Installation instructions for the ThinkPad T60p

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Revision as of 14:57, 1 August 2006 by Dave abrahams (Talk | contribs) (→‎Installing Ubuntu Dapper)
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Installing Ubuntu Dapper

To get it going:

  • Get Dapper i386 (I used the Daily ISO DVD).
  • Install the default distribution.

It will work, but you need an SMP kernel, and accelerated and higher resolution graphics, so:

  • Install the i686-smp kernel (search for 'linux-kernel' in synaptic).
  • Search for fglrx in synaptic, and install the fglrx modules, X driver and ATI control panel.
  • Edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf, so each of the "Modeline" entries contains a 1600x1200 resolution as well (or whatever the top resolution of your LCD panel is), and change the driver section as follows:
Section "Device"
    Identifier "ATI Technologies, Inc. ATI Default Card"
    Driver "fglrx"               <----- ADD THIS LINE
    #Driver "vesa"               <---- COMMENT OUT THIS LINE
    BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
    ChipID 0x71c5                <----- MAYBE ADD THIS LINE
EndSection

[On my UXGA t60p the ChipID line was actually fatal to getting fglrx to start up (/var/log/Xorg.0.log showed the driver falling back to VESA and fgl_glxgears would crash). Without that ChipID line my chip was identified as: 

Chipset: "MOBILITY FireGL V5200 (M56 71C4)" (Chipset = 0x71c4)

which appears to correspond exactly to my machine's spec, and fgl_glxgears worked fine.]

Reboot, and you should be done. Check "cat /proc/cpuinfo" shows two CPUs, and run fgl_glxgears and check you get around 580 frames a second.

I've reported bug 46527 on the lack of screen driver detection, so hopefully this will get even easier.

Note you do NOT need to install ATI drivers from the ATI site. The Ubuntu drivers are sufficient.

Thanks to Rich Tango-Lowy (see below) for the hint re chip detection.

Kubuntu Dapper Live CD

If you're trying to install from the Kubuntu Desktop CD, you'll never make it to the login screen because the ATI display driver isn't recognized.

  • Ctrl-Alt-F1
  • sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf
  • change the display driver line that looks like:
         Driver    "ati"

to 

         Driver    "vesa"

[I think I remember that it was "ati", but I could be wrong. In any case this is very clearly the only Driver line in the ATI device specification section]

  • Save and exit
  • sudo /etc/init.d kdm restart

Now you get a login screen.

External Sources

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