Thinkpads Forum

I'm running Kubuntu dapper currently om my Z61T. It works pretty well. I haven't needed the card reader until now (bought a Nikon D80 ), but Kubuntu doesn't recognise the card reader.

Has anyone gotten that to work in Linux?

Have you tried an usb card reader? I do not use Linux but if it has usb mass storage support, perhaps one could use an usb card reader(?). I use one from Iogear with my eComStation computer that has support for USB mass storage.

I know, it would just be nice if it worked now that I got it and besides, if not, then it is just as easy to simply connect my D80 directly. It's not a matter of speed - the D80 supports USB2 and transfers the images quite fast.

I have one hope though - Edgy Eft is going to be released RSN so when it might be supported there.

Probably not the answer you're hoping for, but no. I haven't gotten the SD card reader to work in Ubuntu on my Z61t.

But like you said, it seems it might be fixed in Edgy.

https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+s ... +bug/61834:


Add debian/patches/21_smartcard_drivetype.patch: Recognize 'Storage-SDC' as smart card drive type. Closes: LP#61834

Well, considering Edgy should be released in about one week...I think I'm able to wait that long

That's good news. Now I only wish that IBM's BIOS would support the SD card slot as a bootable device; it would be so handy for carrying around low-level repair utilities. You could leave the SD card inserted and it wouldn't stick out of the side of the ThinkPad like a USB thumb drive would.

Edgy Eft release candidate has just been released - final release should arrive at Oct. 26

k0lo: Never thought about that actually, but it would be a neat feature for sure!

Anyway, if the internal card reader gets working in Edgy Eft, then I think more or less all hardware in my laptop is supported. Suspend and hibernate works and so does wireless though I haven't used it much but I did have some problems connecting to WPA/WPA2 networks. That's the only thing that worries me a bit, but I believe there has been worked on that too in Edgy

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/EdgyReleaseNotes

pointwood:

I probably have different wireless hardware than you do (Intel 2915abg) but at first getting WPA/WPA2 to work was a pain; I had to compile the Intel driver from source, download the most recent firmware and fiddle endlessly with wpasupplicant's configuration file, but in the end it all worked. Then when Dapper was released, it "just worked" out of the box if you installed knetworkmanager.

Have you tried tpb (ThinkPad Buttons) for that extra bit of support for the Fn-keys and the on-screen display?

Thanks for the heads-up on Edgy; I will surely try that out as soon as it is released.

I've been toying around with my Ubuntu installation, following the "no pain, no gain" philosophy. I've been trying out things as I feel the urge to, without thinking too much of the consequences. It's still working, but it's developed some weird habits (ie. at the moment I can't boot into Gnome if there's any WLAN around), so when Edgy comes out I'll most likely do a clean install of Ubuntu again. Hoping that SD card reader and WPA works out of the box, then.

The good thing is that I only use Linux for some school programming projects, which are easy to make a backup of.

and at k0lo, using a SD card as a bootable device sounds like a neat idea.

k0lo: I haven't tried tpb, but I would surely like to - do you have a link? or are they "apt-getable"?

In regards to wifi, I haven't really used it much so I haven't bothered to play much with it, I just hope it works better with Edgy.

Speaking of Edgy, I'm upgrading to the RC now, I simply couldn't wait I'll let you know how it goes, though my current (temporary) connection is slow and unstable (160/128kb wimax connection) so it will take some hours to download the updates.

pointwood:

tpb is in the Ubuntu universe repository so it's easy to install using apt-get or Adept or Add/Remove Programs.

There is one configuration task to do to get tpb working. Most ThinkPads have hardware volume controls so the program needs access to nonvolatile RAM (nvram). To do this you need to go to System Settings, Users & Groups and enter the administrator mode. Create a new Group called nvram and add yourself as a member.

Perhaps Edgy will set this up automatically but if not you'll need to do it manually.

I'm now running the Edgy release candidate The upgrade process wasn't flawless though, but thanks to some very competent help in #kubuntu on irc.freenode.net, I got it fixed and it is now running nicely.

I like what I see so far. I installed knetworkmanager but I couldn't get the wireless to work I didn't spend a lot of time on it though.

I haven't tested the sd card reader yet and I'll not be able to until tuesday because a friend borrowed my camera.

pointwood:

Got a chance to test the SD card reader on my X41T running Kubuntu Edgy and am happy to report that it works fine. I popped in the card and a Konqueror window opened and displayed thumbnails of all of the pictures on the card. It "just worked"!

That is good news. I've tested my z61t after upgrading from dapper to edgy but I didn't have quite the same succes I will of course investigate it more soon.