Installing Debian Sid (October 2008) on a ThinkPad X200

2009-04-08T13:28:42Z

Dinyar: Added information concerning non-us keyboards.

== Introduction ==

Amazing machine: light, quiet, large battery life, ideal for travels, great value for money compared to X200T and X300.

== Creating installation device ==

The X200 has no cd/dvd but can boot from USB. On the X200 BIOS settings, the USB disk boot option needed to be raised to be used first. Using F1 at boot gives access to the BIOS.

I created an USB bootable iso from another linux installation.
I had an usb stick with a FAT32 partition on /dev/sdc1. I dowloaded the boot and iso file and installed the image
using:

wget http://people.debian.org/~joeyh/d-i/images/daily/hd-media/boot.img.gz
wget http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/daily-builds/daily/arch-latest/i386/iso-cd/debian-testing-i386-netinst.iso
zcat boot.img.gz >/dev/sdc1
mkdir /mnt/sdc1
mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/sdc1
cp debian-testing-i386-netinst.iso /mnt/sdc1

The boot stick will use the network to install the package but a more complete ISO image can be dowloaded.

The wifi will not work (see [[Installing_Debian_on_an_X200]]) but the Ethernet card will. In theory it should be possible build custom Debian Live USB stick, using the latest package and install from there, I didn't manage so far.

== Sid installation ==

To install sid use the expert installation support and choose unstable for the repository.

== Backup hard drive data ==

In order to save the hard drive content, I created complete hard drive image on another hard disk. During the installation procedure I activated another shell with CTRL-ALT-F3, mounted an external HD (/dev/sdb1) and copied the image with:

mkdir /mnt/sdb1
mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/sdb1/
dd if=/dev/sda of=/mnt/sdb1/sda-image

In principle partimage is better option but the installation image does not have it. Also gzipping the partition on the fly would have bin better, but the gzip or bzip2 were not present. Using a custom Debian Live installation image would solve the problem.

== Kernel ==

Some kernel options here for /boot/grub/menu.lst:

# kopt=root=/dev/sda1 ro acpi_sleep=s3_bios vga=0x0368 video=vesafb

Update the real items using

update-grub

== Video ==

Intel driver on sid does not allow suspend to ram. Vesa driver is not that slow, but does not enable the VGA output.

A solution is use the experimental package, but xorg needs a couple of ServerFlag option to avoid
strange behavior with mouse and keyboard.

This is a simple xorg.conf:

$ cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc104"
Option "XkbLayout" "us,us(intl)"
Option "XkbOptions" "compose(lwin),compose(rwin),grp:shifts_toggle,grp_led:scroll"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mouse0"
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "EmulateWheel" "on"
Option "EmulateWheelButton" "2"
Option "EmulateWheelTimeout" "250"
Option "XAxisMapping" "6 7"
Option "YAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
Defaultdepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Modes "1280x800"
# Virtual 2048 1024
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
DisplaySize 231 233.5 #fake smaller dpi
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "HDMI-1"
Option "Ignore" "True"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "HDMI-2"
Option "Ignore" "True"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "intel"
Option "monitor-HDMI-1" "HDMI-1"
Option "monitor-HDMI-2" "HDMI-2"
EndSection
Section "ServerFlags"
Option "AllowEmptyInput" "off"
Option "AutoAddDevices" "off"
Option "AIGLX" "off"
EndSection

== Fonts ==

Default fonts are a bit ugly. Things get better by creating some symbolic link:

cd /etc/fonts/conf.d
ln -s ../conf.avail/10-autohint.conf
ln -s ../conf.avail/10-sub-pixel-rgb.conf
ln -s ../conf.avail/70-no-bitmaps.conf

For GTK and Firefox

Fonts size are too large. Solution:
$cat ~/.gtkrc-2.0
# -- THEME AUTO-WRITTEN DO NOT EDIT
include "/usr/share/themes/Industrial/gtk-2.0/gtkrc"

include "/home/rdemaria/.gtkrc-2.0.mine"

# -- THEME AUTO-WRITTEN DO NOT EDIT

$cat ~/.gtkrc-2.0.mine
gtk-font-name = "Sans 8"

Bold font are also ugly on xvrt (in xterm the bold font control seems always broken). See below for the solution.

== Terminal ==

I tried several terminals. But I found rxvt-unicode the easiest and fastest. This resources allow 4 terminals in one window. Bold font (unreadable to me) are disabled.
$cat ~/.Xresources
rxvt*cutchars: \$:[]
rxvt*visualBell: true
rxvt*foreground: white
rxvt*background: black
rxvt*geometry: 80x27
rxvt*jumpScroll: true
rxvt*skipScroll: true
rxvt*scrollBar: false
rxvt*boldFont:
rxvt*boldItalicFont:
rxvt*saveLines: 9096
rxvt*mouseWheelScrollPage: false

== Wifi ==

Put in the /etc/apt/source.list

deb http://kernel-archive.buildserver.net/debian-kernel trunk main

Installed linux-image-2.6.27-1 and firmware

wget http://intellinuxwireless.org/iwlwifi/downloads/iwlwifi-5000-ucode-5.4.A.11.tar.gz
tar xvfz iwlwifi-5000-ucode-5.4.A.11.tar.gz
cp iwlwifi-5000-ucode-5.4.A.11/iwlwifi-5000-1.ucode /lib/firmware
aptitude install linux-image-2.6.27-1-686 hal

== Suspend ==

Suspend to disk works using the button Fn+F12.

Suspend to ram (Fn+F4) does not work with sid intel driver, but works with the experimental one.
Using vesa driver, it works if the i915 driver is installed. I put the line:
modprobe i915

in /etc/rc.local.

The trackpoint occasionally stops working after a resume. Apparently it is enough to move it
a little bit during the resume.

== Special keys ==

Some keys are intercepted by X Windows. The keycodes are

227 Fn
234 Tab left
233 Tab right
176 Volume up
174 Volume dn

Mute switch the hardware volume which is not controlled by ALSA.

ACPI links suspend to ram and to disc to Fn+F4 and Fn+F12 respectively. Screen brightness, thinklight, bluetooth works as well.

== Sound ==

Everything works, but in a strange way. The hardware volume control is managed by acpi

$ cat /proc/acpi/ibm/volume
level: 8
mute: off
commands: up, down, mute
commands: level <level> (<level> is 0-15)

The mute button is linked to the mute command, but volume up and down are passed to X with keycode 176 174. I
thought that acpi was intercepting the key and send them to X using fakekey. I played in /etc/acpi/events but I didn't managed to change the behavior.

== Skype ==

Everything works downloading the skype version for Etch. After suspending and resuming the video does not work anymore.
The error message is:

Skype V4L2: Could not find a suitable capture format

Several people propose to update the uvcvideo driver.
svn checkout http://svn.berlios.de/svnroot/repos/linux-uvc/
cd linux-uvc/linux-uvc/trunk/
make
make install
modprobe uvcvideo

But I didn't tried yet cause I'm still using the experimental kernel that does not come with packages for compiling modules.

== GTK and Firefox ==

Font size is too large. Solution:
$cat /home/rdemaria/.gtkrc-2.0
# -- THEME AUTO-WRITTEN DO NOT EDIT
include "/usr/share/themes/Industrial/gtk-2.0/gtkrc"

include "/home/rdemaria/.gtkrc-2.0.mine"

# -- THEME AUTO-WRITTEN DO NOT EDIT

$cat /home/rdemaria/.gtkrc-2.0.mine
gtk-font-name = "Sans 8"

== Printer and scanner ==

Usb printer and scanner (HP Officejet J4580) works perfectly using cups, hpoj, xsane, hplib.

== RAM upgrade ==

My X200 came with 2G of ram and 1 free slots. I bought:
Crucial 2GB 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1066 (PC3 8500) Laptop Memory Model CT25664BC1067 - Retail

installed and replace the kernel with a bigmem one.

== Hard disk upgrade ==

My X200 came with a 160GB hardrive. I bought the 500GB hard drive
Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD5000BEVT 500GB 5400 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Notebook Hard Drive - OEM

and the adapter
Link Depot USB2-SATA USB2.0 TO IDE/SATA Adapter Cable - Retail

for transfer the data.

I connected the new hard drive using the usb port. The drive was recognized as /dev/sdb. I create the partitions that reads:

$ sfdisk -d /dev/sdb
# partition table of /dev/sdb
unit: sectors

/dev/sdb1 : start= 63, size= 71553447, Id=83
/dev/sdb2 : start= 71553510, size=905214555, Id= 5
/dev/sdb3 : start= 0, size= 0, Id= 0
/dev/sdb4 : start= 0, size= 0, Id= 0
/dev/sdb5 : start= 71553573, size=894467007, Id=83
/dev/sdb6 : start=966020643, size= 10747422, Id=82

Then made the filesystem and copy the files:
$ sudo mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb1
$ sudo mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb5
$ sudo mkswap /dev/sda6
$ sudo mount /mnt/sdb1
$ sudo mount /mnt/sdb5
$ sudo rsync -a --delete \
--exclude /mnt/sdb1 \
--exclude /mnt/sdb5 \
--exclude /home \
--exclude /proc \
--exclude /sys \
--exclude /lib/init/rw \
--exclude /dev \
/ /mnt/sdb1
$ cd /mnt/sdb1; mkdir /home /proc /sys /lib/init/rw /dev; cd
$ sudo rsync -a /home/ /mnt/sdb5
$ sudo umount /mnt/sdb5; sudo umount /mnt/sdb1

Finally install grub
$ sudo grub --no-floppy
$ geometry (hd1)
> root (hd1,0)
> setup (hd1)
> quit

and replace the disk. (I tried to boot from the usb to check the new hard drive, but I messed up the old installation...)

For some reason the suspend to disk was not working anymore. But
$ sudo aptitude reinstall uswsusp
fixed the problem answering yes to use the swap disk.

== Issues with non-us keyboard layouts ==

In recent versions of xserver (as of version 1.4.0.90-7) keyboard-layout is handled by hal, so settings done in gnome will be overridden. To have a non-us keyboard layout follow these steps (taken from http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=44311 and http://wiki.archlinux.de/title/Evdev (last is german)):

1. comment out all InputSection's in xrog.conf
2. cp /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/10-keymap.fdi /etc/hal/fdi/policy/
3. edit /etc/hal/fdi/policy/10-keymap.fdi
4. set proper keymap there instead of "us"
5. restart X

== TO BE CONTINUED ==

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Installing Debian Sid (October 2008) on a ThinkPad X200