Installing Fedora 15 on a ThinkPad T41
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NOTE!
This is based on Fedora 15 Beta with the default GNOME desktop. Your experience with KDE may be different. Since the video adapter in this ThinkPad is rather dated, Gnome 3 will run in Fallback/Classic mode.
Help needed
Not all models of this ThinkPad are equal, you may have a different WiFi adapter, or some options I did not have. If you tested them, please add their status down below.
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New in this release
Fixed or new in this Fedora release, with regards to this model ThinkPad is the following;
- Gnome3, but it runs in Fallback/Classic mode as the video chip is too old
- Plymouth again boots in graphical mode, instead of high-res text mode
Regressions;
- Boot time LVDS corruption
- Changes made with gpointing-device-settings are not persistent
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 | unknown | ||
| Display - ATI RV250 | Laptop Screen | yes | But corruption during boot |
| VGA | yes | Mirror is fine, but extended-desktop results in very slow performance | |
| DVI | unknown | Requires port-replicator or dock with DVI | |
| S-Video | unknown | ||
| Power Management | Software Suspend (hibernate) | yes | |
| Suspend to Memory (ACPI sleep) | no | Xserver hang on resume. bugzilla. Boot with radeon.agpmode=1 as a workaround.
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| Audio | yes | ||
| Wireless | WiFi - Atheros AR5212 | yes | |
| 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. Install the slmodem rpm from the rpmfusion-nonfree repository, edit /etc/sysconfig/slmodem and set INTERFACE=alsa and ALSA_DEVICE=modem:1 and optionally the country. Then run "chkconfig slmodem on; service slmodem start" and point your dialer to /dev/ttySL0 | |
| 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 | no | Fedora ships the hdapsd rpm, but not the tp_smapi kernel module, which is required to read the motion sensor bugzilla | |
| 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) | yes | Enable security chip in BIOS, then "yum install tpm-tools", then "modprobe tpm_atmel; service tcsd start; tpm_version" works. | |
| Dock removal | unknown | ||
Tested and Verified on Fedora 15
Information in this section has been tested and verified using this Fedora release.
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.
You will also want to add radeon.agpmode=1 to work around a suspend/resume bug by forcing AGP 1X mode. Do note that forcing AGP 1x mode will mean less performance in games that copy large sets of textures around (e.g. Quake, World of Padman).
X Server - ATI RV250
Out of the box external displays (VGA or DVI) should work, and you can switch display modes with the Fn-F7 key combination.
The following issues still exist for single-head (LVDS only) setups
- unknown physical LVDS display size (0mm x 0mm) reported by RandR
And for Multihead or External displays. Some of these issues are likely caused by the limited amount of VRAM available (32MB)
- Multihead causes the desktop to become very slow
- S-Video output is distorted Bugzilla
- Screen rotation does not work in combination with Multihead
WiFi
Both the Intel and Atheros AR5212 wireless should work out of the box.
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 |
| FnF3 | lock screen | thinkpad_acpi | HAL | yes | |
| FnF4 | suspend | acpi button | HAL | partial | button works, but suspend fails on resume |
| FnF5 | wireless | thinkpad_acpi | HAL | partial | Works as a radio kill switch, kills WiFi but not Bluetooth |
| FnF7 | videomode | thinkpad_acpi | HAL | yes | |
| FnF12 | hibernate | acpi button | HAL | yes | |
| FnHome | brightness up | - | no | yes | no OSD |
| FnEnd | brightness down | - | no | yes | no OSD |
| FnPgUp | thinklight | - | no | yes | no OSD |
| FnSpace | zoom | thinkpad_acpi | HAL | no | Known Xorg limitation, scheduled to be fixed with the new XKB2 extension, whenever that may be. |
| VolumeUp | Volume Up | thinkpad_acpi | no | yes | no OSD. Hardware and Software volume controls are independent from each other. |
| VolumeDown | Volume Down | thinkpad_acpi | no | yes | no OSD. Hardware and Software volume controls are independent from each other. |
| Mute | Mute | thinkpad_acpi | no | yes | no OSD. Hardware and Software mute controls are independent from each other. |
| 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 (# systemctl start irda.service).
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 15
The following features where not tested with this Fedora release. If you have tested them, please update the table
- Intel WiFi
- Parallel port
- Dock eject
