Installing Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) on a ThinkPad Z61m

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Installing from USB stick

If you already use Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic, installing Ubuntu 10.04 from USB stick is very easy. Just download the latest ISO, plug the USB stick in and run System-->Administration-->Create a USB startup disk. Load the downloaded ISO and hit "Make Startup Disk". For more information check this page. After that reboot your Thinkpad and press F12. This will allow you to boot from USB stick and start the installation routine.

Tested Configuration

Hardware Support

Device / Function Works? Comment
Suspend & Hibernate yes out of the box
Intel GMA950 2D and 3D yes out of the box
Intel 3945ABG WiFi yes out of the box
Bluetooth yes out of the box
Broadcom Gigabit Ethernet yes out of the box
DVD±RW Burner yes out of the box
Ultrabay Hotswapping partial hotswapping optical drives (like DVD±RW) works out of the box, for HDD hotswapping look here
Intel HDA Sound yes out of the box, modem must be enabled in BIOS
PCMCIA yes out of the box
Express Card unknown not tested
Firewire unknown not tested
USB yes out of the box
IRDA unknown not tested
Docking unknown not tested
Fingerprint Reader yes works with UPEK's proprietary driver. See bellow
VGA out yes out of the box
S-Video out unknown not tested
Modem unknown not tested
Microphone yes both internal and external mics work out of the box, but are muted by default. See bellow
Headphones yes out of the box
Touchpad yes out of the box
Trackpoint yes out of the box, to enable middle button scrolling see bellow
Multimedia Card Reader yes? works out of the box with all kinds of SD cards. No other cards have been tested
FnFx, FnPageUp, FnHome, FnEnd yes out of the box, except of FnF9 and FnSpace
FnUp, FnDown, FnLeft, FnRight partial depends on the player, works out of the box with Rhytmbox but not Audacious. Thus, needs additional configuration
ThinkVantage yes does nothing by default, but can be easily mapped to something useful. See bellow
Volume up, Volume down, Volume mute partial the volume buttons work but don't affect the software (Pulse Audio) mixer. See bellow

HOWTOS

Setup the Middle Button Scrolling

Start a terminal and run 

sudo gedit /usr/lib/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-trackpoint.conf

paste this 

Section "InputClass"
    Identifier      "Trackpoint"
    MatchProduct    "TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint|DualPoint Stick|Synaptics Inc. Composite TouchPad / TrackPoint"
    MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
    Option          "EmulateWheel" "true"
    Option          "EmulateWheelButton" "2"
    Option          "EmulateWheelTimeout" "200" 
    Option	    "Emulate3Buttons"	"false"
    Option          "YAxisMapping" "4 5"
    Option          "XAxisMapping" "6 7"
EndSection

and save. Reboot.

Configure Trackpoint and Touchpad

The most convenient way to do this is to install GPointing Device Settings via 

sudo apt-get install gpointing-device-settings

After that you will find it in System -> Preferences -> Pointing Devices

Screenshot-GPointing Device Settings-TrackPoint.png

GPointing Device Settings, however, can't configure such important Trackpoint settings as sensitivity, speed and press to select. To do this, open a terminal, run 

sudo apt-get install sysfsutils
sudo gedit /etc/init/trackpoint.conf

paste 

description "Trackpoint-Settings"
env TPDIR=/sys/devices/platform/i8042/serio1/serio3
start on virtual-filesystems
script
  while [ ! -f $TPDIR/sensitivity ]; do
	sleep 2
  done
  echo -n 200 > $TPDIR/sensitivity
  echo -n 150 > $TPDIR/speed
  echo -n 1 > $TPDIR/press_to_select
end script

and save. This will set sensitivity to 200, speed to 150 and activate press to select. Replacing "echo -n 1" by "echo -n 0" in the file will deactivate press to select. To find the right speed and sensitivity values, you should do some tests before by issuing 

sudo sh -c "echo -n 200 > /sys/devices/platform/i8042/serio1/serio3/sensitivity"
sudo sh -c "echo -n 150 > /sys/devices/platform/i8042/serio1/serio3/speed"

in the terminal and using different numerical values between 0 and 255. The default values are 128 for sensitivity and 97 for speed.

If you get an error message like 

sh: cannot create /sys/devices/platform/i8042/serio1/serio3/sensitivity: Directory nonexistent

then you should run 

ls /sys/devices/platform/i8042/serio1/

to get the correct name (like serio2 or serio1). After that replace serio3 by the correct name in all related commands and in trackpoint.conf

Setup External Monitor or Beamer (VGA)

Connect your monitor/beamer to VGA port and go to System -> Preferences -> Screen Resolution. For quick access to those settings it might be useful to acivate "Show displays in panel". Lucid ext Monitor new.png

Setup Fingerprint Reader

The common open source solution ThinkFinger doesn't work properly with Lucid (see Bug #543540 and Bug #256429). There's also fprint out there, but it has a nasty bug concerning invisible GKSU windows (see Bug #347778). Thus, as of 2010-05-03 the easiest way to get fingerprint reader working on a Z61m is to use UPEK's proprietary driver. First you must get a deb-package called ps-for-linux-0.1.deb from here http://www.upek.com/support/downloads/linux/. Install the package and go to System -> Administration -> Fingerprint Enrollment to register you fingerprint(s). Reboot.

Fingerprint Enrollment new.png


The only nasty thing about this driver is that you always must press Enter after scanning your fingerprint. Apart from that it works fine for GDM (login), gksudo and sudo.


Power Management

Fix the hard drive clicking bug

If you don't know what the hard drive clicking bug is, read this. Although this bug was apparently fixed in Ubuntu Karmic, Lucid seems to be affected.

ATTENTION!
Here is a solution that worked for me. It's a bit dirty and turns off the power management of your HDD. This will slightly decrease your battery life but greatly improve your drive's lifetime.
Hint:
If you have a better solution, be sure to share it here

To fix the bug open a terminal and run 

sudo cp /usr/lib/pm-utils/power.d/95hdparm-apm /etc/pm/power.d/
sudo gedit /etc/pm/power.d/95hdparm-apm

Insert "hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda" after "resume_hdparm_apm" so that the appropriate section looks like this 

case "$1" in
	thaw|resume|true|false) # true and false for power.d
                resume_hdparm_apm
                hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda
                ;;
           *)
                exit 254
                ;;
                esac

To test the fix try suspending/resuming and plugging/unpluging AC power. After each process run 

sudo hdparm -B /dev/sda

hdparm should always report 

/dev/sda:
 APM_level	= 254

External Sources

  • [1] Trackpoint Configuration
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