Installing Debian Lenny on a ThinkPad T61

From ThinkWiki
Revision as of 00:02, 21 August 2007 by Fpiat (Talk | contribs) (script to patch and compile)
Jump to: navigation, search

Hardware

ThinkPad T61 7663-13G

Overview

Kernel Configuration

  • Version: 2.6.22

SATA Issues

Currently, SATA mode is set to "Compatibility" in the BIOS and I'm using the ATA_PIIX driver, which finds both the hard and the cdrom drive. In AHCI mode, the cdrom is not found. I haven't found any information on that, yet.

Running in the AHCI mode worked for me - the hard drive showed up as /dev/sda and the cdrom as /dev/hda. K3b finds it and uses it fine.

IRQ Issues

Occasionally, I get messages like 

irq 23: nobody cared (try booting with the "irqpoll" option)
 [<c>] __report_bad_irq+0x24/0x80
 [<c0156b11>] note_interrupt+0x251/0x290
 [<c0155d65>] handle_IRQ_event+0x25/0x50
 [<c015725b>] handle_fasteoi_irq+0xbb/0xf0
 [<c0106bfb>] do_IRQ+0x3b/0x70
 [<c0104b53>] common_interrupt+0x23/0x28
 [<f>] acpi_processor_idle+0x21e/0x3e2 [processor]
 [<f>] acpi_processor_idle+0x0/0x3e2 [processor]
 [<c>] cpu_idle+0x84/0xe0
 [<c0387a3f>] start_kernel+0x2ef/0x370
 [<c03871f0>] unknown_bootoption+0x0/0x260
 =======================
handlers:
[<f888b530>] (usb_hcd_irq+0x0/0x60 [usbcore])
Disabling IRQ #23

Unfortunately, adding irqpoll to the boot command line only leads to frequent losses of Ethernet connectivity.

Temporary Workaround

When the message appears, USB devices will start to behave weird (USB keyboards & mice lag etc). Unloading and loading ehci-hcd fixes this problem, for now.

Temporary Workaround 2

Adding noirqdebug to the kernel commandline at least removes the messages. Let's hope for a BIOS update from Lenovo.

Custom Patches

ThinkPad ACPI Extras v0.15-20070723 ([1]). With the latest version, brightness control works under X11.


Sound: AD1984

I checked out both alsa-driver and alsa-kernel from the repositories ([2]) and built the modules for my kernel. After installation, sound (both headphone jack & internal speakers) works just fine. Haven't checked the MIC yet.

Debian users (both Stable/Etch and Testing) can use the small script 2 i wrote to patch and build an alsa module package (with module-assistant). --Fpiat 00:52,20 August 2007 (UTC)

Graphics:

NVidia Quadro NVS 140M

  • Driver: nvidia
  • Version: 100.14.11

The Debian packages work just fine. There seem to be some (known) issues with framebuffers console. OpenGL applications and games work just fine, Darwinia (Darwinia and Defcon ([3]) run smoothly at 1440x900.

I installed the drivers using ENVY. It worked, just download the latest package at http://www.albertomilone.com/nvidia_scripts1.html, and run it, the driver's installation it's quite easy.


Problems

With 100.14.09 and RenderAccel/Compositing, I occasionally got hard locks after a couple of minutes, not even SysRq can reboot the machine. Only the NumLock LED is blinking, and no suspicious entries are in the logs. With 100.14.11 and no RenderAccel, the lockups are less frequently. I'm still trying to figure out which configuration makes them go away.

  • I've tried to pci=nommcconf on the kernel commandline, didn't help.

Intel 965GM

  • Driver: intel

For versions of the intel driver earlier than 2.1.1, the following is required for proper display scaling: 

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier      "TV"
        Option          "Ignore"        "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier      "Generic Monitor"
        Option          "DPMS"
        DisplaySize     332 207
EndSection

This bug was fixed in xf86-video-intel 2.1.1.

WiFi: Intel 4965AGN

  • Driver: iwlwifi
  • Version: 0.0.34

Since mac80211 is already a part of 2.6.22, only the iwlwifi module needs to be compiled. Following the instructions in the source package was sufficient. The module loads & finds some hardware and I can successfully scan for networks. Connecting to our local WiFi access point using WPA works just fine.

WiFi: ThinkPad 11a/b/g Wi-Fi wireless LAN Mini-PCIe US/EMEA/LA/ANZ (Atheros)

Using madwifi which is very easy or downloading the modules from the page and usig ndviswrapper(not recommended, uncharted waters). Just add "deb ftp://ftp.au.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib non-free" "deb-src ftp://ftp.au.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib non-free" to the repositories in /etc/apt/sources.list and;

then as root:

  1. apt-get update
  2. apt-get install madwifi-source
  3. apt-get install madwifi-tools
  4. m-a prepare
  5. m-a a-i madwifi

then its all done, worked for me. For more information http://madwifi.org/

Bluetooth

My Logitech Bluetooth mouse works.

Fingerprint Sensor

Works with ThinkFinger.

References


T61

Retrieved from "https://www.thinkwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Installing_Debian_Lenny_on_a_ThinkPad_T61&oldid=32278"