Installing Fedora 16 on a ThinkPad X40

NOTE! This is based on Fedora 16 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.

New in this release

Fixed or new in this Fedora release, with regards to this model ThinkPad is the following;

• ..

Regressions;

• ..

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 (LVDS)	yes
	VGA	yes
Power Management	Software Suspend (hibernate)	yes
	Suspend to Memory (ACPI sleep)	yes
Audio		yes
Wireless	WiFi - Atheros	yes
	WiFi - Intel 2200BG	yes
	Bluetooth	yes
Input	Keyboard	yes
	TrackPoint	yes
	Extra keys	partial	see ThinkPad Extra keys section below
Ports	Ethernet	yes
	Modem	no	Requires closed-source driver. May work by installing 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 dock
	IrDA	no	It seems the device is detected, but then it tries to register a second device and fails with "nsc_ircc_open(). can't get iobase of 0x2f8".
	PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse	yes	Requires dock. Mouse works, but disables Trackpoint.
	Parallel	unknown (should work)	Requires dock
	USB	yes
	PCMCIA/Cardbus	yes
	SD slot	yes	4GB SDHC flash card automatically detected.
Harddisk Active Protection		partial	There is 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)		yes	Enable security chip in BIOS, then "yum install tpm-tools", then "modprobe tpm_atmel; service tcsd start; tpm_version" works.
Dock removal		yes

Tested and Verified on Fedora 16

Information in this section has been tested and verified using Fedora.

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 - Intel 855GM

Both LVDS and VGA displays work in mirror and extended desktop mode, although extended desktop is rather limited as the Intel graphics chip is limited to just a 2048x2048 desktop size.

Issues

• Unknown physical LVDS display size (reported as 0mm x 0mm)
• Cycling through external display modes with Fn-F7 only works, if the combined horizontal resolutions of the LVDS and external display combined does not exceed 2048 pixels. Since the LVDS (ThinkPad LCD) is 1024 pixels horizontal on a X40, that means the external display cannot have more then 1024 pixels either or otherwise Fn-F7 will fail.
• Xv (Xvideo) when in mirror mode works on the external display, but not the LVDS

WiFi

Both the Intel 2200BG and Atheros wireless should work out of the box.

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	yes	yes
FnF4	suspend	acpi button	yes	yes
FnF5	wireless	thinkpad_acpi	yes	partial	Switches WiFi on and off, has no effect on Bluetooth
FnF7	videomode	thinkpad_acpi	yes	partial	Fails if external monitor >1024 horizontal
FnF9	undock	acpi button	yes	no	causes event, but does not actually undock
FnF12	hibernate	acpi button	yes	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	yes	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	yes	partial	No default action, but can be associated in the Gnome3 keyboard settings
NextTab	Browser Next tab	standard keyboard driver	yes	yes
PreviousTab	Browser Previous tab	standard keyboard driver	yes	yes
Power	Power button	acpi button	yes	yes	Need to press button for ~1 second to trigger a suspend event.
Lid	Lid button	acpi button	yes	yes	Triggers a suspend event
Dock	Dock eject button	acpi dock	udev	yes
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

Untested

• Parallel port