Installing OPENSUSE 11.0 on a ThinkPad T61p
Contents
Introduction
How to install openSuSE 11.0 x64 on a T61p
Hardware
My T61p is a 8889-3FG, Intel Core2Duo 2,4GHz, 2GB RAM, 100 GB HDD 7200 rpm, Nvidia Quadro FX 570M, 14.1" TFT (1400x1050), Intel 82655MM GB-Ethernet, Intel AGN 4965 wifi, Bluetooth.
Installation
Network install worked pretty much straight forward. Be careful, there's a hidden recovery partition which could screw up your partition table. Just call Lenovo, get the recovery DVDs for free and delete the hidden partition.
Graphics
X might not work with the vesa driver, so if your KDE or gnome goes blank on first boot press STRG+ALT+BACKSPACE, open yast in console and install the binary driver from nvidia. I chose the 177.13 beta version because i had suspend2disk trouble with openSuSE 10.3, works fine now, see below.
I also encountered some strange font-size trouble in kdm & yast, to fix this set dpi to 120 in systemsettings (both as root and user) and set font size in /etc/X11/qtrc to a very small value (i chose 7)
Haven't tried the SUB-D connector for external graphic devices yet.
Sound
Worked out of the box.
Ethernet
Worked out of the box.
WiFi
after some installation retries (maybe it was kde4-network-something) I managed to connect to a wpa encrypted wifi network. don't know why it didn't work before.
Bluetooth
Haven't tried it yet.
Power Saving
Had to install kpowersave to use it, but works fine now.
Suspend2Disk and Suspend2RAM (had to add S2RAM_OPTS=--force to /etc/pm/config.d/s2ram because this model is not yet whitelisted) both worked out of the box (again, with nVidia beta).
Hotkeys
partial: Suspend (after installing kpowersave) and backlight hotkeys work but not the sound hotkeys. wifi hotkey (Fn+F5) works but since the Wifi indicator keeps dark state is not visible.
Fingerprint Reader
Works, but no KDE-support (yet). Remember to set your fingerprint in Yast -> Security and Users -> User and group management -> edit your user account -> plugins -> set user's fingerprint. T61p
