Installing Debian 3.1 (Sarge) on a ThinkPad T43

This is how I slapped Debian/Sarge onto my shiny new T43, which seems quite a nice machine all in all. It's a very new type, being based on the Sonoma platform with PCI Express, SATA and other happy things. Does Intel marketing really call Sonoma a "platform"? Oh well.

Repartitioning/Resizing the Windows Partition

This is only necessary if you want to keep your Windows installation for dual booting. I kept mine just so I could update the BIOS more easily in case it becomes necessary.

I was able to boot Knoppix 3.7, but only with the 2.4 kernel. Then resizing the existing 70-odd GB NTFS partition presented no problems at all, but it was rather slow (no DMA mode) due to the ICH6 IDE/SATA controller not being recognized properly. Use ntfsresize, or if you don't trust your knowledge of this powerful tool, try QtParted. Both are available in Knoppix' K menu. Don't be worried if nothing happens while you resize your partition, it took more than an hour on mine.

To repeat myself: You cannot boot Knoppix (at least up to 3.7) using the 2.6 kernel. Use 2.4.

Buttons

ThinkLight	Fn + PgUp	Just worked (also works through ibm-acpi's /proc/acpi/ibm/light)
Display brightness +	Fn + Home	Just worked (no software necessary)
Display brightness -	Fn + End	Just worked (no software necessary)
Backlight off	Fn + F3	Supported with ibm-acpi, acpid and radeontool

Various Information

lspci Output

To have all the hardware show up with its proper name, I had to get a new pci.ids file from the Linux PCI ID Repostiory and copy it to /usr/share/misc/pci.ids. I believe newer distributions and kernels won't need that file anymore.

0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/PM/GMS/910GML Express Processor to DRAM Controller (rev 03)
0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/PM Express PCI Express Root Port (rev 03)
0000:00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
0000:00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)
0000:00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 03)
0000:00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 03)
0000:00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 03)
0000:00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 03)
0000:00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 03)
0000:00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev d3)
0000:00:1e.2 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family)\
AC'97 Audio Controller  (rev 03)
0000:00:1e.3 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 03)
0000:00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FBM (ICH6M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 03)
0000:00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801FBM (ICH6M) SATA Controller (rev 03)
0000:00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc M22 [Radeon Mobility M300]
0000:02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5751M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 11)
0000:04:00.0 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev 8d)
0000:04:02.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation: Unknown device 4224 (rev 05)

Things are up and running, WLAN and all, and I will update this article with the details once I have the time :)

... To be continued ...