Ubuntu Breezy on a T42

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Edward Mendelson · #1 Post by **Edward Mendelson** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 10:20 am

Quick report on the preview release of Ubuntu Breezy on a T42, 2373 JTU (Atheros, ATI 7500, no bluetooth). A new clean installation is very smooth.
Some of the advice here is still good (as a general model)

http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/ubuntuhoa ... adt42.html

Specifically:

(1) Installing on the 2nd HDD adapter works as promised.

(2) Enabling the middle Trackpoint button works as described.

(3) Enabling sleep by modifying /etc/default/acpi-support works as described, but hibernation doesn't work yet (the machine hibernates, but crashes on waking up).

(4) To get the on-screen-display working for the TP buttons, only a very few of the listed steps are needed: (a) install tpb from the Breezy Universe; (b) enter the following in a terminal: sudo adduser YOURUSERNAME nvram ; (c) add tpb -d to the startup programs in Sessions; (d) reboot.

(5) Ignore the section on ifplugd, which doesn't seem to do any good. There are other ways (stay tuned) of speeding bootup.

(6) Network-manager (installable from the repositories) is the right way to support wireless (remove the buggy network notifier from the top-line panel), but if your wireless network uses a password, you'll have to enter password on bootup. Details later.

(7) To answer FAQ: no, on this machine, the wireless light does not go on under Ubuntu, ever; yes, Fn+F5 toggles on and off the wireless antenna; no, the on-screen-display does not indicate that wireless has been turned on or off; no, this machine doesn't have bluetooth so I can't tell you anything about bluetooth. Please don't ask for more details about Fn+F5 because I don't know any more details than there are in this paragraph.

(8) I haven't experimented with the configuration file changes described at the bottom of the linked page.

kaiser · #2 Post by **kaiser** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 2:41 pm

Edward Mendelson wrote:Specifically:

(3) Enabling sleep by modifying /etc/default/acpi-support works as described, but hibernation doesn't work yet (the machine hibernates, but crashes on waking up).

...

(5) Ignore the section on ifplugd, which doesn't seem to do any good. There are other ways (stay tuned) of speeding bootup.

(6) Network-manager (installable from the repositories) is the right way to support wireless (remove the buggy network notifier from the top-line panel), but if your wireless network uses a password, you'll have to enter password on bootup. Details later.

(7) To answer FAQ: no, on this machine, the wireless light does not go on under Ubuntu, ever; yes, Fn+F5 toggles on and off the wireless antenna; no, the on-screen-display does not indicate that wireless has been turned on or off; no, this machine doesn't have bluetooth so I can't tell you anything about bluetooth. Please don't ask for more details about Fn+F5 because I don't know any more details than there are in this paragraph.

(3) "vbetool" should solve this problem.
(5) NTP-Timesync-Problem? Just turn it off.
(6) another Option: http://www.bitbuilder.com/wifi_radar/
(7) Wireless light support should be doable, but you would have to recompile the Madwifi-Driver from source with this option.

Edward Mendelson · #3 Post by **Edward Mendelson** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 3:28 pm

(3) "vbetool" should solve this problem.
(5) NTP-Timesync-Problem? Just turn it off.
(6) another Option: http://www.bitbuilder.com/wifi_radar/
(7) Wireless light support should be doable, but you would have to recompile the Madwifi-Driver from source with this option.

(3) Could you supply exact instructions? Have you actually fixed hibernation on breezy with a Thinkpad? There are lots of bug reports about hibernation out there, and no one seems to have solved them.

(5) Not only that - with Network Manager I turn off the whole Networking sequence in bootup; details later.

(6) Never got WiFi Radar to work reliably - and the advantage of Network Manager is that it automatically switches to the wired connection if you plug in a cable, then automatically switches back to wireless when you unplug.

(7) Apparently you don't need to recompile: see this wiki entry. Haven't tried this yet, but am about to do so. EDIT - tried adding the script with rc-update, but this had no effect on the LED. If anyone has detailed instructions for making this work, please post.

kaiser · #4 Post by **kaiser** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 1:36 am

Edward Mendelson wrote:(3) Could you supply exact instructions? Have you actually fixed hibernation on breezy with a Thinkpad? There are lots of bug reports about hibernation out there, and no one seems to have solved them.

(7) Apparently you don't need to recompile: see this wiki entry. Haven't tried this yet, but am about to do so. EDIT - tried adding the script with rc-update, but this had no effect on the LED. If anyone has detailed instructions for making this work, please post.

(3) ubuntuusers.de-Wiki
QnD-Translation

fglrx on ThinkPad and Suspend Mode.

Packets needed: fglrx, ibm-acpi and vbetool

in
/etc/acpi/prepare.sh

you have to uncomment the following lines

Code: Select all

# And then try to save some video state
if [ x$SAVE_VBE_STATE = "xtrue" ]; then
  VBESTATE=`tempfile`
  vbetool vbestate save >$VBESTATE;
fi

This seems to be only for Suspend. i will add the section for Hibernate later today.

(7)ok, if this is the Option the driver developers supply, i have no clue why it doesn't work.

Edward Mendelson · #5 Post by **Edward Mendelson** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 10:11 am

kaiser wrote: (3) ubuntuusers.de-Wiki
QnD-Translation

fglrx on ThinkPad and Suspend Mode.

Packets needed: fglrx, ibm-acpi and vbetool

in
/etc/acpi/prepare.sh

you have to uncomment the following lines
Code: Select all
# And then try to save some video state
if [ x$SAVE_VBE_STATE = "xtrue" ]; then
  VBESTATE=`tempfile`
  vbetool vbestate save >$VBESTATE;
fi 
This seems to be only for Suspend. i will add the section for Hibernate later today.

This TP42 has an ATI 7500, not a 9x00, so I *think* the revised ATI driver won't have any effect, and I haven't installed it. The ibm-acpi is already included in the kernel in Breezy; vbetools is already installed by default. I tried the modification in prepare.sh - it didn't affect the problem:

Once again, I have no trouble supsending to RAM (sleep) and bringing back the desktop and icons after waking, and *some* programs run after waking from supsend-to-RAM (sleep), but others crash (for example sudo /usr/bin/x-terminal-emulator).

If you solve the problems in suspend/hibernate in Breezy/T42, I hope you will provide a *full* step-by-step description, because most of us will not be able to use anything else...!

benplaut · #6 Post by **benplaut** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 4:43 pm

i've got a close to identical system to yours... here's what i've found:

Wifi-Radar is the only one that worked for me, i'll try network-manager and see how it goes

network light now blinks of network activity, i dunno why yours isn't working. are you using the A/B/G I or A/G/B II?

what i did for TPB was add an entry for no-password to the bottom of /etc/sudoers (and the same for wifi-radar), then just add "sudo tpb -d" to the session parameters.

overall, it's a great upgrade from hoary... especially for wireless

If anyone wants it, here's my /etc/tpbrc... makes the OSD look pretty much like it does in windows

http://paste.ubuntulinux.nl/2322

there's a screenshot at the bottom

Edward Mendelson · #7 Post by **Edward Mendelson** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 5:24 pm

My apologies to kaiser!

His suggestion to modify prepare.sh (see above) DOES seem to fix the problem I was having with suspend-to-RAM (sleep) in Breezy. The reason his fix didn't work on my system at first was that I had not made my new copy of prepare.sh executable (sudo chmod +x prepare.sh). I am now able to suspend-to-RAM and wake without problems in Breezy.

If kaiser can fix the hibernation problem equally well, we can all be grateful.

Edward Mendelson · #8 Post by **Edward Mendelson** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 5:26 pm

Reply to bplaut: I have the IBM A/B/G I (not II) card. I actually have the II version in a box, but I haven't seen any reason to install it yet... Which one are you using?

Also, wi-fi radar does work in Breezy (never got it to work in Hoary). But Network Manager still seems more useful because it switches so smoothly between wired and wireless connections.

Also, could you spell out EXACTLY what you added to /etc/sudoers ??? It may be clear to experts, but I haven't the slightest idea of what you did to that file. (Presumably you used visudo to edit the file, but please explain exactly how you modified it. Thanks!)

benplaut · #9 Post by **benplaut** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 5:31 pm

Edward Mendelson wrote:Reply to bplaut: I have the IBM A/B/G I (not II) card. I actually have the II version in a box, but I haven't seen any reason to install it yet... Which one are you using?

Also, wi-fi radar does work in Breezy (never got it to work in Hoary). But Network Manager still seems more useful because it switches so smoothly between wired and wireless connections.

i'm using II... for some reason, cheaper than I o_O

i installed network-manager from the repos, did a

sudo NetworkManager

and all it did was disconnect me... If i'm not mistaken, there's uspposed to be an applet, too... right?

Wifi-Radar in conjunction with the Gnome networking applet work pretty wel... i wish i could get click-on-the-applet to open Wifi-Radar, though

Edward Mendelson · #10 Post by **Edward Mendelson** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 6:00 pm

System-->Preferences-->Sessions-->Startup Programs

Click Add, and add

nm-applet

Logout and in, and the notification icon will apear next to the date-time etc.

Also, could you tell us EXACTLY what you did to the /etc/sudoers file? Thank you!

benplaut · #11 Post by **benplaut** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 7:44 pm

Edward Mendelson wrote:System-->Preferences-->Sessions-->Startup Programs

Click Add, and add

nm-applet

Logout and in, and the notification icon will apear next to the date-time etc.

Also, could you tell us EXACTLY what you did to the /etc/sudoers file? Thank you!

quite simple... at the bottom. it says somthing like this:

Code: Select all

# Members of the admin group may gain root privileges
%admin	ALL=(ALL) ALL

right below it, i added

Code: Select all

ALL     ALL=(root) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/tpb
ALL     ALL=(root) NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/wifi-radar
ALL     ALL=(root) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/network-admin

edit it to whatever you need... you can add as many as you like

kaiser · #12 Post by **kaiser** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 5:49 am

Edward Mendelson wrote:My apologies to kaiser!

...

If kaiser can fix the hibernation problem equally well, we can all be grateful.

No Problem.

This fix is no idea of my mind, its original by someone of the ubuntu-users.de Forum.

this should fix hibernation (again ubuntu-users.de-wiki):

you will have to edit /etc/hibernate/hibernate.conf
sudo nano /etc/hibernate/hibernate.conf (or similar)

in the first part you should have three options, one should be

Code: Select all

UseSwsusp2 no

the two other options should be commented out.

second part should read

Code: Select all

UseSysfsPowerState disk

other options commented out.

third part, all commented out.

near the end of the file you have to comment in (i.E. remove #)

Code: Select all

EnableVbetool yes

save and run

Code: Select all

hibernate

Edward Mendelson · #13 Post by **Edward Mendelson** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 6:56 am

Kaiser,

(1) Have you actually DONE this?

(2) The reason I ask is that the hibernate package is not part of the default Breezy package (there is NO /etc/hibernate/hibernate.conf in a new installation) and I don't want to start accumulating extra packages in Breezy in order to fix something that isn't broken in Hoary (and certainly SHOULD work correctly in the final release)

(3) If you actually DID do this, did you download the hibernate package from the repositories? Again, this should not be necessary, and was certainly not necessary in Hoary.

kaiser · #14 Post by **kaiser** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 9:42 am

Edward Mendelson wrote:Kaiser,

(1) Have you actually DONE this?

(2) The reason I ask is that the hibernate package is not part of the default Breezy package (there is NO /etc/hibernate/hibernate.conf in a new installation) and I don't want to start accumulating extra packages in Breezy in order to fix something that isn't broken in Hoary (and certainly SHOULD work correctly in the final release)

(3) If you actually DID do this, did you download the hibernate package from the repositories? Again, this should not be necessary, and was certainly not necessary in Hoary.

no, i haven't done this, im looking for it since im going to get a T42 and im planning to use Ubuntu. This HowTos are for Hoary, but since Hoary and Breezy are one Distro except newer packages, they should be portable. (you can even port HowTos from Debian to SuSE

)

i seem to have overread that you didn't have this problem with Hoary. But like i said, the HowTos are for Hoary when using the ATI-fglrx-drivers. And the wiki states that you have to install the package, so its not there by default.

BTW: looking over the Wiki again, for a ThinkPad you should only need the first fix i posted. Have you tried to Hibernate the ThinkPad after you got the prepare.sh fixed?

ok, i looked in Synaptic, hibernate is a replacement for the default supend-script. So if the Wiki-Entry is right, Hibernation should already work after the first fix. NO NEED for Hibernate.

Edward Mendelson · #15 Post by **Edward Mendelson** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 10:18 am

Thank you for clarifying that you had not actually tried these fixes with Breezy.

I looked again the German wiki entry. It is designed to fix problems that are *caused* by installing the fglrx drivers. Those problems do not exist unless you install the fglrx drivers. And because the fglrx drivers do not support the ATI 7500 in my ThinkPad T42, there's no reason to install them.

Under Hoary, this same Thinkpad suspended and hibernated and woke up perfectly with *only* the changes described here:

http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/ubuntuhoa ... phibernate

The changes were thes: uncommenting one line in /etc/acpi-support and adding the following to the boot string: pci=noacpi resume=<pathname> acpi_sleep=s3_bios.

I am hoping that the final version of Breezy will work at least as well.

Meanwhile, the change in prepare.sh DOES let this computer recover from Suspend. It does NOT help with hibernation.

Edward Mendelson · #16 Post by **Edward Mendelson** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 4:09 pm

Update as of Sept 20. Breezy as it stands is getting better. With this T42 and a fresh install of the Breezy update with previews, Suspend works out of the box, once you enable it by uncommenting one line in /etc/default/acpi-support. You don't need to do anything to the kernel boot line, etc., you don't have to comment anything out in any files, etc., etc.

Hibernation is halfway there. The machine hibernates perfectly, but when it resumes, it gets to the point where the graphical interface is about to start up, and then it locks with a blank screen. We're getting closer...

Jingo · #17 Post by **Jingo** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 12:05 pm

Hi,

I also have a T42 with radeon 7500.

My gpu gets very hot after installing breezy. This causes the fan to run full speed al the time.
I now use rovclock to underclock the gpu to 100mhz, but then performance is poor.

Do you experience something like that?
Are you able to run with the dynamicclocks option on?

Please also add your experience and tricks to
http://thinkwiki.org/wiki/Installing_Ub ... inkPad_T42

The initNG initiative works very well, cuts boottime in half.

kaiser · #18 Post by **kaiser** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 12:55 pm

network-manager is really nice, but where is the hint for disabling network search on bootup? i really don't find it by myself.

Edward Mendelson · #19 Post by **Edward Mendelson** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 1:08 pm

I'll post a full how-to for Breezy on a T42 some time in the next few days or weeks. It's much simpler than in Hoary, and needs almost no manual changes to the default configuration. Meanwhile, go to www.ubuntuforums.org and look in the networking forum for advice (some of it by me).

kaiser · #20 Post by **kaiser** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 2:37 pm

got another question:
out of the Box, with no further Packages installed, Hibernate worked like it should. After i installed tpb it broke hibernation (this is only a guess, since i added more packages, but this is one that i think goes really deep into the system).

For me this looks like "if you install packages not marked with the Ubuntu logo (universe or multiverse repo) you are hosed".

But since I don't have the urge for hibernation at the moment, i didn't dig further.

Edward Mendelson · #21 Post by **Edward Mendelson** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 4:28 pm

Go to ubuntuforums.org and search for ThinkPad T41 and T42 in the posts from the past two weeks (or so) for solutions.

Jingo · #22 Post by **Jingo** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 11:49 pm

Did you install ibm-acpi the new version 0.12a ?
This adds extra posibilities to monitor temperatures of cpu,wireless pci card, harddisk, gfx-card and batteries. Plus volume control, brightness control and others.

What is the heat of your gfx-card?
Mine gets overheated in Breezy, it did not in Hoary!

Edward Mendelson · #23 Post by **Edward Mendelson** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 5:52 am

Don't believe everything you read. There's an amazing amount of misinformaton out there, especially about Thinkpads and Ubuntu. No, I did not install any new acpi. Volume control, brightness, etc., work perfectly with the existing one in Breezy.

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