination of 1.1.1 and 1.7.4 which seems to be the most reasonable firmware versions:

  wifi0: NIC: id=0x8013 v1.0.0
  wifi0: PRI: id=0x15 v1.1.1
  wifi0: STA: id=0x1f v1.7.4

How to upgrade your firmware is explained on http://linux.junsun.net/intersil-prism/. Some firmware versions are hosted on http://www.netgate.com/support/prism_firmware.

You will find a detail description of the 3 linux wlan drivers on: http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/Linux.Wireless.drivers.802.11b.html

Standby or Suspend-to-Ram

If you have trouble with you standby mode and you use the Network Manager, you should deactivate the Network Manager before entering the standby mode by adding the following file to /etc/acpi/suspend.d:

/etc/acpi/suspend.d/05-network-manager.sh

  #!/bin/sh   
  dbus-send --system \
    --dest=org.freedesktop.NetworkManager \
    /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager \
    org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.sleep

and resume:

/etc/acpi/resume.d/91-network-manager.sh

  #!/bin/sh
  dbus-send --system \
    --dest=org.freedesktop.NetworkManager \
    /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager \
    org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.wake

This seems to solve the problem. (Found on: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/feisty/+source/network-manager/+bug/40125)

External Sources

• OpenBSD on a ThinkPad X24
• Debian on a ThinkPad X24