Installing Fedora 11 on a ThinkPad T41
Contents
Success Chart
| Item | Working | Notes | |
| Installation | Local CD/DVD install | yes | |
| Network Installation | yes | ||
| USB Installation | yes | ||
| Display | Laptop Screen | yes | Occasional corruption may occur. Only 1 video mode available |
| 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 | unknown (should work) | Device is detected | |
| 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 | no | Does not work reliably, due to missing dock eject detection | |
| TPM (security subsystem) | unknown | Not brave enough to mess around with it | |
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). Occasional screen corruption can occur, such as a corrupted background image or with the vertical scroll bars.
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, and can cause severe screen distortion/corruption when an external VGA display is activated.
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.
Also, with KMS Svideo output is not supported for now.
These issues have been reported to Red Hat bugzilla.
Desktop Effects
Enabling 'Desktop Effects' (compiz) cause the Xserver to restart
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.
| Key | Function | Handled by | HAL event | Works | Notes |
| Fn-F3 | lock screen | thinkpad_acpi | yes | yes | |
| Fn-F4 | suspend | acpi button | yes | yes | |
| Fn-F5 | wireless | thinkpad_acpi | yes | no | |
| Fn-F7 | videomode | thinkpad_acpi | yes | partial | causes a brief flash of the display. Can be associated with gnome-keybinding-properties |
| Fn-F12 | hibernate | acpi button | yes | yes | 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 | yes | 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 | yes | partial | No default action, but can be associated with gnome-keybinding-properties |
| NextTab | Browser Next tab | standard keyboard driver | yes | yes | |
| PreviousTab | Browser Previous tab | standard keyboard driver | yes | yes | |
| Power | Power button | acpi button | yes | yes | Need to press button for ~1 second to trigger event |
| Lid | Lid button | acpi button | yes | yes | |
| Dock | Dock eject button | acpi dock | unknown | unknown | Should be handled by ACPI dock driver |
| Ultrabay | Ultrabay eject switch | acpi dock | no | no | Handled by ACPI dock driver, but does not work |
Untested on Fedora 11
Dock eject was not tested, as I only have a port replicator not a dock.
