Installing SuSE 10.1 on a ThinkPad X41 Tablet

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3d Acceleration: works out of the box

Screen Rotation: requires configuration, no xrandr support

Sound: works out of the box

Network & Wireless: works out of the box

ACPI: non-tablet related features work out of the box

Bluetooth (some models): untested

Fingerprint reader (some models): untested

Hard Drive Advanced Protection System: no userspace capabilities, see comments

Tablet Features: require configuration


Pre-Installation Considerations

First off, you need to figure out a way to boot from something other than the hard disk. Other HOWTOs here will explain how to do network booting, etc, but I sincerely recommend investing in a USB drive, preferably a DVD burner. If you shelled out the money to get one of these laptops, they're dirt cheap in comparison, and will save you a LOT of time, frustration, and hassle. I ran down to Microcenter and got the cheapest one, and it works flawlessly. You can use this to boot from the SuSE DVD or CDs.

Installation

Partitioning

  • Are you going to need to resize your hard disk partitions in the future?

I'm not talking about your Windoze partitions, those are a given. If you're going to need to resize your Linux partitions in the future, then you'll want to do the main (root) Linux partition with RieserFS. It's decently fast, reliable, and you can resize it if you need to. If you are not going to resize down the line, use XFS for your main (root) partition. This is Linux on steroids, and is the preferable option ;-) Either way, when you get to the big screen full of configuration options (you'll know it when you see it), click on the Expert tab on the top, and then go down in the big long menu to Partitioning. Select Custom Configuration, and then with whatever space you have for Linux set up the following:

  • 1. A 1Gb partition formatted with SWAP, mounted as swap
  • 2. 75% of the remaining space formatted as either ReiserFS or XFS, mounted as /
  • 3. 25% of the remaining space formatted as Ext3 and mounted as /local
    • If you have Windoze partitions or others on the drive (including the restore partition, if you kept it), you will need to make some or all of these Logical Partitions of an Extended Partition. Google around for more info on this.

~more to come

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