Installing Fedora 12 on a ThinkPad T41
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NOTE!
This is based on the Beta version of Fedora 12. I will try to update the results when the final version is available.
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Success Chart - Out of the box experience
This machines SMOLT profile is available here.
| Item | Working | Notes | |
| Installation | Local CD/DVD install | yes | |
| Network Installation | yes | ||
| USB Installation | yes | ||
| Display | Laptop Screen | yes | Occasional minor corruption. Compiz works, but rotating cube causes the colour palette to be messed up during rotation. |
| VGA | partial | see below | |
| DVI | partial | see below. Requires port-replicator or dock with DVI | |
| S-Video | partial | see below | |
| Power Management | Software Suspend (hibernate) | yes | Fixed by installing latest DeviceKit-power-012-2 update |
| Suspend to Memory (ACPI sleep) | no | Broken. corrupted display on resume. can switch to text mode. [1] | |
| Audio | yes | crackling on startup, afterwards seems to work fine | |
| Wireless | WiFi - Atheros AR5212 | yes | See below - There are some issues with range. |
| WiFi - Intel | unknown (should work) | ||
| Bluetooth | yes | ||
| Input | Keyboard | yes | |
| TrackPoint | yes | Install gpointing-device-settings rpm for full configuration capabilities | |
| TouchPad | yes | Install gpointing-device-settings rpm for full configuration capabilities | |
| Extra keys | partial | see ThinkPad Extra keys section below | |
| Ports | Ethernet | yes | |
| Modem | no | Requires closed-source driver | |
| Serial | yes | Requires port-replicator or dock | |
| IrDA | no | Device is detected, but does not work | |
| PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse | yes | Mouse works, but disables Trackpoint/Touchpad | |
| Parallel | unknown (should work) | Device is detected | |
| USB | yes | ||
| PCMCIA/Cardbus | yes | ||
| Harddisk Active Protection | partial | There is now a hdapsd rpm, but it is not installed by default, and neither is the hdaps kernel module getting automatically loaded. And even after install it is not started automatically. Starting it manually (modprobe hdaps; hdapsd -d sda), does seem to cause the HDD heads to get parked, but it gives lots of warnings that seem to indicate it does not yet work as intended. | |
| Ultrabay device removal | partial | Eject switch causes udev event, but no default udev script to handle the event to unmount filesystems in time. ata_piix does handle the removal and insertion of ATA devices. | |
| TPM (security subsystem) | unknown | Not brave enough to mess around with it. You can try to install the tpm-tools rpm. | |
| Dock removal | unknown | Most likely not handled either | |
Tested and Verified on Fedora 12
Information in this section has been tested and verified using Fedora 12.
Installation
Installation is straight forward; you can follow the generic Fedora install instructions.
Configuration
Kernel
It is recommended to edit /boot/grub/grub.conf and add hpet=force to the kernel line. This will activate HPET (High Precision Event Timer), which will allow the CPU to sleep for longer periods and save power.
X Server - ATI RV250
Basic X server functionality should work out of the box on the ThinkPad LCD (LVDS), but there can be occasional glitches like a horizontal corrupted line, or a font where one letter has a horizontal line through it.
Booting with an external display attached does not work properly. Plymouth Graphical boot works fine, but the moment the X server starts to display GDM the LVDS gets switched off and the picture on the external display is somewhat messed up (on partly re-drawn). Logging in causes the X server to crash and restart.
Attaching an external display after the X server is started (hotplug) works a bit better. After you manually trigger a display scan (for instance running xrandr or pressing the 'Detect Monitors' button in Gnome Display Properties) will cause extended desktop mode to get activated. You can also switch to mirror mode, and use the Fn-F5 key combination to switch between different modes. But each time you take such an action the display will get more and more corrupted.
TV-Out (S-Video) defaults to NTSC and cannot be changed to anything else. No settings are available to adjust the output. Also the picture has a very annoying horizontal 'vibration' making it useless.
In addition the following issues exist
- unknown physical LVDS display size (0mm x 0mm)
- nasty LVDS 'flash' when hotplugging an external display and running xrandr
- external displays do not show the physical size, until you run xrandr for the 2nd time
Enabling 'Desktop Effects' (compiz) works. But there is a colour palette problem when using the cube rotation.
Wireless Network
Both the Intel and Atheros AR5212 wireless should work out of the box.
I did limited tested with Atheros and it seemed to worked as long as your not too far from your WiFi AP/Router. The further away you are the more problems, ranging from several tries before it connects, to never connecting even though it reports 2 out of 4 bars in signal strength. Once connected you can move further away and keep connected, at least until it needs to re-negotiate at which time you loose your connection.
Intel WiFi was not tested.
ThinkPad Extra keys
ThinkPad keys are handled by a mixture of the thinkpad_acpi, acpi button and acpi dock drivers.
| Key | Function | Handled by | Event | Works | Notes |
| Fn-F3 | lock screen | thinkpad_acpi | HAL | yes | |
| Fn-F4 | suspend | acpi button | HAL | partial | button works, but suspend fails on resume with corrupted display |
| Fn-F5 | wireless | thinkpad_acpi | HAL | partial | Works as a radio kill switch, kills WiFi but not Bluetooth |
| Fn-F7 | videomode | thinkpad_acpi | HAL | partial | Cycles through various modes (LVDS+External Extended, LVDS+External Mirror, LVDS only, External only). I get however a warning message that the display switch did not work, though it did work. The biggest problem is that it causes all the fonts to get corrupted. |
| Fn-F12 | hibernate | acpi button | HAL | yes | |
| Fn-Home | brightness up | - | no | yes | no default OSD. Install the tpb rpm as a workaround. |
| Fn-End | brightness down | - | no | yes | no default OSD. Install the tpb rpm as a workaround. |
| Fn-PgUp | thinklight | - | no | yes | no default OSD. Install the tpb rpm as a workaround. |
| Fn-Space | zoom | thinkpad_acpi | HAL | no | Known Xorg limitation, scheduled to be fixed in Xorg 1.8 with the new XKB2 extension in 2Q 2010 |
| VolumeUp | Volume Up | - | no | yes | no default OSD. Install the tpb rpm as a workaround. |
| VolumeDown | Volume Down | - | no | yes | no default OSD. Install the tpb rpm as a workaround. |
| Mute | Mute | - | no | yes | no default OSD. Install the tpb rpm as a workaround. |
| Access IBM | Vendor key | thinkpad_acpi | HAL | partial | No default action, but can be associated with gnome-keybinding-properties |
| NextTab | Browser Next tab | standard keyboard driver | HAL | yes | |
| PreviousTab | Browser Previous tab | standard keyboard driver | HAL | yes | |
| Power | Power button | acpi button | HAL | yes | Need to press button for ~1 second to trigger event. Causes a dialog asking you what to do. |
| Lid | Lid button | acpi button | HAL | yes | |
| Dock | Dock eject button | acpi dock | unknown | unknown | Should cause udev event |
| Ultrabay | Ultrabay eject switch | acpi dock | udev | no | Causes udev event, but missing handler. See below. |
Ultrabay
Ultrabay eject is not handled properly by default. Since there is no undock udev handler. This udev rule and eject script works for me: How to hotswap Ultrabay devices
IrDA
IrDA is detected, but does not work. Part of the problem is that the default Fedora configuration expects to find the IrDA port at /dev/ttyS2, while it should use /dev/ircomm0 instead. This can be fixed in /etc/sysconfig/irda after which the irda service can be started (# service irda start).
However, even after this communication with other devices fails. irdadump does not show any output when something like a mobile phone with IrDA is sending data.
Untested on Fedora 12
Dock eject was not tested, as I only have a port replicator not a dock.
