red hat enterprise linux on a thinkpad x61

[sportfreak]

hey everybody!!
I was just messing around with some of my office comps the other day, and i really liked the interace and the usability of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux and the way most of my office stuff are kind of related to it.
I was really wondering if i could load the RHEL into my thinkpad x61..
i tried googling it, but i could not come across any forum which discussed about the possibilities of RHEL on a thinkpad x61.

So it would be great if any of you guys would help me with regards to this issue..

P.S. I already have ubuntu running on it, just for a change i wanted to have an RHEL..

[wswartzendruber]

You'd probably have better success with Fedora 9.

[tylerwylie]

RHEL 5.2 works great on my T61. To get wireless working, had to download the ucode and place it in /lib/firmware, and reload the module(driver) and wireless worked. ACPI worked fine too, sleep, etc.

[sportfreak]

woooow..i reallly had low hopes of expecting RHEL on a thinkpad..
But in a IBM website i read that many of IBM (lenovo) laptops are compatible with the red hat family with respect to the hardware..

Anyways thank you tylerwylie for your input with regards to this issue..also, my x61 has the Intel Wireless WiFi 4965AGN...do you think wireless would be up and running...

Also can you elaborate much more on the ucode.. i guess i do not know what would that be..

[tylerwylie]

To get wireless working you have to go to this website

http://intellinuxwireless.org/

Download the firmware for your card(I'd just download both 4965 versions if you're not sure), extract them, and then move the .ucode files in both of them to /lib/firmware.

Then you just reload the driver

As root:

Code: Select all

rmmod iwl4965
modprobe iwl4965

And then look in NetworkManager and it should show wireless connections.

If you don't use Networkmanager you might have to enable that too.

As root:

Code: Select all

/etc/init.d/NetworkManager start

If you get the applet in the top right with available connections, great, if not, after starting it up run this as your normal user:

Code: Select all

nohup nm-applet > /dev/null&

[maciejs]

yeah, go for fedora or centos but if you already have ubuntu i'd stick with it and just customize the look and feel; it'd probably be easier than to set up new distribution

[sportfreak]

hey everyone..

i have finally got hold off the oracle enterprise linux CD's and i have installed it successfully on the x61..thank god

well as discussed before i have copied the contents of the ucode into the /lib/firmware/ and after i type the command it shows me the error

ERROR: Module iwl4965 does not exist in /proc/modules

also when i type the ifconfig it just shows "lo" and there is no Ethernet...is there anything that needs to be done!!? or am i missing something!??

[sportfreak]

anything guys!!??? about the post above this one!?