Lenovo Launches Linux Laptop and Leaves Lots of Questions (eWeek) [LWN.net]

Lenovo Launches Linux Laptop and Leaves Lots of Questions (eWeek)

Posted Feb 19, 2008 19:26 UTC (Tue) by mattdm (subscriber, #18)
Parent article: Lenovo Launches Linux Laptop and Leaves Lots of Questions (eWeek)

So, how much of that "proprietary ThinkPad technology" is supported by open source drivers? If
I were to get this laptop and want to install Fedora or Ubuntu on it, would I be stuck?

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Lenovo Launches Linux Laptop and Leaves Lots of Questions (eWeek)

Posted Feb 19, 2008 19:37 UTC (Tue) by mgb (subscriber, #3226) [Link]

Thinkwiki.org will tell you what software versions are needed.  You need to check which
version of your favorite distro has those software versions.  Thinkwiki.org also has reports
on installations of various distros.

Thinkwiki.org is wonderful - I wouldn't have dared invest in a couple of T61's for Debian
without it.

Lenovo Launches Linux Laptop and Leaves Lots of Questions (eWeek)

Posted Feb 19, 2008 20:35 UTC (Tue) by leoc (guest, #39773) [Link]

I don't know about what model they are selling, but my T61 (7659) works wonderfully under
Fedora 8.

Lenovo Launches Linux Laptop and Leaves Lots of Questions (eWeek)

Posted Feb 20, 2008 5:04 UTC (Wed) by wtogami (subscriber, #32325) [Link]

My T41 (Radeon 7500) and T60 widescreen (Intel 950) both work wonderfully in Fedora too, with
fully open drivers.

Lenovo Launches Linux Laptop and Leaves Lots of Questions (eWeek)

Posted Feb 21, 2008 15:04 UTC (Thu) by SiliconSlick (subscriber, #39955) [Link]

I recently installed CentOS 5.1 on the bosses X60s and, for the most part, it just works (at
least well enough for him, which isn't always easy). 

However, CentOS didn't come with tp_smapi or the configure-trackpoint packages from
http://tpctl.sourceforge.net/ so I had to add those afterwards (along with an init script to
rebuild tp_smapi module on kernel upgrades).  The only thing not currently working is hard
disk parking via HDAPS due to the needed kernel patch (I'd prefer to stick with the latest
CentOS kernels for security updates and I won't necessarily have time to patch the kernel RPM
with the disk parking code each time an update is released).

http://ThinkWiki.org ROCKS!  Couldn't have accomplished the install in a timely manner without
them.

Lenovo Launches Linux Laptop and Leaves Lots of Questions (eWeek)

Posted Feb 21, 2008 15:10 UTC (Thu) by SiliconSlick (subscriber, #39955) [Link]

Oh yeah... (remembering one other item)...

I also snagged/rebuilt the thinkfinger RPM from Fedora Extras that wasn't included with
CentOS, but that was mostly trivial.

Lenovo Launches Linux Laptop and Leaves Lots of Questions (eWeek)

Posted Feb 19, 2008 20:52 UTC (Tue) by gsancosme (guest, #40110) [Link]

I am running a T61 from last year (it came with windows xp originally) 
with OpenSuse10.3 . Everything is standard out of the distribution, 
except the nvidia driver that comes from the nvidia site. 
Everything works fine, even the powersave, wlan, sound etc.. I had no 
trouble to install just put the openSuse10.3 DVD into the reader start 
the laptop and follow the instructions on screen. As if it where a 
standard desktop PC.

Lenovo Launches Linux Laptop and Leaves Lots of Questions (eWeek)

Posted Feb 22, 2008 14:00 UTC (Fri) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link]

I own 6 thinkpads, and I'm about to buy the 7th one. All of them run Linux.

My first Thinkpad with Linux on it was the 701CS, aka Butterfly, bought back in 1996, one of
the coolest notebooks ever produced. This is the one where the keyboard slides to the side to
give a full-sized keyboard for a subnotebook, see http://thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:701CS for
a picture.

And the best: it's still (yay!) running (Slackware) Linux, with its whooping 32 MB main memory
and 360 MB hard disk. Of course, hand-tailored, no modern distribution is content with such
miniscule sizes any more.

My last installation of Ubuntu was just two weeks ago, on a T41 that ran previously openSUSE.
The main gripe I have with the Ubuntu install is that it doesn't get the framebuffer modes
right while booting, the vga kernel parameter doesn't work. (It worked with SUSE.) Probably a
problem with missing modules in initrd or so; I didn't bother to work it out and simply boot
it in basic screen mode.

Ubuntu supported the T41 hardware rather good; WLAN, bluetooth, CPU powersave mode etc.,
worked out of the box; laptop mode is activated. (I started to hate NetworkManager, though.)
For support of sleep/hibernate, I needed to install a Thinkpad-specific package (tbp), Ubuntu
did not do so automatically. Then the Fn-keys worked. That package had a small configuration
error that prevented the lid-close event to trigger suspend, easy to resolve if one knows a
bit about acpid. openSUSE was a bit better to support these stuff automatically, also without
any proprietary kernel modules. I expect that I'll need to tune my power consumption, but
that's the case for all Linux laptops.

I don't play games on the system, this is for working. Thus, the open source graphics drivers
are sufficient for me. YMMW.

Best, Joachim