Installing Gentoo on a ThinkPad X40

kernel compilation

ipw2200 driver (intel wireless nic)

don't forget to compile it as a module : http://bugs.gentoo.org/202557

zen kernel

tuxonice compression

cf http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/TuxOnIce :
select lzo compression in "make menuconfig"
change tuxonice.conf accordingly

Tips

laptop_mode and other power management tips

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/power-management-guide.xml

Fan Control : http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Lenovo_Thinkpad_T61#Fan_control
(note that if Fan Control doesn't seem to work anymore after a system update you may need to run pwmconfig again and select manual controls by answering "y" at the first question)

CPU Undervolting

I've used phc with the hagan voltages found on : http://www.gentoo-wiki.info/Pentium_M/Undervolting which translate to the following phc vids :

x40 ~ # cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/phc_vids 
14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 

Note : some versions of linux 2.6.34 need to be patched for phc_intel to be loadable : http://www.linux-phc.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=195

There is a gentoo overlay by Michael Weber for phc_intel and phctool : http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=283472 (but the original package from http://www.linux-phc.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2 is easy to install)
(exploration notes : the phc kernel patch is included in sys-kernel/zen-sources see also : http://zen-kernel.org/included-code and http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-805069.html )

x11 with x11-drivers/xf86-video-intel-2.9.1 crashing the machine

Apparently solved with x11-drivers/xf86-video-intel-2.11.0 : http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-803621.html

External Sources

• Installation tutorial (German)
• x40 Installation tutorial using acpi (German)