Installing Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) on a ThinkPad T60

Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn is the current release and works fine on:

* T60 UT-049GE and 2007-72U.
* T60p

The installation worked without any problems. The new network manager is great as it now supports a useful roaming mode. The system includes the new Linux kernel 2.6.20 which provides almost perfect acpi functionality.

Most of the tips in the Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft Guide, like installing the ATI driver, apply to Feisty as well.

Feisty polishes up Thinkpad support for media buttons (acpi), and gives a much more usable machine immediately following installation than Edgy. This is a distribution to watch for Thinkpad users.

ATI Driver, Intel Pro Wireless, and Powernowd Suspend to RAM Fixes

"Out of the box:"

• Suspend to RAM fails during suspend, leaving the moon blinking indefinitely.
• At one point, the Ubuntu apt-installed fglrx packages had the driver version 8.33.6, which is one of the versions that supposedly "breaks" suspend to RAM. Resuming from an otherwise successful suspend will cause the machine to resume with a blank screen without the fix below. That said, the current version in Feisty is now 8.34.8, whose release notes say “A system hang no longer occurs when attempting to resume from hibernation mode,” so if you simply allow Ubuntu to update itself from the internet you can skip that step.
• The Intel Pro Wireless 3945 wireless card will often stop working even after a successful suspend, requiring a restart.

• FR, 2007may9: Actually, I have a different experience with suspend and hibernate, with a T60 15.4" (core 2 duo 2GHz, intel graphic chip 945GM): Both suspend and hibernate work for me. Initially, I had an issue with a slightly corrupted video after resume from suspend (a couple of lines near the bottom right of the screen), that I fixed by using the intel X driver instead of the i810 (that comes stock with ubuntu feisty fawn). Just load xserver-xorg-driver-intel, that will uninstall xserver-xorg-driver-i810. No other modifications necessary, stock acpi-support and xorg.conf. I can also hibernate, but I loose sound when resuming. Restarting alsa does not restore it.

Fixing Suspend to RAM

I'm assuming you have the optional Intel Pro Wireless; ignore the line that mentions ipw3945 if you don't have that wireless card.

1. Disable powernowd during suspend

   These two edits will disable the powernowd when you suspend, and re-enable it when you resume. For whatever reason, powernowd causes intermittent suspend problems.

   • Open a terminal and type: sudo gedit /etc/acpi/suspend.d/10-thinkpad-standby-led.sh
   • Add to the bottom of the file: /etc/init.d/powernowd stop
   • Save the file and go back to the terminal.
   • Type: sudo gedit /etc/acpi/resume.d/90-thinkpad-unstandby-led.sh
   • Add to the bottom of the file: /etc/init.d/powernowd start

2. Edit /etc/default/acpi-support file to unload wireless module during suspend and disable video card warm boot

   These edits will fix the disappearing wireless card and the blank screen on resume problems.

   • Open a terminal and type: sudo gedit /etc/default/acpi-support
   • Find the line MODULES="" and change it to MODULES="ipw3945" so that your wireless card module won't disappear after you resume.
   • Next, find the line POST_VIDEO=true and change it to POST_VIDEO=false to eliminate the blank-screen-resume problem.
   • Save the file.

Tips for those dist-upgrading from Edgy

Repair fglrx to a working state:

If you have an ATI graphics card, now by default Mesa may be active despite your xorg.conf configuration in edgy. Check whether there is hardware acceleration:

$ fglrxinfo

The above should print "OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc", among other output. If "Mesa" is present, then you need to reinstall the fglrx driver:

$ sudo apt-get remove xorg-driver-fglrx fglrx-control

$ sudo apt-get install xorg-driver-fglrx fglrx-control

$ sudo depmod -a

Then logout, kill the X server with control+alt+delete, and login again. Now the command 'fglrxinfo' will print the proper vendor string.

If the error persists and there is no 3D acceleration: comment out the line involving 'fglrx' in /etc/modprobe.d/lrm-video , then

$ sudo modprobe -v fglrx

and restart the X server (control+alt+del). Check that the driver is loaded:

$ lsmod

   fglrx                 540004  11
   agpgart                35400  2 fglrx,intel_agp

The driver fglrx should be listed.

If you find this error in the Xorg logs (under System / Administration / System Logs):

  (EE) AIGLX error: dlsym for __driCreateNewScreen_20050727 failed (/usr/lib/dri/fglrx_dri.so: undefined symbol: __driCreateNewScreen_20050727)
  (EE) AIGLX: reverting to software rendering

Turn off AIGLX by adding the following in your /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

 Section "ServerFlags"
   Option "AIGLX" "off"
 EndSection

To avoid the garbled display problem, remember that /etc/X11/xorg.conf should have the Composite option disabled (you only need it enabled for Compiz, which is not ready for feisty with ATI cards):

 Section "Extensions"
   Option      "Composite" "0"
 EndSection

Fix broken metacity window manager:

If you had installed a non-official compiz beta at some point, then you will have two disruptive settings files under your home directory.

.gnomerc
.dmrc

Have a look particularly at .gnomerc , which may contain a line specifying a window manager listed under .gnome-compiz-manager/openbox . The second file, .dmrc, may be pointing to a compiz desktop session that no longer exists in your system. Just get rid of both files (see bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/metacity/+bug/104903 )

Related Ubuntu bugs

Reported in the Ubuntu Launchpad:

• Bug #106395 Flat panel resolution 1680x1050 not detected for laptop with ATI X1400