Installing Debian 4.1 on a ThinkPad T61p

A short guide to get you working with X, Wireless intel 4965, and sound.

I installed the Debian Etch 4.1 release and thereafter edited the /etc/apt/sources.list. Replaced etch with testing and there after apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade.

Install the linux-image-2.6.22-5-i686 and the linux-headers-image-2.6.22-5-i686 then reboot to reflect the changes and load the new kernel.

X:

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Download NVIDIA-Linux-x86-169.07-pkg1.run from Nvidia sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-169.07-pkg1.run and follow the instructions

Wireless:

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iwlwifi-4965-ucode-4.44-17.tgz
mac80211-8.0.2.tgz
iwlwifi-1.0.0-1.tgz

NOTE!

With mac80211-10 the kernel seems to halt. I could not get it to work but using the above files everything runs smooth.

unpack the above files eg. tar xzvf <filename> From iwllwifi-4965-ucode-4.44.17 cp iwlwifi-4965.ucode /lib/firmware

From mac80211-8.0.2 make patch_kernel

From iwlwifi-1.0.0.1 make make install ./load debug=0 iwconfig (Wlan0 should now be available to you)

Sound

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There is a bug in the kernel which silences the output from your speakers. To fix this, run the following userspace program as root. Do a google on "t61_audio_hack.py" thanks to Andrew Clunis

Save the following to a file eg t61p_sound.py and run it as root $ sh t61p_sound.py

<python>

1. !/usr/bin/env python

KIOCSOUND = 0x4B2F

import fcntl, sys

import time

1. Do a constant beep.
2. Reset the beep every five seconds, in case it is cleared by another program.

while(True):

   fd = open("/dev/console")
   fcntl.ioctl(fd, KIOCSOUND, 500)
   fd.close()

</python>

To fix the missing sound when using firefox and flash remove Esound or kill esd (enlightenment daemon)