Installing Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) on a ThinkPad T43p

Items that work out of the box

• Hibernation

• Wireless Internet

• Wired Internet

• Sound from speakers and headphoenes. Note that no notification is displayed when adjusting volume because of this bug

• TrackPoint

• TouchPad

• Volume Buttons

• Fn button
  • Screen Brightnesss
  • Display Switch
  • ThinkLight
  • Toggeling Status of wireless radio and bluetooth

Items that may require tweaking

Configuring the TrackPoint

configure-trackpoint can be used to adjust the TrackPoint's sensitivity, speed and other settings. Since configure-trackpoint depends on sysfsutils, run...

sudo apt-get install sysfsutils

...before installing it's deb file from here. Run it using...

sudo configure-trackpoint

Vertical Scrolling by TrackPoint's Middle-button

In Ubuntu clicking the TrackPoint's middle-button pastes instead of scrolling vertically. To fix this, vertical scrolling must be enabled and paste by middle-button must be disabled the for the TrackPoint. Create mouse-wheel.fdi in "/etc/hal/fdi/policy/" using something like...

sudo gedit "/etc/hal/fdi/policy/mouse-wheel.fdi"

...and enter the following into it...

<match key="info.product" string="TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint">
 <merge key="input.x11_options.EmulateWheel" type="string">true</merge>
 <merge key="input.x11_options.EmulateWheelButton" type="string">2</merge>
 <merge key="input.x11_options.YAxisMapping" type="string">4 5</merge>
 <merge key="input.x11_options.XAxisMapping" type="string">6 7</merge>
 <merge key="input.x11_options.Emulate3Buttons" type="string">true</merge>
 <merge key="input.x11_options.EmulateWheelTimeout" type="string">200</merge>
</match>

Configuring Bluetooth

Bluetooth is turned on at startup regardless of previous settings because of this bug. This uses energy and reduces battery-life. It is a good idea to fix this if you rarely use Bluetooth. To do this open "/etc/init.d/rc.local" by...

sudo gedit "/etc/init.d/rc.local"

...and append...

echo disable > /proc/acpi/ibm/bluetooth

...to the file. Settings will take effect after restarting the machine.

Hard Drive Active Protection System

The hard drive active protection system was enabled using these instructions with modifications.

Removing old kernel modules

First remove old kernel modules if you have them...

sudo rm /lib/modules/$KVER/kernel/ubuntu/misc/thinkpad_ec.ko
sudo rm /lib/modules/$KVER/kernel/ubuntu/misc/tp_smapi.ko
sudo rm /lib/modules/$KVER/kernel/drivers/hwmon/hdaps.ko

Patching, building and installing the panel applet

Download the latest gnome-hdaps-applet to your home folder and then

mkdir ~/gnome-hdaps-applet
tar zxvf gnome-hdaps-applet-20081204.tar.gz -C ~/gnome-hdaps-applet

Next the applet must be patched to work on a t43p. For some mysterious reason t43p's does not have a "protect" file. Therefore it has to be replaced with the "unload_heads" file. Open gnome-hdaps-applet.c...

gedit ~/gnome-hdaps-applet/gnome-hdaps-applet.c

...and replace ...

#define SYSFS_PROTECT_FILE_HDA		"/sys/block/hda/queue/protect"
#define SYSFS_PROTECT_FILE_SDA		"/sys/block/sda/queue/protect"

...with...

#define SYSFS_PROTECT_FILE_HDA		"/sys/block/hda/device/unload_heads"
#define SYSFS_PROTECT_FILE_SDA		"/sys/block/sda/device/unload_heads"

Build and install the applet...

sudo apt-get install libpanel-applet2-dev
cd ~/gnome-hdaps-applet
gcc $(pkg-config --cflags --libs libpanelapplet-2.0) -o gnome-hdaps-applet gnome-hdaps-applet.c
sudo cp gnome-hdaps-applet /usr/bin/
sudo mkdir /usr/share/pixmaps/gnome-hdaps-applet/
sudo cp *.png /usr/share/pixmaps/gnome-hdaps-applet/
sudo cp GNOME_HDAPS_StatusApplet.server /usr/lib/bonobo/servers/

If it builds, right click on the panel, select "Add to panel" and choose the "HDAPS Status Applet"