Thinkpads Forum

Clearly I'm not the only person who has installed SUSE 9.2 on a ThinkPad and others may decide to do so also, so here are some suggestions that may save time and frustration. They took quite a while to put together, and I hope others may find them useful.

1. Installing: If you intend to use "hibernation" (Linux calls it suspend-to-disk), don't accept the default partitioning, but expand the size of the swap drive to 2X your installed memory plus 500 more MB. That way, when you first hibernate the system, it won't carve out a second swap drive, and you won't get false error messages saying "can't suspend to disk because there are two swap drives" even though it does hibernate.

2. Networking: resist the temptation to configure the wireless card during installation; ONLY configure the wired interface and have the machine connected by wire during installation. Don't even think about configuring the modem. Configure the wireless/modem interfaces if you need them only when the system is up and running.

3. After setting up the network, install this network switcher, so you can move between wired and unwired connections:

http://support.novell.com/techcenter/ar ... 10007.html

[Note: above address edited 13 April 2005 after Novell changed the directory structure of its technical articles]

The installation instructions on the page don't quite match the reality of the SUSE setup programs, but they're close enough. This program isn't completely perfect, because it doesn't provide an easy way to store different wireless setups, but it's basically OK.

4. You may also want this little network monitor:

http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=12956

5. For power management, install this software that lowers the power drain when you switch from wall-power to battery:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsamwel/laptop_mo ... index.html

6. Suspend-to-disk works, but may take a bit of configuring. I've got it set up to suspend-to-disk (hibernate) when I close the lid, but you can also make it simply standby, apparently. Use the Power Management settings in YaST. Before I found those, I also used the power-management section on this page, but it may not be necessary in your case:

http://www.antrix.net/stuff/suse_thinkpad/

Note that a lot of what needed to be done manually in 9.1 (the subject of that page) now works out of the box in 9.2.

7. You won't be able to browse your Windows network (if you have one) out of the box. You need to make the changes in the firewall settings shown here:

http://lists.samba.org/archive/samba/20 ... 98121.html

Other solutions for the same problem that you may see elsewhere aren't enough to get things working. The ones listed here do work.

8. Not necessary, but perhaps useful: for additional updates that aren't on SUSE's own site, try installing apt-get as shown here:

http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/index.php (follow the link to the setup page)

I think that covers the territory fairly well. Any additions or corrections will certainly be useful.

Edward Mendelson

thankee very muchas!!!

i am about to put 9.2 on a T40 with RAEDON 7500 and soon-to-have IBM Atheros, and this answered a couple of my questions

anyone knows any guide to put linux on a T43 machine? specially the driver for x300 graphic card?

Hi Edward,
I have a ibm t42p and have just finished installing suse 9.2. How do i eventually get the wireless card to work? Suse recognizes it but even after I try to configure it, it still doesn't work? Are there drivers I need?
your help is much appreciated,
Minh

Hello Minh,

I took 9.2 off my system but will put SUSE back when 9.3 comes out, so I can't remember all the details. But as far I can recall, wireless "just works" when you configure it. Enter the WEP key, the name of the SSID, and click Configure (or something similar). In a moment or two you should be connected.

If that doesn't work, maybe someone who has it currently on their system can give more details. (I only used the IBM/Atheros card, by the way. I don't know about the Intel card.)

Thanks for the Reply Edward,
I also have the atheros card and it looks like Suse recognized it because it said IBM MT/1000 wireless a/b/g/. However after I tried to configure it with the ssid, wep and DHCP it still shows up as unconfigured under control panel. I've been search hear and on several linux on thinkpad websites and it seems like some other people are having trouble and they suggest downloading madwif. I am a linx newbie so I don't know how to create the drivers after downloading or even what kernel to download.
Minh

Try turning off the wired ethernet - that might do the trick. Also, try using the Netswitcher application that I mentioned in the first post. May help; can't hurt.

I don't think there's any point in downloading the madwifi drivers - I'm fairly certain that the madwifi drivers are the ones that are already in Suse 9.2. You won't gain anything by downloading them. Other distributions (Fedora etc.) need to download the driver, but Suse has them built-in.

So here's the update so far. I installed the net monitor and the madwifi, (although you said SUse has that built it, I didn't realize that until your post). It still doesn't work. My question is how do you turn off the NIC card from linux? On the net monitor it it shows the atheron but it shows no connection. Could it be that I'm not selecting the correct network config? Should I uninstall and install SUse again?
thanks

Hi Ed,
Good news!! Somehow by divine intervention, perhaps the wireless signal picked up and I am currently using Suse 9.2 to type this message to you. Thanks for all your help . Now I know who to go to for all my linux questions, hehehe. thanks again.
Minh

p.s. by the way is there a driver for the nav touchpad? I'm missing the scrolling option on the touchpad.

Maybe with Linux, things just start working if you want them to...

Remember I don't have Suse installed right now, and I always have the Trackpad turned off in the BIOS, so I never experimented with it under Linux. I think it's supported under Yast, though. Suse claims full support of some T42 models, and that must include the trackpad.

The trackpad is supported in Suse 9.2. Its just the scrolling option is not enabled. I'll search for a package or driver of it on the linux on thinkpad website. Everything seem to work ok. It is probably on of the easiest linux to use as long as you get wireless to work.