Installing Fedora 13 on a ThinkPad T41
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NOTE!
This is based on Fedora 13 with the default GNOME desktop. Your experience with KDE may be different.
Help needed
Not all models of this ThinkPad are equal, you may have a different WiFi adapter, or some options I did not have. If you tested them, please add their status down below.
NOTE!
The original author of this page has updated his ThinkPad to Fedora 14, as such this page is no longer updated.
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New in this release
Fixed or new in this Fedora release, with regards to this model ThinkPad is the following;
- New ThinkPad audio mixer (see below) for the volume keys, although userland support is missing so no effective user visable change
- New gnome-color-manager (see below) now allows you to load colour profiles
- external displays no longer need a second xrandr run to get their physical size.
- shutdown with external display attached, no longer causes the LVDS to do a strange fade to white
- lower then default LVDS resolutions now work correct
- compiz cube rotation colour palette problem is fixed
- r200_run_tcl_render error is fixed with apps like Extreme TuxRacer
- S-Video support has improved but the output quality is still pretty bad
Success Chart - Out of the box experience
This machines SMOLT profile is available here.
| Item | Working | Notes | |
| Installation | Local CD/DVD install | yes | |
| Network Installation | yes | ||
| USB Installation | yes | ||
| Display - ATI RV250 | Laptop Screen | yes | |
| VGA | yes | ||
| DVI | yes | Requires port-replicator or dock with DVI | |
| S-Video | partial | see below | |
| Power Management | Software Suspend (hibernate) | no | Seems like it works (saves image), but does not resume image on boot. Instead it does a regular boot. |
| Suspend to Memory (ACPI sleep) | no | Xserver hang on resume. bugzilla. boot with radeon.agpmode=-1 as a workaround.
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| Audio | yes | ||
| Wireless | WiFi - Atheros AR5212 | yes | |
| WiFi - Intel | unknown (should work) | ||
| Bluetooth | yes | ||
| Input | Keyboard | yes | |
| TrackPoint | yes | Install gpointing-device-settings rpm for full configuration capabilities | |
| TouchPad | yes | Install gpointing-device-settings rpm for full configuration capabilities | |
| Extra keys | partial | see ThinkPad Extra keys section below | |
| Ports | Ethernet | yes | |
| Modem | no | Requires closed-source driver. Install the slmodem rpm from the rpmfusion-nonfree repository, edit /etc/sysconfig/slmodem and set INTERFACE=alsa and ALSA_DEVICE=modem:1 and optionally the country. Then run "chkconfig slmodem on; service slmodem start" and point your dialer to /dev/ttySL0 | |
| Serial | yes | Requires port-replicator or dock | |
| IrDA | no | Device is detected, but does not work | |
| PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse | yes | Mouse works, but disables Trackpoint/Touchpad | |
| Parallel | unknown (should work) | Device is detected | |
| USB | yes | ||
| PCMCIA/Cardbus | yes | ||
| Harddisk Active Protection | no | Fedora ships the hdapsd rpm, but not the tp_smapi kernel module, which is required to read the motion sensor bugzilla | |
| Ultrabay device removal | partial | Eject switch causes udev event, but no default udev script to handle the event to unmount filesystems in time. ata_piix does handle the removal and insertion of ATA devices. | |
| TPM (security subsystem) | yes | Enable security chip in BIOS, then "yum install tpm-tools", then "modprobe tpm_atmel; service tcsd start; tpm_version" works. | |
| Dock removal | unknown | ||
Tested and Verified on Fedora 13
Information in this section has been tested and verified using Fedora 13.
Installation
Installation is straight forward, but you should do so without any external displays attached; you can follow the generic Fedora install instructions.
Configuration
Kernel
It is recommended to edit /boot/grub/grub.conf and add hpet=force to the kernel line. This will activate HPET (High Precision Event Timer), which will allow the CPU to sleep for longer periods and save power.
You may also want to add radeon.agpmode=-1 to work around a suspend/resume bug by disabling AGP support.
X Server - ATI RV250
Out of the box external displays (VGA or DVI) should work, and you can switch display modes with the Fn-F7 key combination.
The following issues still exist for single-head (LVDS only) setups
- unknown physical LVDS display size (0mm x 0mm) reported by RandR
And for Multihead or External displays. Some of these issues are likely caused by the limited amount of VRAM available (32MB)
- S-Video output is distorted Bugzilla
- Multihead causes the desktop to become very slow
- Screen rotation does not work in combination with Multihead
- Compiz does not work in combination with Multihead Bugzilla
- external ONLY does not work (both displays are black)
- Metacity Compositing does not work with Multihead
- Strangely enough, plymouth gives a high-res text mode during boot with single-head, but graphical mode with Multihead boot
WiFi
Both the Intel and Atheros AR5212 wireless should work out of the box.
Intel WiFi was not tested.
Audio
Starting with the 2.6.33 kernel, as included with Fedora 13, the thinkpad_acpi driver now exports a volume control to ALSA, which represents the volume and mute buttons on the ThinkPad keyboard. Unfortunately for ALSA/PulseAudio this is just another volume control (one without actual inputs/outputs), and as such there is no effective end-user change from what you had with previous kernels.
This volume control can be seen by running alsamixer, pressing F6 and selecting ThinkPad Console Audio Control
ThinkPad Extra keys
ThinkPad keys are handled by a mixture of the thinkpad_acpi, acpi button and acpi dock drivers.
| Key | Function | Handled by | Event | Works | Notes |
| FnF3 | lock screen | thinkpad_acpi | HAL | yes | |
| FnF4 | suspend | acpi button | HAL | partial | button works, but suspend fails on resume |
| FnF5 | wireless | thinkpad_acpi | HAL | partial | Works as a radio kill switch, kills WiFi but not Bluetooth |
| FnF7 | videomode | thinkpad_acpi | HAL | yes | |
| FnF12 | hibernate | acpi button | HAL | partial | button works, but hibernate fails |
| FnHome | brightness up | - | no | yes | no default OSD. Install the tpb rpm as a workaround. |
| FnEnd | brightness down | - | no | yes | no default OSD. Install the tpb rpm as a workaround. |
| FnPgUp | thinklight | - | no | yes | no default OSD. Install the tpb rpm as a workaround. |
| FnSpace | zoom | thinkpad_acpi | HAL | no | Known Xorg limitation, scheduled to be fixed with the new XKB2 extension, whenever that may be. |
| VolumeUp | Volume Up | thinkpad_acpi | no | yes | no default OSD. Install the tpb rpm as a workaround. Hardware and Software volume controls are independent from each other. |
| VolumeDown | Volume Down | thinkpad_acpi | no | yes | no default OSD. Install the tpb rpm as a workaround. Hardware and Software volume controls are independent from each other. |
| Mute | Mute | thinkpad_acpi | no | yes | no default OSD. Install the tpb rpm as a workaround. Hardware and Software mute controls are independent from each other. |
| Access IBM | Vendor key | thinkpad_acpi | HAL | partial | No default action, but can be associated with gnome-keybinding-properties |
| NextTab | Browser Next tab | standard keyboard driver | HAL | yes | |
| PreviousTab | Browser Previous tab | standard keyboard driver | HAL | yes | |
| Power | Power button | acpi button | HAL | yes | Need to press button for ~1 second to trigger event. Causes a dialog asking you what to do. |
| Lid | Lid button | acpi button | HAL | yes | |
| Dock | Dock eject button | acpi dock | unknown | unknown | Should cause udev event |
| Ultrabay | Ultrabay eject switch | acpi dock | udev | no | Causes udev event, but missing handler. See below. |
Ultrabay
Ultrabay eject is not handled properly by default. Since there is no undock udev handler. This udev rule and eject script works for me: How to hotswap Ultrabay devices
IrDA
IrDA is detected, but does not work. Part of the problem is that the default Fedora configuration expects to find the IrDA port at /dev/ttyS2, while it should use /dev/ircomm0 instead. This can be fixed in /etc/sysconfig/irda after which the irda service can be started (# service irda start).
However, even after this communication with other devices fails. irdadump does not show any output when something like a mobile phone with IrDA is sending data.
Untested on Fedora 13
The following features where not tested with Fedora 13. If you have tested them, please update the table
- Intel WiFi
- Parallel port
- Dock eject
