Thinkpads Forum

Howdy,

Does anybody use Ubuntu on their T43 and have it fully functioning?

All's well here but the wireless(Atheros ABG II), trackpad scroll button and the browser back and forward buttons(located above the arrows).

It's probably a matter of drivers for the latter two but for the wireless what do you recommend?

Thanks

For the wireless I'd recommend the intel wireless pro, since the driver is going to be very soon in the official kernel. For the atheros card you will always have to install madwifi by hand... That said, you need madwifi

The back&forward keys are just ordinary keys. No special driver needed, but they don't emit any usefull keypress by default.

Volker's explanation of the back/forward keys is correct, but not especially useful. Here is a useful explanation, complete with an extension for Mozilla/Firefox that makes the extra keys do useful things.

It's simply not true that you always have to install the madwifi drivers for Atheros by hand. Ubuntu and some other distributions (SuSE, for one) include the madwifi drivers.

With Fedora Core and a few other distributions, you do have to install them. But Ubuntu and Suse have them built-in.

for Ubuntu you need just the restricted-modules for your running kernel. They include the madwifi-module. If you use Synaptic, just search for name and description "madwifi" and there ya go.
if you logon on a tty/console you should see your version in the welcome message. if you don't have it there, just run "uname -r".

Ubuntu automatically installs the restricted-modules package when you install it on a ThinkPad T42 with Atheros chipset. You don't need to select it or install it manually. (Though I suppose you MIGHT need to do so if you add an Atheros-based card after installing. But I've installed Ubuntu many times - in many versions - on my TP42, and the madwifi drivers *always* got installed automatically.)

getting internet keys is really simple
then create a new file in your home dir called .Xmodmap and put the following in it:
then add to your session start (System>Prefences>Sessions>Startup Programs) "xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap". It will ask if you want to load the map on the first time, but works after that.

There's a firefox extension to make it work, i can't remember where... try the thinkwiki.

for middle-button scrolling, add these lines under
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
in /etc/X11/xorg.conf : and restart X (log out, log back in)

wireless should work, i have the same card... but better chance of it working in Breezy

Thanks for the assistance people..

I tried to configure the wireless.. Im getting no luck.

After activating it, the network icon has a red box with a white dash in it. After clicking it I receive the following message:

Please contact your system administrator to resolve the following problem:

SIOCGIFFLAGS error: No such device.

I attempted to go in under root and it lists the wireless as activated, but I get no connection.

My atho is supposedly activated. Is there some program or device which lets me browse for available networks such as Windoze does ? If I can at least see the networks but can't connect I may feel a little better.

you could also try ndis wrapper with the factory windows driver. kind of annoying to install, but the starter's guide for ubuntu has a great walk through and its a good work around for wifi problems. Madwifi is your best bet for the atheros chipse though.