who has LINUX or OS/2 loaded on their T42..?

Message

#61 Post by **carbon_unit** » Thu Nov 25, 2004 10:44 pm

I tried Sese 9.2 live eval KDE cd from HERE and I am impressed. Suse has changed since the last time I tried it.
It did seem to pick up most of the thinkpad specific things and with a little tweaking it might be pretty good. I'm glad I took a look at it. It will be even better with a full install.

lfeagan · #62 Post by **lfeagan** » Thu Nov 25, 2004 11:20 pm

Only problem with 9.2 is that I could not manage to get a working ATi driver for accelerated 3D on it.

would · #63 Post by **would** » Sat Nov 27, 2004 5:15 am

there will be a driver in near future - ati is working on this......

you'll find it at: ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/supplementary/X/ATI/

lfeagan · #64 Post by **lfeagan** » Sat Nov 27, 2004 3:32 pm

Yes, I know where to find it when it does exist. The point being that ATi is slow as molasses about getting new X.org support out for its drivers. I don't foresee it being here, say, within a month. Some people need support now, not a promise of future services. Like me, I need support now for 3D. So, I rolled back to Suse 9.1 Bill wants to ship something that works just as well as (or better than) the stock Windows XP install that you get with your Thinkpad. We want ThinkpadLinux to work just as well, if not better than XP so that it is seen as a viable alternative, not a compromise.

Isaac000 · #65 Post by **Isaac000** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 4:03 am

Bill,

I have OS/2 installed on my T40p for quite a while now. It was relatively painless and runs fine. I know many people who have OS/2 installed on their T4x systems, as Thinkpads in general and T's in particular are the laptop of choice for OS/2 users.

-Video is supported and the latest drivers even has OpenGL support. (OS/2 uses "universal" video drivers). Video out to TV, zoom, etc. available for some adapters.
-Audio is provided by IBM, as are the networking drivers and PCMCIA drivers
-Wireless works for many (but not all) of the wireless adapters from IBM options
-CDRW support with UDF is included by default.
-USB 1.x and 2.0 support for storage, mice, printers, etc.
-Java 1.4.2 is freely available, as are the very latest versions of Mozilla, Firefox and Thunderbird.
-Acrobat Reader 3 to 5 is available...
Generally almost any general-purpose software a user might need.

You may also want to consider eCS (a "distro" of OS/2 which can include Lotus Smartsuite, OpenOffice 1.1.2, Flash, anti-virus software, X-window server, easy installation wizards, CD writing software, etc) which is often cheaper than OS/2 from IBM. I can point you at the distributors/manufacturers, who I'm sure can give you a good deal for preloads.
(The manufacturers themselves run Thinkpads. I'm sure they can give you a working image that you can just throw on the Thinkpads).

Feel free to e-mail me at: atomic.frog AT gmail dot com
if you have any questions.

Isaac

ktk · #66 Post by **ktk** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 4:25 am

Hi Bill,

I just installed OS/2 (well, eComStation) on a T42 with 1400x1050 resolution, the eCS install went very smooth and all seems to work fine.

I didn't try PCCards yet but I could do that if you like. Also, the internal WLAN driver is not *yet* supported on OS/2 but we work on a solution for that (will be a NDIS Wrapper like solution that will be based on the Windows driver for that card).

If you do preinstalls I would definitely go for eComStation, it makes life so much easier. Don't hesitate to contact me if you have questions.

cu

Adrian

caudel · #67 Post by **caudel** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 2:36 pm

I installed eCS 1.2 on my T42 in a dual-boot configuration with the existing WinXP. I shrunk the WinXP partition with PartitionMagic, then added boot manager and eCS1.2 in a primary partition along with a few drives on a logical partition. Since the hidden recovery partition was using up one of the four primary partitions, I killed it to make room for a Linux installation (which I still haven't done).

Everything works fine on the T42 with eCS 1.2 with two exceptions. There's no driver for the built-in Intel 2100 WiFi card, so I use a PCMCIA WiFi card instead. The other issue is power management: the machine suspends and wakes up OK but there's a significant power drain. If it sits for a day in suspend, I lose 10-20% of a full battery charge. The drain during suspend under WinXP is much less.

mckinnis · #68 Post by **mckinnis** » Fri Dec 03, 2004 9:59 am

I used the same basic approach, but I did use the IBM supplied utilities to create the recovery CDs from the recovery partition (7 CDs for recovery and 1 for disaster boot) before I blew it away.

caudel wrote:I installed eCS 1.2 on my T42 in a dual-boot configuration with the existing WinXP. I shrunk the WinXP partition with PartitionMagic, then added boot manager and eCS1.2 in a primary partition along with a few drives on a logical partition. Since the hidden recovery partition was using up one of the four primary partitions, I killed it to make room for a Linux installation (which I still haven't done).

Everything works fine on the T42 with eCS 1.2 with two exceptions. There's no driver for the built-in Intel 2100 WiFi card, so I use a PCMCIA WiFi card instead. The other issue is power management: the machine suspends and wakes up OK but there's a significant power drain. If it sits for a day in suspend, I lose 10-20% of a full battery charge. The drain during suspend under WinXP is much less.

muffd · #69 Post by **muffd** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 2:33 am

Anyone here successful loading Mandrake 10.1 beta? I installed it with no installation errors but when I try to boot with Lilo, I get to this screen where it says to press "I" to enter interactive startup. Only thing is I can't get it to enter anything outside of this screen.

T40 2373-92U is the machine used here.

muffd · #70 Post by **muffd** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 2:19 pm

Update, I got Fedora 3 installed. Everything works fine out of the box except the Wireless portion. I'm gonna work on that tonight and update tomorrow.

stgreek · #71 Post by **stgreek** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 2:26 pm

Gentoo Linux works fine on all Thinkpads I've installed it on, with the exception of the savage/supersavage drivers on T2x that needed a bit of tweaking to work (I think x.org now supports them fine).

darein · #72 Post by **darein** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 4:11 am

I have gentoo running on my T42. Everything is working except wireless (which I broke with a new kernel) and software suspend. And the 3D of course, thanks ATI.

lfeagan · #73 Post by **lfeagan** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 10:31 pm

Here is a good article on the contenders for Linux. This should give Bill a good rundown on how things will go with Suse 9.2 or Fedora Core 3.
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=8885

Quick answer to that question: Things will go very well. You could build a kickstart server and image laptops in a jiffy.

rssb · #74 Post by **rssb** » Sat Dec 18, 2004 1:09 pm

I have installed suse 9.1 on T41p and everything worked right out of the box, incl of the wireless card,

is the anyway to get the ultranav middle blue mouse button to work for scrolling, also do i need to install anything specific for power saving modes

thanks

destiny27 · #75 Post by **destiny27** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 5:12 pm

heroe# uname -a
FreeBSD heroe.manson.de 5.3-RELEASE FreeBSD 5.3-RELEASE #0: Thu Dec 16 09:08:32 CET 2004 destiny@heroe.manson.de:/usr/src/sys/i386/compile/SICK i386

is working fine here, with acpi enabled by default. wireless (atheros kernel) speedstep (est & estctrl bsd userland), display (xorg with vesa/ati/radeon driver but without 3d support), bluetooth (with ng_ubt_load="YES" in loader.conf) and some special tuning in rc.conf and device.hints --> lidswitch = acpi S3 and a wortking touchpad after wake up etc.

all in all a pretty nice system for this T41p

greetz from germany

any questions -> icq

muffd · #76 Post by **muffd** » Tue Dec 21, 2004 3:03 pm

Being the newbie I am at Linux. I was unable to get wireless my wireless networking with either Mandrake 10.x or FC3. I keep reading on how some people had wireless working out of the box but when I tried each install, I could not seem to figure it out.
Anybody else experiencing this?

umdenken · #77 Post by **umdenken** » Tue Dec 21, 2004 7:17 pm

I like Suse a lot, too. I've been using it exclusively after having started w/ Slackware (on floppies, ca. 1994) and then Redhat.

Suse has the advantage of the "Yast" program, their version of the Windows Control Panel. I haven't seen a system like that on other Linux distributions.

This could be great for the Linux / Thinkpad project because it's an open application: It's easy to write new modules that plug in to it. I imagine a special "Thinkpad" module that would allow users to configure all of the special features in one place. And by having this be part of Yast, it would actually be in the first place that users would look for this sort of functionality.

The Yast program also works simultaneously in text as well as graphics mode. Modules can also be executed standalone. So, for example, a Thinkpad module could also be executed in a minimal/safe text mode when (say) doing an initial installation.

Robb

ncharoe · #78 Post by **ncharoe** » Sun Dec 26, 2004 1:17 pm

I'm having some issue installing Linux SuSE 9.2 on my T42 Thinkpad. I received "installation of package attr-2.4.16-2.i586 failed" and when I click on ignore, I kept on getting "installation of package xxxxxx failed" Can anyone help me w/ this problem. Thanks in advance..

ohman · #79 Post by **ohman** » Mon Dec 27, 2004 1:22 am

I have had suse 9.1, ubuntu (everything worked out of the box minus ATI drivers), debian, and gentoo.

Currently I'm running gentoo simply because I like to be bleeding edge, and don't really mind the time spent building from source. Swsusp2 is a littel flaky, and only works about half the time. Wireless (the ipw2200) works as well, and I'm currently working on getting WAP-PSK/TKIP working.

And, of course, ATI continues to be a pain about 3D acceleration.

would · #80 Post by **would** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 7:10 am

there now is a 3d driver on the suse ftp for suse 9.2

arion · #81 Post by **arion** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 9:52 am

I missed this thread before but I have some advice and suggestions.

One the cool things about IBM ThinkPads is the hardware works with Linux.

To install Red Hat / Fedora Linux on many machines you can make a kickstart script. The installer (Anaconda) can take input from the user via keyboard/mouse or from a config file. At the end on the kickstart script you can then add the ThinkPad specific configurations.

It would to wise to tell all the information and configurations needed for the ThinkPads and other hardware to the developers of the distributions so that they can be included in the next release of the distros.

Red Hat / Fedora can just add most of the extra features into Anaconda (the installer program).

If most if not all the work is included into the standard distribution then you can install that on the Laptops and support for most issues are handled by the distribution community where it belongs and the ThinkPad specific stuff can be dealt with here.

Also if the distribution works with Linux on the ThinkPad out of the box you may even be able to get IBM to involve you in an announcement of the fact (eg. IBM announces today that with help from ThinkPads.com Red Hat Fedora totally supports IBM ThinkPads out of the box). They seem to love stating that their hardware/software works with Linux especially when they don't have to do the work.

nesen · #82 Post by **nesen** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 2:53 pm

Additionally, Solaris 10 runs quite smooth on my t41p

I only tried b72, and there are some problems (Xorg crashing, problem with keyboard after sleep, usb mouse and pointer not working at the same time and a few other ones)

BUT I didn't do any customization or configuration yet, and since b72 is a beta that's ok. I'll post if i'm successful with the final version. (Which I have to download first)

Also note that you NEVER EVER should even consider installing Solaris10 if you don't have the time and will to resolve these problems. But if you do, you're not going to run into big troubles. Thanks IBM!

SDNick484 · #83 Post by **SDNick484** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 3:56 am

I will be picking up a brand new T42 (2373-3XU) from school (UCSD) tomorrow and plan to have either Fedora Core 3 or Ubuntu up and running by tomorrow night. My previous laptop, a T21, died last Sunday; it had been running Fedora Core 1 (and later 2) for about a year as it's only OS. I think I may create a little walkthrough and post it on my school's webserver if anyone is interested. I haven't ran Fedora Core 3 recently, but backed away from it initially due to poor support by ATI (I have a 9600XT in my desktop), but I believe the issues with Xorg6.8 have been resolved and I look forward to seeing what the Xdamage extension can do. I don't foresee any major issues and will likely recompile my kernel tomorrow night as well (so if anyone wants my .config, or knows a good one, let me know).

[EDIT]
Well I went in to pick up the T42 only to find out that the one they said they had in stock already had a deposit on it (would have been nice if that had been mentioned when I called). It will take at least a week for them to get some more in, so I will wait and see what the T43 prices look like.

arion · #84 Post by **arion** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 6:59 am

http://www-306.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... IGR-48NT8D

Mofongo · #85 Post by **Mofongo** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 9:32 pm

I put Fedora Core 2 on my 2379-DYU when I got it at the end of May. At the time, I had to work pretty hard to get it going, but the latest kernel of FC2 handles pretty much everything except suspend-to-RAM and suspend-to-disk. There are even prebuit FC2 RPMs for the Atheros-based WiFi card (MadWiFi) drivers as well as the ATI proprietary video drivers.

These also exist for FC3, plus suspend-to-RAM also reportedly works. With some tweaking, suspend-to-disk can be added as well. The only remaining problem is that the 3D acceleration of the ATI driver can still not be resumed from suspend. You have to choose to have either suspend, or 3D acceleration, but not both.

I have written up my experiences on my website:
http://pmw.org/~gardnerj/Thinkpad/Install.html

Mofongo

dfumento · #86 Post by **dfumento** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 3:18 pm

Hi,
Has anyone used the ATI drivers on the ATI website for Redhat Enterprise 3 or 4 or Redhat 9 or Fedora Core 3

with the T42 w/ATI 9600?

http://www.ati.com/support/drivers/linu ... ubmit.y=11

Also, ATI offers different drivers for XFree86 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 as well as Xorg 6.8

Does anyone know which XFree86 version Redhat 9 runs?

Thanks in advance,
David

Mofongo · #87 Post by **Mofongo** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 6:59 pm

dfumento wrote:Hi,
Has anyone used the ATI drivers on the ATI website for Redhat Enterprise 3 or 4 or Redhat 9 or Fedora Core 3

with the T42 w/ATI 9600?

RPMs for the ATI drivers built against the FC3 kernels are availible via yum or apt at http://rpm.livna.org/. The RPMS for my FC2 installation from this site worked without any hastle.

Mofongo

cliff320 · #88 Post by **cliff320** » Tue Feb 22, 2005 5:21 am

so os/2 still lives? I had it on my computer back maybe ten years ago, dual boot with windows 3.11 on a 486dx2 w/66mhz. wow those were the days.

pdudas · #89 Post by **pdudas** » Sun Feb 27, 2005 3:47 am

I have a big problem.

Installed a Mandrake Linux 10.1 Powerpack on my Thinkpad, but I installed it as the hdd was in the normal space, CDRW/DVD was in the ultrabay. After that I moved the HDD to a 2nd HDD adapter for ultrabay slim and my original HDD went bact to the thinkpad's primary HDD space. I have windows on the primary, Linux on the secondary Hdd.

Linux cannot boot, because the wrong lilo and fstab settings.
How can I change this (except to replace the drives, boot from linux and ...)?????

I dont have USB Dvd-Rom, so I cannot boot from there.

dfumento · #90 Post by **dfumento** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 9:03 pm

I have Redhat Release 4 for Desktop installed. It installed without any problems.

To install the ATI graphics accellerator:

Download the x.org driver

rpm -i --force --noscripts fglrx-8.10.19
cd /lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod
chmod a+x make.sh
./make.sh
cd ..
chmod a+x make_install.sh
./make_install.sh

fglrxconfig

who has LINUX or OS/2 loaded on their T42..?

OS/2 Installed here...

T42 and OS/2

eCS 1.2 on a T42

Re: eCS 1.2 on a T42

Another reason to use Suse

Linux SuSE 9.2 installation problem

I have FC2 on T42p 2379-DYU

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