Installing Fedora 12 on a ThinkPad T41

NOTE! This is based on the Beta version of Fedora 12. I will try to update the results when the final version is available.

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	yes	Occasional minor corruption. Compiz works, but rotating cube causes the colour palette to be messed up during rotation.
	VGA	partial	see below
	DVI	partial	see below. Requires port-replicator or dock with DVI
	S-Video	partial	see below
Power Management	Software Suspend (hibernate)	yes	Fixed by installing latest DeviceKit-power-012-2 update
	Suspend to Memory (ACPI sleep)	no	Broken. corrupted display on resume. can switch to text mode. [1]
Audio		yes	crackling on startup, afterwards seems to work fine
Wireless	WiFi - Atheros AR5212	yes	See below - There are some issues with range.
	WiFi - Intel	unknown (should work)
	Bluetooth	yes
Input	Keyboard	yes
	TrackPoint	yes	Install gpointing-device-settings rpm for full configuration capabilities
	TouchPad	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
	Serial	yes	Requires port-replicator or dock
	IrDA	no	Device is detected, but does not work
	PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse	yes	Mouse works, but disables Trackpoint/Touchpad
	Parallel	unknown (should work)	Device is detected
	USB	yes
	PCMCIA/Cardbus	yes
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		unknown	Most likely not handled either

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 - ATI RV250

Basic X server functionality should work out of the box on the ThinkPad LCD (LVDS), but there can be occasional glitches like a horizontal corrupted line, or a font where one letter has a horizontal line through it.

Booting with an external display attached does not work properly. Plymouth Graphical boot works fine, but the moment the X server starts to display GDM the LVDS gets switched off and the picture on the external display is somewhat messed up (on partly re-drawn). Logging in causes the X server to crash and restart.

Attaching an external display after the X server is started (hotplug) works a bit better. After you manually trigger a display scan (for instance running xrandr or pressing the 'Detect Monitors' button in Gnome Display Properties) will cause extended desktop mode to get activated. You can also switch to mirror mode, and use the Fn-F5 key combination to switch between different modes. But each time you take such an action the display will get more and more corrupted.

TV-Out (S-Video) defaults to NTSC and cannot be changed to anything else. No settings are available to adjust the output. Also the picture has a very annoying horizontal 'vibration' making it useless.

In addition the following issues exist

• unknown physical LVDS display size (0mm x 0mm)
• nasty LVDS 'flash' when hotplugging an external display and running xrandr
• external displays do not show the physical size, until you run xrandr for the 2nd time

Enabling 'Desktop Effects' (compiz) works. But there is a colour palette problem when using the cube rotation.

Wireless Network

Both the Intel and Atheros AR5212 wireless should work out of the box.

I did limited tested with Atheros and it seemed to worked as long as your not too far from your WiFi AP/Router. The further away you are the more problems, ranging from several tries before it connects, to never connecting even though it reports 2 out of 4 bars in signal strength. Once connected you can move further away and keep connected, at least until it needs to re-negotiate at which time you loose your connection.

Intel 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	partial	button works, but suspend fails on resume with corrupted display
Fn-F5	wireless	thinkpad_acpi	HAL	partial	Works as a radio kill switch, kills WiFi but not Bluetooth
Fn-F7	videomode	thinkpad_acpi	HAL	partial	Cycles through various modes (LVDS+External Extended, LVDS+External Mirror, LVDS only, External only). I get however a warning message that the display switch did not work, though it did work. The biggest problem is that it causes all the fonts to get corrupted.
Fn-F12	hibernate	acpi button	HAL	yes
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 in Xorg 1.8 with the new XKB2 extension in 2Q 2010
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	unknown	unknown	Should cause udev 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

IrDA

IrDA is detected, but does not work. Part of the problem is that the default Fedora configuration expects to find the IrDA port at /dev/ttyS2, while it should use /dev/ircomm0 instead. This can be fixed in /etc/sysconfig/irda after which the irda service can be started (# service irda start).

However, even after this communication with other devices fails. irdadump does not show any output when something like a mobile phone with IrDA is sending data.

Untested on Fedora 12

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