Installation instructions for the ThinkPad T60p

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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.


Installing Gentoo 2006.0

Boot from Live CD

Upon booting off the live cd you will come to the kernel selection prompt. Enter: 

   gentoo doscsi

I had some trouble getting the wired NIC to be linked to the driver, often getting an error that the EEPROM failed a check. If this happens, you can try re-inserting the module, 

   >rmmod e1000; modprobe e1000

or rebooting and trying again. The wireless card isn't supported by the live cd so you're going to have to stick to wired for now.

/etc/make.conf Settings

The make.conf settings are the first thing you want to setup correctly before you proceed with the rest of the install process. All future updates will depend upon these settings as well. 

CFLAGS="-march=prescott -O2 -pipe -msse3 -fomit-frame-pointer
VIDEO_CARDS="fglrx vesa fbdev"
INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse synaptics"
FEATURES="sandbox ccache distlocks autoaddcvs parallel-fetch"
MAKEOPTS="-j3"

For a more complete discussion of the CFLAGS to use for a Core Duo processor, see this forum thread. Some users recommend that the USE variable has the ibm value in it (eg. USE="ibm") but the Gentoo website says this is only for Power PC64 systems; I don't think we should use it. If anyone can shed more light on this, please update this section.

Kernel Settings

I was able to get the laptop running from i686 gentoo sources and recommend this to anyone installing Gentoo on their T60p. Alot of graphics support is left out of the kernel since the best graphics performance is with ATI's propietary drivers which you can emerge at the end of the kernel compile.

Processor type and features

  • Turn on Symmetric multi-processing support.
  • Set processor family to Pentium M.
  • Turn off toshiba and dell laptop support.
  • Set timer frequency to 1000 Hz since this is a desktop system.
  • Found on a forum posting that "Hotpluggable CPU" should be set to get acpi sleep to work. Go figure...

Power management options

  • Turn on all ACPI settings (especially IBM Thinkpad Extras) except ASUS/Medion and Toshiba Laptop Extras.
  • Turn on CPU Frequency scaling.
    • Turn on powersave, userspace, ondemand and conservative governor.
    • Turn off ACPI Processor P-States driver.
    • Turn off all AMD and Cyrix options.
    • Turn on Intel Enhanced SpeedStep and Intel Speedstep on ICH-M chipsets (ioport interface).
    • Turn off Intel SpeedStep on 440BX/ZX/MX chipsets (SMI interface).
    • Turn off Intel Pentium 4 clock modulation, nVidia nForce2 FSB changing and Transmeta LongRun.

Bus options

  • Turn on PCI Express support.
  • Turn on Message Signaled Interupts.
  • Turn on PCCard support and CardBus yenta-compatible bridge support.

Networking support

  • Turn off Generic IEEE 802.11 Networking Stack.
  • Turn on IrDA (infrared) subsystem support and sub-options.
  • Turn on Bluetooth subsystem support and sub-options.
  • Turn off Amateur Radio support (unless you work with actual radios.)

Device Drivers

  • Turn off Memory Technology Devices.
  • Turn off parallel port support.
  • Turn on SCSI device support. In "low-level device drivers", chose the Serial ATA (SATA) support. Build it as a part of the kernel, and not as a kernel module.
  • Turn off Fusion MPT device support.
  • Turn on IEEE 1394 (FireWire) support.
  • Turn on Network device support.
    • Turn off all options in all categories under Network device support except the stated ones below.
    • Turn on Intel(R) PRO/1000 Gigabit Ethernet support under Ethernet (1000 Mbit).
    • Turn on Wireless LAN drivers (non-hamradio) & Wireless Extensions and none of the sub-options underneath.
    • Most people do not need Fibre channel, ATM, WAN or PPP/SLIP support (if you do then turn it on. PPP is needed for GPRS/UMTS connectivity)
  • Character device options...
    • Turn off Parallel printer support.
    • Turn on Intel/AMD/VIA HW Random Number Generator support.
    • Turn on /dev/nvram support.
    • Turn off /dev/agpgart (AGP Support).
    • Turn off Direct Rendering Manager.
    • Support for the Fritz Chip is located in "TPM Devices".
  • Turn off all Graphics support options except the stated ones below,
    • Turn on VESA VGA graphics support and set VESA driver type to vesafb.
    • Turn on Enable firmware EDID and Enable Video Mode Handling Helpers.
    • Turn on Support for the framebuffer splash.
  • IMPORTANT: Turn off all Wireless device support under USB support -> USB Network Adapters or you will tear your hair out trying to get wireless.
  • Turn on Sound card support.
    • Turn on Advanced Linux Sound Architecture.
    • Turn off all ISA, PCI, USB, generic and PCMCIA device options the stated on below.
    • Turn on Intel HD Audio under PCI devices.
  • Turn off all MMC/SD Card support options.
  • Turn off LED devices.
  • Cryptographic options... (needed for the wireless card ipw9345)
    • Turn on AES chiphers
    • Turn on Michael MIC keyed digest algorithm

That should do it. (I know, that's it.) That should make sure that you have all the drivers necessary to boot the system and be able to use all your hardware (almost).

Portage Ebuilds

Always make sure you run this command before going any further so you can get the latest portage build and version... 

emerge --sync && emerge portage

Since September 24 2006 I was able to make the latest ati-drivers work on the T60p without adding any lines to the unmask file (/etc/portage/package.unmask) under the gentoo-sources kernel. You should be able to run... 

emerge ati-drivers

...without any problems.

Don't forget to emerge all the Thinkpad software as well... 

emerge tpb tp_smapii tpctl

Then you can start to setup the wireless in this order at the command line... 

/bin/sh /usr/portage/net-wireless/ieee80211/files/remove-old /usr/src/linux
emerge ieee80211 ipw3945 ipw3945d wireless-tools

For some reason the wireless driver consists of two parts: the module itself, ipw3949.ko, and some sort of support daemon, ipw3945d. The ebuild updates the modules.conf file to automatically stop and start this deamon when the module is loaded or unloaded, respectively. 

install ipw3945 /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install ipw3945; sleep 0.5; /sbin/ipw3945d --quiet
remove ipw3945 /sbin/ipw3945d --kill; /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore-remove ipw3945

In other words, to load the module, and start the deamon, do 

 modprobe ipw3945

To remove the module, and kill the daemon, enter 

 modprobe -r ipw3945

Note rmmod does not work - that won't execute the line from modprobe.conf, and doesn't kill the deamon. While the daemon is running, you cannot unload the module. (You'll get an errormessage saying the module is in use) If for some reason you need to kill the module manually, use 

 /sbin/ipw3945d --kill

xorg.conf Settings

A piece of code is worth a thousand words; here is my xorg.conf that works at 3000-5000 FPS so far. I am still trying to find better parameters, but this is the best I got it to run so far. I intentionally left out the InputDevice section since I disabled my Synaptics pad (I like the center joystick better.) Just modify your xorg.conf sections with what is shown below. 

Section "Module"
       Load  "dbe"     # Double buffer extension
       SubSection "extmod"
       Option      "omit xfree86-dga"   # don't initialise the DGA extension
       EndSubSection
       Load  "freetype"
       Load  "dri"
       Load  "glx"
EndSection

Section "Device"
       Identifier  "VideoCard"
       Driver      "fglrx"
       VendorName  "ati"
       BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
       Option      "VideoOverlay" "off"
EndSection

Section "dri"
       Group "video"
       Mode 0666
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
       Option "XVideo" "Enable"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
       Identifier "Screen"
       Device     "VideoCard"
       Monitor    "Monitor"
       DefaultDepth     24
       SubSection "Display"
               Viewport  0 0
               Depth     24
               Modes    "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
       EndSubSection
EndSection

Make sure you assign your username to the video group in the /etc/group file or you will net get DRI (Direct Rendering) support. When debugging your running X windows system, always check /var/log/Xorg.0.log for any errors or hints at what may be configured incorrectly. This is how I was able to get so far with the graphics.

External Sources

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