Installing Debian 7.0 (Wheezy) on a ThinkPad T42

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The machine

This is a T42 that I ordered brand-new from IBM shortly before the Thinkpad line was sold to Lenovo. Various parts have been changed and upgraded from the stock configuration. This is its current configuration.

  • Intel Pentium M 1.70GHz
  • 2G RAM
  • Fujitsu MHU2100AT HD (100G)
  • 1024x768 LCD panel
  • CDRW/DVD combo: HL-DT-ST RW/DVD (fixme)
  • ATI Mobility Radeon 9600
  • Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG (verify)
  • BIOS version 3.23 (verify)
TODO
I need to verify this information with a reboot

Installation

I installed Debian 7.0 (Wheezy) from a bootable flash drive. The process of creating bootable flash drive is described here. It is helpful the non-free firmware package and wifi [firmware-ipw2x00_0.36_all.deb firmware] to this drive so wifi can work as soon as you're done installing. The install process is uneventful. You will end up with a bootable and usable system.

When you boot into the new system, go to [1] and create a sources.list file that's suitable for your geographic location and software needs. I highly reccomend that you select at least Main, Contrib, Non-free, and Security. Put the resulting text in /etc/apt/sources.list and comment out or delete references to a CD repository. Now, if you didn't add them to the flash drive, install firmware-linux-nonfree and firmware-ipw2x00_0 by doing 

apt-get install firmware-linux-nonfree firmware-ipw2x00_0

as root. The sudo package appears to be standard now. Make sure your username is in the sudo group.


Wireless

I prefer using wicd for controlling network connections. Doing the following as root should install all you need for that: 

apt-get install wicd-cli wicd-curses wicd-gtk

You will need to explicitly tell wicd the name of your wireless device name. It won't guess. Go to Preferences and you'll see a section labeled "Network Interfaces". The "Wireless Interface" field is blank. Put eth1 there.


Sleep and Hibernate

Sleep and hibernate do not work out of the box. First make sure the nvram kernel module is loaded by doing 

modprobe nvram

as root and then add nvram to /etc/modules. Next, go to /etc/modprobe.d and look at the file radeon-kms.conf. There should be one line in there that reads: 

options radeon modeset=1

That '1' there turns on KMS mode for the video interface. This does not work with the T42. Change that '1' to '0'.

TODO
Incomplete
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