Installing Ubuntu on a ThinkPad T20

Ubuntu 6.10, Edgy Eft

Blank Screen when booting Live CD

As described in Installing Ubuntu on a Thinkpad T21, there is an issue with the Savage driver which makes the initial boot into X hit and miss.

Perhaps this could be worked around using the text-based alternate install CD. However, that wouldn't allow you to do any pre-installation evaluation of the GUI that the Live/Install CD provides.

Using APM to Suspend

To enable APM when booting the Live/Install CD, add these boot options:

`noacpi acpi=off apm=on`

After booting, `Fn-F4` will still only put the command in a standby state, but using `apm --suspend` on the command line will successfully suspend machine, and it resumes as well.

Trying to Suspend with ACPI

A alternative to APM is ACPI. It is newer and more advanced, and preferred when it works. However, even with the newest BIOS (1.22) isntalled in the T20, Linux will still recognize the BIOS as "too old" and will disable ACPI. You can override this by adding this boot option: `acpi=force`.

Even this option, once booted into the LiveCD, suspend still does not work. `gnome-power-manager` logs to `/var/log/messages` that is beginning to suspend, but nothing happens. This looks like it might be a known bug in Ubuntu.

Special Key Support

The light and brightness keys work as expected. The volume keys have some on-screen visuals that automatically appear to illustrate them, using graphics that match the curren theme. Rather nice!

Edgy Summary: TODO

A complete installation has not been attempted due to this issue.

Using Ubuntu 6.10 alternate i386 install CD,

Direct rendering / GL acceleration works. Use "PCI" in BIOS rather than AGP. I removed all modes apart from 1024x768. ppracer plays well at c. 10fps with all the eye candy on.

Driver "savage" BusID "PCI:1:0:0" Option "SWCursor" "on" Option "ShadowStatus" "on" Option "DMAMode" "Vertex" Option "DmaType" "PCI" Option "BusType" "PCI"

HorizSync 28-51 VertRefresh 43-60

Belkin f5d7050 Wireless 802.11g USB adaptor (version 3) works (plugged into dock's lower USB port). The procedure is essentially install the ndiswrapper-1.8 and work through https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/WirelessTroubleShootingGuide.

DVDs play great once you've installed all the missing multimedia plugins. (work through https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MultimediaApplications and the linked to freeformats and restrictedformats pages).

Ubuntu 6.06 LTS, Dapper Drake

When booting the Live/Install CD, adjust the boot options to add the following:

`noacpi acpi=off apm=on`

Sometimes the CD may stall on boot with a blank black screen. Trying again with "Safe Graphics" mode may help. (Or prehaps this is the same X issue with the Edgy Live CD, and it is simply trying again that helps).

Once booted, suspend and resume using Fn-F4 was successfully tested running from the LiveCD. However, in at least a couple of cases, the Live CD froze at seemingly random points shortly after resuming.

Results from a complete install still need to be documented.

See Also

Because the models are very similar, Installing Ubuntu on a Thinkpad T21 may also be helpful.

External Resources

• Bookmarks tagged with Ubuntu and T20 on del.icio.us
• Forum posts tagged with T20 on ubuntuforums.org

Ubuntu T20