T61 and Linux

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mohammedyahya · #1 Post by **mohammedyahya** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 2:17 am

Dear All

I have a T61 Lenovo ThinkPad... 15'' wide screen...

I would like to remove Win. and install Linux Redhat Enterprise. Before doing this I want to make sure of the following:

1)Monitor Type
2)Will the bluetoth work?
3)Will the Wireless work?
4)Will ThinkVantage work?
5)Will other devices have drivers for linux?

And also, what problems I might face. I already installed red hat on my Toshiba laptop and it is working. Will it go smooth also with my T61?

regards

Mohammed Al-Moayed

MOD EDIT: Moved to linux forum.

tylerwylie · #2 Post by **tylerwylie** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 4:51 am

It may not go so smoothly, the hardware is very new and RHEL uses an older kernel, you'd have much better luck with Fedora 8. As far as RHEL/CentOS 5.1(They're the same thing pretty much) on a Thinkpad T61, if you configure your own kernel: Bluetooth, Wireless, and your display will work obviously. ThinkVantage will work just like any other keyboard button, you can assign it a shortcut if you want, but nothing is installed by default.

mohammedyahya · #3 Post by **mohammedyahya** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 5:16 am

tylerwylie wrote: if you configure your own kernel: Bluetooth, Wireless, and your display will work obviously.

Here we go....

How to configure the Kernel....yes I wanna learn this...

Would u help me

thanks

Mohammed

tylerwylie · #4 Post by **tylerwylie** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 5:38 am

mohammedyahya wrote:
tylerwylie wrote: if you configure your own kernel: Bluetooth, Wireless, and your display will work obviously.
Here we go....

How to configure the Kernel....yes I wanna learn this...

Would u help me

thanks

Mohammed

Pretty much the way to do this is to install development tools onto a working machine, download the source code from the linux kernel website, and go through and include what you want in your kernel

Obviously it's a little more daunting than this. There are lots of kernel config howtos, but the first thing you'd need to do would be to get a working system up and running, GCC, Make, and other developments tools installed(required to compile your kernel) and then download, and unpack the source into /usr/src/linux or whatnot. When you get this far let me know

mohammedyahya · #5 Post by **mohammedyahya** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 7:07 am

Believe it or not.....I will get this far

rm · #6 Post by rm » Mon Mar 31, 2008 10:32 am

I have been using Linux for about 10 years and only configured my own kernel once (on an ancient version of Slackware). You don't normally need to do this on modern, desktop oriented, user friendly, distributions.

Now, if you really are interested in learning about things like that, I recommend that you give Gentoo a try. I think it is a good way to learn about things like that.

I prefer the easy route myself. And I love Linux on my T61.

#7 Post by **carbon_unit** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 4:13 pm

I'll second everything rm said. If you want to compile a kernel go Gentoo. Otherwise pick a distro and run it.

MikeM · #8 Post by **MikeM** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 7:23 pm

Download both Ubuntu and Fedora LiveCDs and see what hardware these distros support on your machine. Keep in mind that you may have to resort to using restricted drivers for perhaps your video and wlan. There's a new Knoppix out - you might want to try that as well.

I installed Ubuntu from the 3/30/08 snapshot yesterday on one of the pile of Hitachi 200GB drives I have here for my T61p and I believe that everything works except the wireless usb and the fingerprint reader (neither of which I tried). Oh, and I don't think Linux supports my 1 gig Intel Turbo Memory - at least not yet this week.

Mike

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