Installing Fedora 11 on a ThinkPad T41

NOTE!

This is based on the pre-release version of Fedora 11, but should give a good indication of what to expect of the final release

Success Chart

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	yes	Occasional corruption may occur.
	VGA	no	currently broken.
	DVI	no	currently broken. Requires port-replicator or dock with DVI
	S-Video	no	currently unsupported with KMS
Power Management	Software Suspend (hibernate)	yes
	Suspend to Memory (ACPI sleep)	yes
Audio		yes
Wireless	WiFi - Atheros	yes
	WiFi - Intel	unknown (should work)
	Bluetooth	yes
Extra Buttons	Keyboard Section	partial	See ThinkPad keyboard section below
Ports	Ethernet	yes
	Modem	no	Requires closed-source driver
	Serial	yes	Requires port-replicator or dock
	IrDA	no	broken for now. No device file is created
	PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse	unknown (should work)	Requires port-replicator or dock
	Parallel	unknown (should work)	Device is detected
	USB	yes
	PCMCIA/Cardbus	yes
Harddisk Active Protection		no
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
Dock removal		unknown

Tested and Verified on Fedora 11

Information in this section has been tested and verified using Fedora 11.

Installation

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

Shutdown

Currently the system will hang most of the time during shutdown, with the last message on the console being

ip6tables: Unloading modules:

without [Ok] getting printed at the end of the line.

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

Basic X server functionality should work out of the box on the ThinkPad LCD (LVDS).

Fedora 11 uses KMS (Kernel Mode Setting) by default, and this causes problems for now with external displays. Neither VGA or DVI external displays work properly.

On the up side, with KMS the maximum virtual display size is now 4096x4096 (2048x2048 without KMS), which should allow extended desktop once the issues with external display support are sorted.

Output		Mode	Result
LVDS+VGA	Boot with display attached	Mirror mode	Plymouth Graphical boot * LVDS shows normal boot at full resolution * VGA no signal/out of range GDM * LVDS is switched off * VGA shows out of range error System can be recovered by unplugging VGA and killing the Xserver
	Hotplug	Mirror mode	GDP is not able to activate VGA display VGA display remains black
	Hotplug	Extended desktop	Brief horizontal striped corruption on both displays, after which they both go black. VGA shows out of range error. Can still SSH into system, unplugging VGA and # killall Xorg recovers the system.
LVDS+DVI	Boot with display attached	Mirror mode	Plymouth Graphical boot * LVDS shows normal boot at full resolution * DVI no signal GDM * LVDS is switched off * DVI shows out of range error
	Hotplug	Mirror mode	GDP is not able to activate DVI display DVI display remains black
	Hotplug	Extended desktop	horizontal striped background corruption on both displays. GDP windows show normal as does the mouse. Moving windows around clear background corruption, but GDP reverts to previous config because it claims it did not get a reply.
S-Video	n/a	n/a	not currently supported in combination with KMS

In addition the following issues exist

• ThinkPad tends to freeze at shutdown/reboot when an external display is attached. Requiring a hard shutdown.
• Partly green vertical scroll bars (bottom part) in applications like gnome-terminal (just size the window larger to get the effect)
• External displays list a bogus 0x0 resolution mode
• unknown physical display size (0mm x 0mm) (mainly important for LVDS as it effects the DPI)

Most of these issues have been reported to Red Hat bugzilla.

Desktop Effects

Enabling 'Desktop Effects' (compiz) works.

Wireless Network

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

I tested the Atheros and it worked. Intel was not tested.

ThinkPad keys

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

NOTE!

Due to Xorg limitations, some keys that cause HAL events work with Xorg and others do not (Fn-Space). This is a known limitation that should be fixed with the next major Xorg (v1.7) release.

Key	Function	Handled by	Event	Works	Notes
Fn-F3	lock screen	thinkpad_acpi	HAL	yes
Fn-F4	suspend	acpi button	HAL	yes
Fn-F5	wireless	thinkpad_acpi	HAL	no
Fn-F7	videomode	thinkpad_acpi	HAL	partial	Attempts to cycle through various modes (LVDS only, LVDS+External in mirror, External only, LVDS+External Extended), but causes corruption due to external display problems. Can be associated with gnome-keybinding-properties
Fn-F12	hibernate	acpi button	HAL	partial	does the same as Fn-F4 (suspend), not hibernate
Fn-Home	brightness up	-	no	yes	changing thinkpad_acpi hotkey_mask, causes HAL events. But sysfs backlight brightness value does not change, so OSD is wrong.
Fn-End	brightness down	-	no	yes	changing thinkpad_acpi hotkey_mask, causes HAL events. But sysfs backlight brightness value does not change, so OSD is wrong.
Fn-PgUp	thinklight	-	no	yes	changing thinkpad_acpi hotkey_mask, causes HAL events. No OSD in any case.
Fn-Space	zoom	thinkpad_acpi	HAL	no
VolumeUp	Volume Up	-	no	yes	changing thinkpad_acpi hotkey_mask, causes HAL events. But OSD is wrong
VolumeDown	Volume Down	-	no	yes	changing thinkpad_acpi hotkey_mask, causes HAL events. But OSD is wrong
Mute	Mute	-	no	yes	changing thinkpad_acpi hotkey_mask, causes HAL events and OSD. works as a on/off toggle
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
Lid	Lid button	acpi button	HAL	yes
Dock	Dock eject button	acpi dock	unknown	unknown	Should cause udev event
Ultrabay	Ultrabay eject switch	acpi dock	udev	no	Causes udev event, but missing handler

Untested on Fedora 11

Dock eject was not tested, as I only have a port replicator not a dock.