Newbie questions re: display and button issues...

[Landshark]

Hello,

I recently purchased a ThinkPad R61i. I've had other ThinkPads in the past and have found them to be great computers.

I ordered mine with SuSE installed, which was fine with me because I largely use Linux anyway and could always install Windows on a separate partition.

Finally it came and it wouldn't boot. I kept receiving a GRUB error 17 message, which I think has to do with being able to locate the boot sector on the existing partitions. I did some rough diagnostics with the computer booted from a Knoppix CD and came away thinking that whoever over in China may have just dumped SuSE on one partition, or otherwise screwed up the install.

So, out of curiosity, I installed MEPIS, a KDE-centric, Debian-based distribution that I've used in the past with good success. The install was pretty painless, and I've spent the day today settling in.

This brings me to three questions:

1. Can anyone shed any light on installing ThinkPad firmware so I can use or program the lil' blue buttons? (Hmmm. Maybe I can grab this off of the SuSE disk...)

2. At the top of the monitor, there are five groups of small horizontal lines that sit on the display. They respond to a mouseover, winking on and off. I've tried unsuccessfully to research this, but I think the issue may cross over to some of the other display issues related to the xserver.

3. Is this a dumb approach? Should I just box this up and send it back? Like, uh, I paid for a new, working computer...

I look forward to your feedback.

Landshark