Installation instructions for the ThinkPad T500
Specific installation notes for the ThinkPad T500.
General Notes
T61 is running out of life and had a very good linux support. T500 is one of the follow-ups with a new and more performant hardware. Can it stay up with the linux Compability of the T61 series?
Good News
Ubuntu 9.10 works great on my T500, with suspend, hibernate, sound, wifi, out of the box. I'm amazed.
I dream about a T series Thinkpad since years, but they are very expensive in France.
I found a T500 2055-45U on ebay. I like to buy in Ebay, because €/$ is at my advantage this century. It's a like new item, just 1 month old in the len,ovo worldwide waranty checker. Seller can send it to France, great.
I found an el cheapo 2nd hard drive caddy adapter, always in ebay, to insert a 2nd disk.
My second disk was a plain old working ubuntu edgy 8.04 install I made in my Lenovo 3000 N100 I reported here several years ago.
After booting the linux partition with F12 at boot time, linux start in console mode. Of course, xorg support is obsolete for this new hardware. Good surprise, Ethernet seems working. I plus a cable, a bit of dhcp magic later, I can send the usual update/upgrade sentences.
apt-get update apt-get upgrade
Now I have an updated version of edgy, I can test a bit of new magic (for me), "do-upgrade-release"
do-upgrade-release
After a little time of reflexion (computing 98% CPU), it ask me permission to download 1Go of updates. I have the great pleasure to enjoy an optical fiber access. It downloads at 4300ko/s. I'm still amazed with this access, 1 year later.
I reboot to enjoy the new kernel 2.6.28 It spawns gdm in compatibility mode, as this model enjoy a switchable graphics. It can be superseded in the bios.
I start in graphic mode, just time to see working: sound, wifi (home AP preference is still saved, it connects out of the box), Ethernet, suspend and hibernate.
My T500 is a 2055-45U
Distro specific instructions
- Install Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) on a ThinkPad T500
- Install sidux 2008-03 (Ουρέα) on a ThinkPad T500
- Installing Debian Sid on a ThinkPad T500
- Installing openSUSE 11.1 on a ThinkPad T500
