Installing Fedora Core 4 on a ThinkPad R30

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Important Information

  • If you want to dual boot XP with Fedora, you will have to resize your XP partition (C:). IBM also creates their recovery partition at the end of the drive, you don't have to delete or resize this one.
  • When you resize your XP partition, make sure that the part of the drive you want to install on is free space. The Fedora installer automatically creates the partitions in the free space.
NOTE!
Updated Kernel Versions will try to disable IRQ #15 and the system will hang during boot. I have had this happen on 2.6.12.1390 and 2.6.12.1398, and the new 2.6.13 versions. The fix for this is to add irqpoll during installation in the box where it asks if the system needs any flags when booting up. Update - See R30 General Installation Notes.

Install Fedora Core 4

  • The IBM Thinkpad R30 can handle the DVD-ROM iso image. Download and burn from http://fedora.redhat.com
  • Insert the DVD and restart your computer. Enter "linux text" and press enter when the install screen comes up. Follow the instructions.
  • Use the Grub Boot Loader if you want to dual boot with XP. When installing the boot loader, change Other to Windows XP.
  • Let Fedora autopartition your hard disk. Use the "Keep All Partitions and use existing free space" option.
ATTENTION!
After Installation, you have to read the important information below. Failure to do so will result in a system with a frozen white screen!

Important Information After Install

If you do not follow the instructions below, Fedora will not be configured correctly for the Trident Cyberblade video card.

  1. When the Installer asks you to reboot, be ready to edit the GRUB bootloader configuration. When your computer restarts, GRUB will tell you Fedora Core 4 will be booting in 4 seconds. Press E, highlight Fedora Core 4, press E, highlight the second line, press E, use backspace to remove quiet and replace it with vga=791 3 (don't forget the space and 3 after 791). Press enter then B.
  2. This boots you to command line mode. A post install configuration screen will come up. Press exit. When you get to the login screen, enter root as the username and your root password.
  3. Then type this command: # yum update xorg-x11.
  4. This will update the video driver configuration. When yum asks you if this is ok to download, press y then enter. If you get a gpg key error, just accept and it will continue.
  5. When it finishes updating, type these commands:
    # rm -f /etc/sysconfig/firstboot
    # /sbin/chkconfig --add firstboot
    # reboot
  6. Your system should now reboot and hopefully, the first boot scripts will run again. If you don't you will have to create the user accounts manually, configure time, network time, etc.

Configuring Hardware

soon

External Sources