Installing Fedora 11 on a ThinkPad T60

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Revision as of 15:47, 27 April 2009 by Tonko (Talk | contribs) (ThinkPad keys)
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Success Chart

Item Working Notes
Installation Local CD/DVD install yes
Network Installation yes
USB Installation yes
Display Laptop Screen yes only 1 video mode available
VGA yes with hotplug only
DVI yes with hotplug only
Power Management Software Suspend (hibernate) yes
Suspend to Memory (ACPI sleep) yes
Audio yes
Wireless 802.11 - Atheros yes occasional disconnect/reconnect
802.11 - Intel unknown (should work)
Bluetooth yes
Extra Buttons Keyboard Section partial thinkpad_acpi, acpi button and acpi dock driver
Ports Ethernet yes
Modem no Requires closed-source driver
Serial yes Requires port-replicator or dock
IrDA unknown (should work) Device is detected
PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse unknown (should work) Requires port-replicator or dock
Parallel unknown (should work) Requires port-replicator or dock
USB yes
PCMCIA/Cardbus yes
Harddisk Active Protection no
Ultrabay device removal yes

Tested and Verified on Fedora 11

Information in this section has been tested and verified using Fedora 11.

Installation

Installation is straight forward; you can follow the generic Fedora install instructions.

Configuration

X Server (Intel)

Basic X server functionality should work out of the box on the ThinkPad LCD (LVDS), as long as no external displays are attached at boot.

Fedora 11 uses KMS (Kernel Mode Setting) by default, which for now has some up and down sides for external displays. The down sides are that external displays attached during boot might not function properly, but they do when hot plugged afterwards. Another down side is that currently mirror mode is very limited as the ThinkPad LCD (LVDS) is limited to one single display mode, so only if the external display supports this same mode can you activate mirror mode. On the other hand with KMS enabled the maximum virtual display size is now 4096x4096 (2048x2048 without KMS) meaning you can have an extended desktop.

These issues have been reported to Red Hat bugzilla.

Desktop Effects

Compiz untested

Wireless Network

Both the Intel and Atheros wireless should work out of the box.

Atheros was tested and works, but you may encounter occasional disconnects and reconnects. Intel wireless was not tested.

ThinkPad keys

ThinkPad keys are handled by a mixture of the thinkpad_acpi, acpi button, acpi dock and acpi video drivers.

NOTE!
Due to Xorg limitations, some keys that cause HAL events work with Xorg (ThinkVantage and Fn-F7) and others do not. This is a known limitation that should be fixed with the next major Xorg (v1.7) release.
Key Function Handled by Seen by HAL Works Notes
Fn-F2 lock screen thinkpad_acpi yes yes
Fn-F3 battery thinkpad_acpi yes yes
Fn-F4 suspend acpi button yes yes
Fn-F5 wireless thinkpad_acpi yes no Can be associated with gnome-keybinding-properties
Fn-F7 videomode thinkpad_acpi yes yes Attempts to enable mirror mode
Fn-F8 mouse input select thinkpad_acpi yes no Can be associated with gnome-keybinding-properties
Fn-F9 undock thinkpad_acpi yes no Can be associated with gnome-keybinding-properties
Fn-F12 hibernate acpi button yes yes does the same as Fn-F4 (suspend), not hibernate
Fn-Home brightness up acpi video yes yes
Fn-End brightness down acpi video yes yes
Fn-PgUp thinklight - no yes changing thinkpad_acpi hotkey_mask, causes HAL events. No OSD in any case.
Fn-Space zoom thinkpad_acpi yes no
VolumeUp Volume Up - no yes changing thinkpad_acpi hotkey_mask, causes HAL events. But OSD is wrong
VolumeDown Volume Down - no yes changing thinkpad_acpi hotkey_mask, causes HAL events. But OSD is wrong
Mute Mute - no yes changing thinkpad_acpi hotkey_mask, causes HAL events and OSD. works as a on/off toggle
ThinkVantage Vendor key thinkpad_acpi yes no Can be associated with gnome-keybinding-properties
NextTab Browser Next tab standard keyboard driver yes yes
PreviousTab Browser Previous tab standard keyboard driver yes yes
Fn-Up Stop
Fn-Left reverse
Fn-Right forward
Fn-Down play/pause
Power Power button acpi button yes yes
Lid Lid button acpi button yes yes
Dock Dock eject button acpi dock unknown unknown Should be handled by ACPI dock driver
Ultrabay Ultrabay eject switch acpi dock unknown unknown Should be handled by ACPI dock driver
Radio switch Radio kill switch yes partial works for Bluetooth only

Untested on Fedora 11