Difference between revisions of "Installing OpenSUSE Leap 42.3 on a ThinkPad T500"

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(Notes on Leap 42.3 on T500)
 
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The first workaround that I found was to create {{path|/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/49-device-intel.conf}} containing this:
 
The first workaround that I found was to create {{path|/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/49-device-intel.conf}} containing this:
  
 +
<pre>
 +
Section "Device"
 +
  Identifier "Intel Graphics"
  
 +
  Driver "modesetting"
 +
  Option "AccelMethod"  "uxa"
 +
  Option "DRI" "3"
 +
  Option "Backlight" "intel_backlight"
 +
EndSection
 +
</pre>
  
−
== Power Management ==
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The effect is to swap from the ''glamor'' accelerator to ''uxa'' - this makes the graphics usable, but I found that the bottom of the screen jumped occasionally (as if the screen has lost sync with the graphics chip).
−
Suspend to RAM works out of the box.
+
A better solution was to remove that file again and to install a much newer kernel. The reasoning here is that the ''modesetting'' driver got some important fixes upstream after Leap 42.3 was frozen for release. I chose to use the HEAD kernel. The process to do it is described here: https://doc.opensuse.org/documentation/leap/reference/html/book.opensuse.reference/cha.tuning.multikernel.html and it goes something like this:
 +
 
 +
<pre>
 +
zypper ar http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Kernel:/HEAD/standard/ kernel-repo
 +
zypper ref
 +
cd /; tar cf /root/boot-backup.tar boot
 +
zypper install kernel-default-4.14.2-2.1.g56423d9
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</pre>
 +
 
 +
That gave me kernel ''4.14.2-2.g56423d9-default'' and the graphics has been stable ever since.
 +
 
 +
 
 +
== Specific Features ==
 +
 
 +
* Suspend to RAM works out of the box.
 +
* WiFi is OK (though it helps to get a simple form of Kwallet to unlock at login time - see https://gist.github.com/Trucido/b788017a18e1189e6703e42315e8829c)
 +
* Ethernet is OK
 +
* Internal Graphics (Intel) is OK with the newer kernel
 +
* USB is OK
 +
* Bluetooth is OK
 +
* Camera is OK
 +
* Sound is OK
 +
* Plays videos and DVDs if the relevant codecs are installed (See https://opensuse-community.org/)
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* Touchpad is OK (though I always disable most of the features to avoid accidental actions)
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* VMWare 12 runs OK though you will need the patches here: http://www.hendrik-woltersdorf.de/linux/vmware/vmware_player_12.5.7_patched_mods_for_os_42.3.zip
 +
* VMWare Workstation 14.x will '''not''' work on this hardware. It needs a more recent CPU.

Latest revision as of 18:54, 29 November 2017

Model

Lenovo Thinkpad T500 2081-CTO, BIOS 6FET76WW (3.23)

General

I installed OpenSUSE Leap 42.3 from DVD, selecting the default KDE desktop. Almost everything works as it should, but I did have some problems with the graphics.

Graphics

As User:Johnny noted in Installing OpenSUSE Leap 42.2 on a ThinkPad T500 the fast GPU consumes too much power (about 7W) so I disabled Switchable Graphics in the BIOS many years ago and now use just the Intel i965 graphics.

I found that the screen would often stay black after bootup, sometimes with a mouse cursor. The first workaround that I found was to create /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/49-device-intel.conf containing this: 

Section "Device"
  Identifier "Intel Graphics"

  Driver "modesetting"
  Option "AccelMethod"  "uxa"
  Option "DRI" "3"
  Option "Backlight" "intel_backlight"
EndSection

The effect is to swap from the glamor accelerator to uxa - this makes the graphics usable, but I found that the bottom of the screen jumped occasionally (as if the screen has lost sync with the graphics chip). A better solution was to remove that file again and to install a much newer kernel. The reasoning here is that the modesetting driver got some important fixes upstream after Leap 42.3 was frozen for release. I chose to use the HEAD kernel. The process to do it is described here: https://doc.opensuse.org/documentation/leap/reference/html/book.opensuse.reference/cha.tuning.multikernel.html and it goes something like this: 

zypper ar http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Kernel:/HEAD/standard/ kernel-repo
zypper ref
cd /; tar cf /root/boot-backup.tar boot
zypper install kernel-default-4.14.2-2.1.g56423d9

That gave me kernel 4.14.2-2.g56423d9-default and the graphics has been stable ever since.


Specific Features

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