Installing Fedora 13 on a ThinkPad T41

NOTE! This is based on Fedora 13 with the default GNOME desktop. Your experience with KDE may be different. Help needed Not all models of this ThinkPad are equal, you may have a different WiFi adapter, or some options I did not have. If you tested them, please add their status down below.

New in this release

Fixed or new in this Fedora release, with regards to this model ThinkPad is the following;

• New ThinkPad audio mixer (see below) for the volume keys, although userland support is missing so no effective user visable change
• New gnome-color-manager (see below) now allows you to load colour profiles
• external displays no longer need a second xrandr run to get their physical size.
• shutdown with external display attached, no longer causes the LVDS to do a strange fade to white
• lower then default LVDS resolutions now work correct
• compiz cube rotation colour palette problem is fixed
• r200_run_tcl_render error is fixed with apps like Extreme TuxRacer
• S-Video support has improved but the output quality is still pretty bad

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 - ATI RV250	Laptop Screen	yes
	VGA	yes
	DVI	yes	Requires port-replicator or dock with DVI
	S-Video	partial	see below
Power Management	Software Suspend (hibernate)	no	Seems like it works (saves image), but does not resume image on boot. Instead it does a regular boot.
	Suspend to Memory (ACPI sleep)	no	Xserver hang on resume. bugzilla. boot with radeon.agpmode=-1 as a workaround.
Audio		yes
Wireless	WiFi - Atheros AR5212	yes
	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. Install the slmodem rpm from the rpmfusion-nonfree repository, edit /etc/sysconfig/slmodem and set INTERFACE=alsa and ALSA_DEVICE=modem:1 and optionally the country. Then run "chkconfig slmodem on; service slmodem start" and point your dialer to /dev/ttySL0
	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		no	Fedora ships the hdapsd rpm, but not the tp_smapi kernel module, which is required to read the motion sensor bugzilla
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)		yes	Enable security chip in BIOS, then "yum install tpm-tools", then "modprobe tpm_atmel; service tcsd start; tpm_version" works.
Dock removal		unknown

Tested and Verified on Fedora 13

Information in this section has been tested and verified using Fedora 13.

Installation

Installation is straight forward, but you should do so without any external displays attached; 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.

You may also want to add radeon.agpmode=-1 to work around a suspend/resume bug by disabling AGP support.

X Server - ATI RV250

Out of the box external displays (VGA or DVI) should work, and you can switch display modes with the Fn-F7 key combination.

The following issues still exist for single-head (LVDS only) setups

• unknown physical LVDS display size (0mm x 0mm) reported by RandR

And for Multihead or External displays. Some of these issues are likely caused by the limited amount of VRAM available (32MB)

• S-Video output is distorted Bugzilla
• Multihead causes the desktop to become very slow
• Screen rotation does not work in combination with Multihead
• Compiz does not work in combination with Multihead Bugzilla
• external ONLY does not work (both displays are black)
• Metacity Compositing does not work with Multihead
• Strangely enough, plymouth gives a high-res text mode during boot with single-head, but graphical mode with Multihead boot

WiFi

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

Intel WiFi was not tested.

Audio

Starting with the 2.6.33 kernel, as included with Fedora 13, the thinkpad_acpi driver now exports a volume control to ALSA, which represents the volume and mute buttons on the ThinkPad keyboard. Unfortunately for ALSA/PulseAudio this is just another volume control (one without actual inputs/outputs), and as such there is no effective end-user change from what you had with previous kernels.

This volume control can be seen by running alsamixer, pressing F6 and selecting ThinkPad Console Audio Control

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
FnF3	lock screen	thinkpad_acpi	HAL	yes
FnF4	suspend	acpi button	HAL	partial	button works, but suspend fails on resume
FnF5	wireless	thinkpad_acpi	HAL	partial	Works as a radio kill switch, kills WiFi but not Bluetooth
FnF7	videomode	thinkpad_acpi	HAL	yes
FnF12	hibernate	acpi button	HAL	partial	button works, but hibernate fails
FnHome	brightness up	-	no	yes	no default OSD. Install the tpb rpm as a workaround.
FnEnd	brightness down	-	no	yes	no default OSD. Install the tpb rpm as a workaround.
FnPgUp	thinklight	-	no	yes	no default OSD. Install the tpb rpm as a workaround.
FnSpace	zoom	thinkpad_acpi	HAL	no	Known Xorg limitation, scheduled to be fixed with the new XKB2 extension, whenever that may be.
VolumeUp	Volume Up	thinkpad_acpi	no	yes	no default OSD. Install the tpb rpm as a workaround. Hardware and Software volume controls are independent from each other.
VolumeDown	Volume Down	thinkpad_acpi	no	yes	no default OSD. Install the tpb rpm as a workaround. Hardware and Software volume controls are independent from each other.
Mute	Mute	thinkpad_acpi	no	yes	no default OSD. Install the tpb rpm as a workaround. Hardware and Software mute controls are independent from each other.
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 13

The following features where not tested with Fedora 13. If you have tested them, please update the table

• Intel WiFi
• Parallel port
• Dock eject