Installing Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) on a ThinkPad R61

This wiki is about the R61 series laptops which come with a 14.1 inch widescreen lcd & Intel graphics cards inbuilt. The live cd will detect the correct resolution and color depth.

Compiz

Default installation will not be able to enable compiz becasue of the way the Intel chipsets work. I have found the following script to get around it (credits to the original author). Save the file as .sh and run it once to confirm you can get the compiz effects. You can add the file to your "Gnome Session" for subsequent reboots. q

#!/bin/sh
SKIP_CHECKS=yes compiz --replace

A better way is to edit the file </etc/compizconfig/config> and add the option there.

# /etc/compizconfig/config
<SKIP_CHECK=yes> 

This way the setting will be available for all users of the laptop.

I found that any program that uses Xv video will glich or just crash with compiz enabled, but not without it (The astronomy package "Stellarium" is one example).

Solution is to run from the command line:

gstreamer-properties

switch to the video tab, and set the default output to Xwindows system (No Xv). This will use a bit more processor power playing movies, but you get your video playback + compiz.

To use gmplayer, the output has to be set to gl2 in the video preferences tab.

To use xine, start the program once. It will crash, as the XV extension is not available. Then edit the config file <~/.xine/config> and replace <video.driver=auto> with <video.driver=xshm>.

# ~/.xine/config
video.driver=xshm

To use vlc, start it without any video and select Settings/Preferences. Check Advanced Options and select the Video/Output modules option.

There you can selct the default video output module. Use <X11 video output> and the player will work.

Wireless

The wireless works out of the box with the Atheros driver.

The same applies for the intel ipw3945 module.

Sound

Sound card drivers are loaded out of the box but the default sound device is Microphone for some reason. You can see this by opening up the Volume Control window by right clicking on the taskbar volume applet and selecting "Open Volume Control". Because of this the special Volume buttons will also change the volume of the Microphone. To change this, click on System-> Preferences -> Sound and set Default Mixer Track to PCM.

Touchpad/Trackpoint

Works out of the box, including thinkpad side-scrolling.

If you want to use synaptics configuration tools like gsynaptics, edit the xorg.conf file and add the <SHMConfig> option in the synaptics device entry.

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "Synaptics Touchpad"
        Driver          "synaptics"
        Option          "SendCoreEvents"        "true"
        Option          "Device"                "/dev/psaux"
        Option          "Protocol"              "auto-dev"
        Option          "HorizEdgeScroll"       "0"
        Option          "SHMConfig"             "true"
EndSection

Networking

Works out of the box.

Modem

When using a 64 bit installation, the modem does not work.

There is a driver for 32 Bit installations ( http://packages.ubuntu.com/cgi-bin/search_packages.pl?keywords=sl-modem&searchon=names&subword=1&version=all&release=all).

I haven't tested it.

Hard disk

It has been found that Gutsy will spin up and down your laptop hdd far too many times, this affects the life of the disk. You can perform these steps to avoid it.

hdparm -B 255 /dev/sdX

[1]

This can easily be done by putting the following at the end of the file </etc/hdparm.conf>.

# Disable power saving functions of harddrive, as it may limit it's
# lifespan.
command_line {
       hdparm -B 255 /dev/sda
}

hdaps module does not load, will be fixed in next kernel update: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/133636

To use the Advanced Protection System, the package hdapsd has to be installed.

Unfortunately the kernel module in gutsy has a bug (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.22/+bug/138018), so the module does not load. There are ways around that. (See http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Tp_smapi#Installation).

Thinkpad Buttons

Most of the buttons of the thinkpad are already configured correctly, with two exceptions: the <Fn+F7> key and the <Fn+F9> key. They can be activated quite easily.

First edit /etc/modprobe.d/thinkpad_acpi.modprobe

# /etc/modprobe.d/thinkpad_acpi.modprobe
#options thinkpad_acpi hotkey=enable,0xffff8f experimental=1
options thinkpad_acpi hotkey=enable,0xffffff experimental=1

This activates the deactivated key events, so that the next section works with them.

Now for the <Fn+F7> key, I'm using grandr to configure the monitors. For this install grandr. Then edit /etc/acpi/events/ibm-videobtn and change the action line to the path of grandr.

# /etc/acpi/events/ibmvideobtn
# This is called when the user presses the video button. It is currently
# a placeholder.

event=ibm/hotkey HKEY 00000080 00001007
action=/usr/bin/grandr

This is it for this key.

For the <Fn+F9> key I set the function to let gnome handle the eject events. For this create a file </etc/acpi/events/lenovo-eject>.

# /etc/acpi/events/lenovo-eject
# This is called when the user presses the eject button
# /etc/acpi/lenovo-eject.sh to fake the key input

event=ibm/hotkey HKEY 00000080 00001009
action=/etc/acpi/ejectbtn.sh

And now gnome handles the eject requests. I found the howto for the eject button in the net, but I've forgotton where. So thank you to the original author, if he is reading this. Sorry, no link.

Suspend

Suspend did not work out of the box for me. I had to change </etc/default/acpi-support> to get it working.

# /etc/default/acpi-support
MODULES_WHITELIST="ipw3945"
SAVE_VBE_STATE=false

Then everything (suspend to ram, suspend to disk) were working.

Misc Hardware

The webcam / camera works (tested w/ snapshot) with the xfce windows manager (xubuntu), but seems to have some problems under the default ubuntu. Bluetooth works from a default install. ThinkLight works.