Installing Gentoo on a ThinkPad 770E

Installing Gentoo Linux on a Thinkpad 770E

This is the gentoo installation guide for the linux Thinkpad 770E. This is not meant to replace the gentoo handbook, but rather, as a guide to help fine tune certain options. Please refer to the gentoo handbook, gentoo docs/wiki and the gentoo forums for more help.

Partitioning

Until linux supports ibm thinkpad controls like ps2.exe, it is recommended you keep a small bootable partition (10-100MB for a DOS partition). You will need this if you want to change or find out irq, mem address, and dma settings.

Kernel configuration

For PCMCIA support you have to load the yenta_socket module and change the configuration file /etc/conf.d/pcmcia (replace PCIC=i82365 with PCIC=yenta_socket).

For Frame Buffers support, do NOT load any frame buffer drivers besides vesafb. Do NOT even load vesafb-tng. Even though the video card is a trident card, the tridentfb does not work. It will produce a flickery screen. All you want to do is compile vesafb into your kernel or as a module, then add vga=791 to your boot line. Do not even bother with video=mtrr or any other options. VGA=791 is all you need for 1024x768 frame buffers support.

Sound support

I currently have not been able to get sound working for the IBM Thinkpad 770E. Please edit this if you find a fix to sound for the IBM Thinkpad 770E.

All 770's should get sound using the ALSA snd_cs4232 module, although they have a cs4610 chip. Similar to Problem with broken sound on ThinkPad 600. Try

modprobe snd-cs4232 port=0x530 cport=0x538 fm_port=0x388 irq=5 dma1=1 dma2=0

See also DAG: Linux on 770

X11 configuration

Follow the Gentoo Xorg howto. It should work from there.