Webpage on installing Linux on T42p

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Mofongo · #1 Post by **Mofongo** » Tue Jun 15, 2004 8:03 pm

I just finished making my webpage on how to install Redhat Fedora Core 2 on the T42: http://pmw.org/~gardnerj/Thinkpad/Install.html.

Let me know if you find this useful!

Mofongo

Chun-Yu · #2 Post by **Chun-Yu** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 3:43 am

BTW, kernel 2.6.7 is out.

planB · #3 Post by **planB** » Sun Jul 04, 2004 8:08 am

Mofongo, thanks for the great web page. It will save us all a lot of headache.

A few questions about your install:

After shrinking the NTFS, what was your final partition scheme?

Where did you install GRUB...boot partition or MBR?

If you went with /boot, did you use Partiton Magic or fdisk to set active partition?

I've installed FC2 (also) on a 2379-DYU. Put GRUB on 100MB /boot partition, used PM7 to set active, but on reboot get "Missing operating system." FC2 rescue disk lets me mount file system, and GRUB's all there. I just can't get the BIOS to see GRUB, so I have yet to get FC2 to run. Any suggestions?

BTW, a general note:
Discovered bug in fdisk...when use linux fdisk, it changes the NTFS partition to be HIDDEN. So to make it bootable again, you have to change the system id back to 7 as well as changing the boot flag .

LinuxGuy75 · #4 Post by **LinuxGuy75** » Sun Jul 04, 2004 6:18 pm

Mofongo wrote:I just finished making my webpage on how to install Redhat Fedora Core 2 on the T42: http://pmw.org/~gardnerj/Thinkpad/Install.html.

Let me know if you find this useful!

Mofongo

Two things.

To compile a 2.6 kernel, you no longer need a "make bzImage" and then "make modules". A simple "make" will do both. This is thanks to the new kbuild system.

More importantly, have you tried using your PCMCIA ports? There appears to be a T42 bug where, unless the card is inserted at boot time, it won't work. Inserting a card after boot time results in no activiity, beeping, etc.

See
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/sh ... ?id=126278

I have reproduced the problem on FC2 as well as Debian Sarge.

#5 Post by **JaneL** » Sun Jul 04, 2004 6:31 pm

Nice page. Have you submitted the link to http://www.linux-laptop.net/ibm.html ?

LinuxGuy75 · #6 Post by **LinuxGuy75** » Sun Jul 04, 2004 6:33 pm

In your document you say, "You should be aware of 2 things, however. Firstly, although CPUFREQ (and kernel module "speedstep-centrino") was supported in FC1, it is not in FC2."

FC2 does have CPUFREQ and speedstep-centrino compiled into the stock kernel (no modules). In order to work with the Dothan CPUs though, users need
get the latest errata kernel from Red Hat.

up2date-nox -f kernel

Mofongo · #7 Post by **Mofongo** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 4:14 pm

planB wrote:Mofongo, thanks for the great web page. It will save us all a lot of headache.

A few questions about your install:

After shrinking the NTFS, what was your final partition scheme?

Where did you install GRUB...boot partition or MBR?

If you went with /boot, did you use Partiton Magic or fdisk to set active partition?

My partitions are as follows:

hda1 id=7 NTFS
hda2 id=83 Linux root (no separate /boot partition)
hda3 id=c W95 FAT32 (for copying from Linux to Windoze)
hda4 id=f W95 Extended
hda5 id=82 Linux swap
hda6 id=83 Linux /home

I have GRUB in the MBR. I only used Partition Magic to delete the IBM_SERVICE partition and resize the NTFS partition. Everything else I did in Disk Druid in the FC2 install. I have never fiddled with GRUB not in the MBR, so I'm afraid I can't be much help with you boot problems, other than to suggest that you also try putting GRUB in the MBR, too.

planB wrote:BTW, a general note:
Discovered bug in fdisk...when use linux fdisk, it changes the NTFS partition to be HIDDEN. So to make it bootable again, you have to change the system id back to 7 as well as changing the boot flag .

Ouch! Bugs, bugs everywhere in Fedora (still). I just used Disk Druid (which used to be buggier than fdisk), and everything seemed to come out OK. My NTFS partition still has the boot flag set for it.

Best of luck and let me know how it goes.

Mofongo

Mofongo · #8 Post by **Mofongo** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 4:24 pm

LinuxGuy75 wrote:In your document you say, "You should be aware of 2 things, however. Firstly, although CPUFREQ (and kernel module "speedstep-centrino") was supported in FC1, it is not in FC2."

FC2 does have CPUFREQ and speedstep-centrino compiled into the stock kernel (no modules). In order to work with the Dothan CPUs though, users need
get the latest errata kernel from Red Hat.

up2date-nox -f kernel

That's good to know. I tried to get CPUFREQ working with the FC2 stock kernel, and it would not. At the time, when I search the web for info I could find nothing addressing this issue, as both FC2 and Dothans were so new. I try not to get the bleeding edge hardware if I want to run Linux on it, but I just had to have the Flexview screen.

Thanks for the info and I will update my website (although now that I went through the exercise of configuring my own kernel, I will just keep that for now). Thanks also for the kernel make info...before compiling the kernel for my laptop, it had been 6 years since I built a custom kernel.

Mofongo

LinuxGuy75 · #9 Post by **LinuxGuy75** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 11:39 pm

Have you tested PCMCIA cards?

Mofongo · #10 Post by **Mofongo** » Tue Jul 06, 2004 11:15 am

No...I don't actually own any pcmcia cards. The one thing I do notice is that swsusp2 seems to have problems restarting the pcmcia service.

Mofongo

Noel · #11 Post by **Noel** » Sun Jul 11, 2004 1:49 pm

Just FYI, see: http://www.emperorlinux.com/faq/roll_your_own.php, and the related http://www.emperorlinux.com/kernel.php and http://www.emperorlinux.com/hardware.php. I'm not real thrilled with EmperorLinux's depot install policies (they don't provide the distribution for customers who want to self-install, which seems to be dancing right on the edge of GPL), and their $350-$400 price to install linux on an existing laptop. However, they appear to have done some things worth learning from.

See also: http://www.flaminglunchbox.net/articles ... nT42P.html

Ideally, IBM would provide a linux distribution with full T42p support, as part of their announcement with Intel. Short of that, hopefully the user community will pull together all the pieces to fully support it.

kristian · #12 Post by **kristian** » Thu Nov 11, 2004 12:26 pm

Mofongo wrote:Let me know if you find this useful!

The review you wrote was one of the main reasons I am now waiting for one of these beauties myself...
So "useful" is definitely an understatement.

Thanks for taking the time to write both the install guide and the review!

Regards,
Kristian

dd · #13 Post by dd » Fri Nov 12, 2004 1:14 am

Excellant post

I am sure it will help many people indeed . . .

One question if I may:

Will you be installing FC3 in the near future?

littleking · #14 Post by **littleking** » Fri Nov 12, 2004 9:56 am

FC3 hosed my xp install, i set it to dual boot an everything but no go, turn out it fubar'ed the MBR and even re-writing the MBR didnt help, so i had to blow away all partitions and start back from scratch

dd · #15 Post by dd » Fri Nov 12, 2004 7:22 pm

Extremely sorry to hear that . . .

Guess I wont bother downloading FC3 then . . .

Thanks for the info!

Volker · #16 Post by **Volker** » Sat Nov 13, 2004 5:48 pm

I installed FC3, and dual boot worked before and after the installation. I do not know what caused littleking's problem, but it was not FC3.

Webpage on installing Linux on T42p

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