Installing Fedora 12 on a ThinkPad X40

NOTE! This is based on Fedora 12 with the default GNOME desktop. Your experience with KDE may be different. NOTE! This page will no longer be updated by the original author, as the ThinkPad has been upgraded to Fedora 13

Success Chart - Out of the box experience

This machines SMOLT profile is available here.

Item		Working	Notes
Installation	Local CD/DVD install	yes
	Network Installation	yes
	USB Installation	yes
Display	Laptop Screen (LVDS)	yes
	VGA	yes
Power Management	Software Suspend (hibernate)	yes	Works after installing updates
	Suspend to Memory (ACPI sleep)	no	Seems like it works, but after resume you get a blinking cursor, switching to another VT works, but you cannot login. This seems to be due to everything segfaulting bugzilla
Audio		yes
Wireless	WiFi - Atheros	unknown
	WiFi - Intel 2200BG	yes
	Bluetooth	yes
Input	Keyboard	yes
	TrackPoint	yes	Install gpointing-device-settings rpm for full configuration capabilities
	Extra keys	partial	see ThinkPad Extra keys section below
Ports	Ethernet	yes
	Modem	no	Requires closed-source driver. Install the slmodem rpm from the rpmfusion-nonfree repository, edit /etc/sysconfig/slmodem and set INTERFACE=alsa and ALSA_DEVICE=modem:1 and optionally the country.
	Serial	yes	Requires dock
	IrDA	no	It seems the device is detected, but then it tries to register a second device and fails with "nsc_ircc_open(). can't get iobase of 0x2f8". As a result no device files are created in /dev
	PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse	yes	Requires dock. Mouse works, but disables Trackpoint.
	Parallel	unknown (should work)	Requires dock
	USB	yes
	PCMCIA/Cardbus	yes
	SD slot	yes	4GB SDHC flash card automatically detected.
Harddisk Active Protection		partial	There is now a hdapsd rpm, but it is not installed by default, and neither is the hdaps kernel module getting automatically loaded. And even after install it is not started automatically. Starting it manually (modprobe hdaps; hdapsd -d sda), does seem to cause the HDD heads to get parked, but it gives lots of warnings that seem to indicate it does not yet work as intended.
Ultrabay device removal		partial	Eject switch causes udev event, but no default udev script to handle the event to unmount filesystems in time. ata_piix does handle the removal and insertion of ATA devices.
TPM (security subsystem)		unknown	Not brave enough to mess around with it. You can try to install the tpm-tools rpm.
Dock removal		no	Dock removal is completely un-handled. doing so without first powering down is not recommended.

Tested and Verified on Fedora 12

Information in this section has been tested and verified using Fedora 12.

Installation

Installation is straight forward; you can follow the generic Fedora install instructions.

Configuration

Kernel

It is recommended to edit /boot/grub/grub.conf and add hpet=force to the kernel line. This will activate HPET (High Precision Event Timer), which will allow the CPU to sleep for longer periods and save power.

X Server - Intel 855GM

It seems that KMS has improved a lot with this release of Fedora. Both LVDS and VGA displays work in mirror and extended desktop mode, although extended desktop is rather limited as the Intel graphics chip is limited to just a 2048x2048 desktop size.

Compiz seems to work (needs more testing)

There are some i915_handle_error messages in syslog, and briefly displayed on boot, but they do not seem to have any further effect. bugzilla.

WiFi

Both the Intel 2200BG and Atheros wireless should work out of the box.

I did limited tested with the Intel 2200BG and it seemed to worked.

Atheros WiFi was not tested.

ThinkPad Extra keys

ThinkPad keys are handled by a mixture of the thinkpad_acpi, acpi button and acpi dock drivers.

Key	Function	Handled by	Event	Works	Notes
Fn-F3	lock screen	thinkpad_acpi	HAL	yes
Fn-F4	suspend	acpi button	HAL	yes	works after installing updates
Fn-F5	wireless	thinkpad_acpi	HAL	no	causes HAL 'wlan' event, but has no further effect.
Fn-F7	videomode	thinkpad_acpi	HAL	no	Attempts to cycles through various modes, but always comes back in mirror mode.
Fn-F9	undock	acpi button	HAL	no	causes event, but does not actually undock
Fn-F12	hibernate	acpi button	HAL	no	button works, but system does not work properly afterwards
Fn-Home	brightness up	-	no	yes	no default OSD. Install the tpb rpm as a workaround.
Fn-End	brightness down	-	no	yes	no default OSD. Install the tpb rpm as a workaround.
Fn-PgUp	thinklight	-	no	yes	no default OSD. Install the tpb rpm as a workaround.
Fn-Space	zoom	thinkpad_acpi	HAL	no	Known Xorg limitation, scheduled to be fixed with the new XKB2 extension, whenever that may be.
VolumeUp	Volume Up	-	no	yes	no default OSD. Install the tpb rpm as a workaround.
VolumeDown	Volume Down	-	no	yes	no default OSD. Install the tpb rpm as a workaround.
Mute	Mute	-	no	yes	no default OSD. Install the tpb rpm as a workaround.
Access IBM	Vendor key	thinkpad_acpi	HAL	partial	No default action, but can be associated with gnome-keybinding-properties
NextTab	Browser Next tab	standard keyboard driver	HAL	yes
PreviousTab	Browser Previous tab	standard keyboard driver	HAL	yes
Power	Power button	acpi button	HAL	yes	Need to press button for ~1 second to trigger event. Causes a dialog asking you what to do.
Lid	Lid button	acpi button	HAL	yes
Dock	Dock eject button	acpi dock	no	no	Does not cause any event
Ultrabay	Ultrabay eject switch	acpi dock	udev	no	Causes udev event, but missing handler. See below.

Ultrabay

Ultrabay eject is not handled properly by default. Since there is no undock udev handler. This udev rule and eject script works for me: How to hotswap Ultrabay devices

Untested on Fedora 12

• Atheros WiFi
• Parallel port
• TPM