Installing OpenSUSE 10.1 on a ThinkPad R60e

System

This SUSE installation was performed on a Thinkpad R60e, see 0657-3LG for a complete description of the system including PCI-ID information.

Get the DVD

You can download the 32bit iso images DVD from many sites such as opensuse

Partitioning choice

Im my specific case I had no interest in keeping the windows system or the Predesktop Area. Therefore, disabled the Predesktop Area and installed the Linux system on the entire disk.

Typically, if you wish to keep you windows partition, the SuSE installer will offer shrinking it. Note that shrinking may not be possible if your windows partition is heavily fragmented.

Installation

Simply place the DVD into the drive and boot your laptop and follow the installation instructions which are really very straightforward.

If you choose a typical KDE installation, without adding any further packages, you should be done in about 20 minutes.

What works?

Basically everthing, except modem, works out-of-the-box and requires no further setup. The wireless board requires installing ipw3945d, but this may be selected during installation and should also work out-of-the-box (see also wireless section).

All Ibm-acpi functions work, as well as suspend-to-disk. suspend-do-ram requires setting of SUSPEND2RAM_FORCE=yes in System/Powermanagement/Powersave/Sleep_Modes in the /etc/sysconfig editor of Yast2.

Not tested (yet)

Bluetooth, external monitor.

Does not work

As usual for almost any laptop, the modem is not even detected and may never work.

Sound

Sound works but not always as reliably as it should, mixer settings and not saved. This requires some further investigation and perhaps a bit of fine-tuning.

Wireless

NOTE!

There is a radio switch which turns off the wireless and the bluetooth interface. It is located beneath the left side of palm rest. If you turn it on the bluetooth light comes on immediately.

Select, either during the installation or afterwards (using Yast2), to install the package ipw3945d, and reload the module ipw3945

# modprobe -r ipw3945d

# modprobe ipw3945

alternatively reboot the system. Once installed wireless works out of the box.

Usually the ipw3945d package should have been installed once a ipw3945 board is detected, this bas been registered as a bug.

SuSE 10.1 uses the Network Manager by default, which means that the wireless interface can be managed by the user directly and requires no further setup.

Conclusion

Installation is straightforward, fast and gives you immediate availability of to a highly sophisticated system without need for any further configuration. Sound may need some kernel module fine-tuning though. It is this reviewers opinion that Intel-graphics based Thinkpad laptops seem to provide the best out-of-the-box installation experience.