Installing Fedora 11 on a ThinkPad T41
Contents
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. |
| 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. | |
| 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 | Brief horizontal striped corruption on both displays, after which they both go black. DVI shows out check cable error. | |
| S-Video | n/a | n/a | not currently supported in combination with KMS |
In none of the above cases the system actually hangs. You can get display back to the LVDS by unplugging the external monitor and restarting the Xserver.
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 did limited tested with Atheros and it seemed to 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 | 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 |
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 11
Dock eject was not tested, as I only have a port replicator not a dock.
