ThinkWiki - User contributions [en]

Talk:Installing Fedora 7 on a ThinkPad T60

2007-08-16T16:18:53Z

Till: add reference to suspend quirks

This is a GREAT article. While not ''everything'' worked for me exactly as told, it is the best resource I have found for the T60 and F7

Thanks TOM!

----

When I try to come out of a suspend, I get a yellow "INU" on the screen, and the moon led stays lit. Any ideas? I don't see this behavior anywhere that I can find.
:Try to add "acpi_sleep=s3_bios,s3_mode" to your kernel parameters in your bootloader, reboot and try to suspend. It should work now. --[[User:Zhenech|Zhenech]] 10:14, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
:: With an uptodate Fedora you can use pm-suspend, which takes care of these options, see: http://people.freedesktop.org/~hughsient/quirk/quirk-suspend-index.html [[User:Till|Till]] 16:18, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

----

Top article. If you don't mind (!) I'll make my notes as I go here and then can add them in if appropriate.

ethernet didn't work out the box for some reason. but kernel module was installed, so just popping alias eth0 e1000 into the modprobe.conf seems to have solved that.
bluetooth next works out of the box, needed Fn F5 to kick it into action.
love to know if anyone has sorted hibernation -- it's well important!

Problem with video output switching

2006-11-23T17:45:46Z

Till: /* Problems with Intel chipsets */

==Affected Models==
*ThinkPad {{T40}}, {{T40p}}, {{T41}}, {{T41p}}, {{T42}}, {{T42p}}, {{T43}}, {{T43p}}
*ThinkPad {{X22}}, {{X23}}, {{X41}}

==Problem Description==
It is not possible, using the FN-F7 key, to switch between the LCD and the external monitor in the following way
LCD --> external Monitor--> both -->LCD
however ''cloning'' is possible for the Intel chipsets, see below.

===Problems with Intel chipsets===
Disabling the internal LCD (e.g. when using an external Monitor) doesn't seem to work reliably.

* For Xorg 7.022 one can clone the LCD display to an external monitor, adding the following lines to the Device section in the xorg.conf file:
Section "Device"
Identifier "Generic Video Card"
Driver "i810"
Option "Clone" "true"
Option "MonitorLayout" "CRT,LFP"
however you can not switch between these screens as described above, once you use FN-F7 the cloned display is lost.

* i810switch doesn't have any effect. After disabling the LCD it is still on (but the status display of i810switch claims that is is switched off).

* i855crt works see: http://stefan.desire.ch/howto/x41debian/ for details.

* With [[ibm-acpi]], {{cmdroot|echo lcd_disable >/proc/acpi/ibm/video}} works, but {{cmdroot|echo lcd_enable >/proc/acpi/ibm/video}} doesn't work - so one can't enable it anymore after disabling it. (the strange thing is that when switching to a console with {{key|ctrl}}{{key|alt}}{{key|F1}} the LCD display is used for it, so there must be some way to enable it but I can't find out how to control this in X). I've tried this with version 0.8 and version 0.11 of [[ibm-acpi]].
** {{key|Fn}}{{key|F7}} lets me enable the internal LCD after I disabled it with {{cmdroot|echo lcd_disable >/proc/acpi/ibm/video}} on my X41 but it corrupts the crt out

===Problems with ATI chipsets===
*It is a [http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2000 known issue] of xorgs radeon driver that {{key|Fn}}{{key|F7}} doesn't work.

You can force the <tt>radeon</tt> driver to enable both CRT and LCD using <tt>Option "MonitorLayout" "LVDS,CRT"</tt> in the <tt>"Device"</tt> section of {{path|/etc/X11/xorg.conf}}. The analogous option for [[fglrx]] is <tt>Option "ForceMonitors" "lvds,crt1"</tt>

The {{cmdroot|radeontool light off}} and {{cmdroot|radeontool dac off}} commands will disable the LCD and CRT if they're been enabled before in the X server, but the corresponding {{cmdroot|radeontool light on}} and {{cmdroot|radeontool dac on}} will not work if the displays have were not enabled when the X server started. Also note that turing off the CRT using this command will not reduce power consumption, nor allow [[fglrx]] to enable power saving modes.

You might try the following: Hit Ctrl+Alt+F1 to switch to a console, hit Fn+F7 to switch video, hit Alt+F7 to switch back to X.

====fglrx-Driver====
Output switching with the Closed-Source ati-driver works: Just use {{cmdroot|aticonfig --query-monitor}} and e.g. {{cmdroot |aticonfig --enable-monitor..."}}. You can use those two commands in a script, and bind them to {{key|Fn}}{{key|F7}}

----

Alternative solution: {{path|fglrx}} 8.28.8 will recognize {{key|Fn}}{{key|F7}} directly, if the key is enabled. This obviates the need for scripts which call aticonfig. To enable the hotkey, issue the command {{cmdroot|echo enable,0xffff >/proc/acpi/ibm/hotkey}}. You'll want to have this run both at boot time, and after resume (on my T43, the hotkey mask is reset on resume). For Ubuntu, I've put a script with the command in both the {{path|/etc/acpi/resume.d}}, and {{path|/etc/acpi/start.d}} directories.

==Related Links==
*https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2000

==Solutions==

====BIOSHotKeys====

Try adding
Option "BiosHotKeys" "on"
to /etc/xorg.conf. For some reason, this is not the default, and will cause xorg to ignore the BIOS's request to switch modes!
This fixes the problem for an X22, with xorg 6.9.0.

Installation on ThinkPads without CD-ROM drive

2006-04-06T23:42:45Z

Till: /* Using any Linux on the server side */

{| width="100%"
|style="vertical-align:top;padding-right:20px;width:10px;white-space:nowrap;" | __TOC__
|style="vertical-align:top" |
Some ThinkPads (e.g. the whole X series) come without a CD-ROM drive by default. Even though there are options to buy a solution like the UltraBase, a full dock or simply an external CD-ROM drive{{footnote|1}}, this is not the cheapest option and might not always be neccessary. Also, with some external CD-ROMs the problem might arise that the ThinkPad is not able to boot from them. See our [[Supported Boot Devices|List of supported boot devices]] for various ThinkPads.

So the question arises how to get your system of choice onto that precious piece of hardware. This page should tell you about the possible solutions.

Since in most cases the installation base packages come on CD, you'll need a second computer, equipped with a CD-ROM drive, for all of those solutions.

Many older ThinkPads came with only a floppy drive and cannot boot from any CD drive at all. For those machines, booting from floppy is the only option. Then one can install from CD, over a network, or from the hard drive.
|}

==Installation from USB drive==
Note: Not all thinkpads have a BIOS that supports USB booting.

This is probably the easiest approach.
*Connect the USB drive{{footnote|2}} to the host and format it.
*Get a bootable system and all needed installation files onto the USB drive, i.e. by copying the complete filesystem from your installation CD-ROM to the USB drive. Of course if your USB drive is not big enough for that you'll have to make more sofisticated choices about what to copy and what to leave behind.
*Insert the USB drive into the USB port of your ThinkPad.
*Power on the ThinkPad an press F12 to get to the boot menu.
*Select the USB drive as boot media and boot.
*Follow the installation process.

It seems some bioses don't use the code on MBR (sda), or at least skip it when it's blanked and needs a Extended-IPL boot loaderm, can be found here: http://www.tsden.org/ryutaroh/extipl/
* ''dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1 count=446"''
* ''dd if=/usr/lib/extipl/aldebaran.bin of=/dev/sda''

==Installation via network boot==
Thinkpads support PXE to boot off another system that is connected via [[Ethernet]]. In this case the ThinkPad acts as a network boot client, the other system as server. The idea is to boot a system on the server that the ThinkPad can boot into then by loading all required data directly from that server.

For this to work you will have to either have both the server and the ThinkPad connected in the same subnet of your LAN, or have them connected directly via a crossed Ethernet cable.

===using Windows as a server===
To get your Thinkpad to boot over a network, you must set up a DHCP and a TFTP server. For Windows, the freeware program [http://tftpd32.jounin.net TFTPD32] does both.
*Create a directory that will contain the PXE boot code.
*Copy the boot code into that directory. (For a Debian Sarge install, for example, you can find code to initiate a network install under <code>debian/dists/sarge/main/installer-i386/current/images/netboot/</code> from a Debian mirror -- copy files to simulate symlinks for <code>pxelinux.0</code> and <code>pxelinux.cfg/</code>)
*Launch the TFTPD32 program.
*"Browse" to set the current directory to the directory containing the PXE boot code (i.e. the directory you created in the first step, above).
*On the DHCP server tab, set:
**<code>IP pool starting address</code> to something appropriate for your network
**<code>Size of pool</code> to a non-zero value (all you really need is 1)
**<code>Boot file</code> to the PXE boot image (from Debian, the filename is <code>pxelinux.0</code>)
**<code>WINS/DNS Server</code> to the DNS server used by your network
**<code>Default router</code> to the IP of your default gateway
**<code>Mask</code> to your network's netmask
**<code>Domain Name</code> to your network's domain
*Disable any other DHCP servers on your network
*Boot your Thinkpad, and press {{key|F12}} to select an alternate boot device
*Use "<code>Intel(R) Boot Agent Version 4.0.17</code>" (or similar -- on the Transnote used to make this guide, "<code>Network Boot</code>" did not work while the Boot Agent option did)
The TFTPD32 server window should show activity as the Thinkpad downloads files.
Once the first stage has installed and the Thinkpad is ready to boot from its own hard drive, shut down TFTPD32 and re-enable your permanent DHCP server.

===using [[:Category:Knoppix|Knoppix]] on the server side===
*Insert the Knoppix CD into the server and boot it up.
*Make sure to boot with the 2.6 kernel by giving the <code>kernel26</code> boot option.
*Once your KDE desktop is loaded, look in the K-Menu hierarchy for the link to the terminal server setup.
*Launch the Terminal Server and make it use the appropriate network device.
*Power on your ThinkPad and press F12 to get to the boot menu.
*Select the ThinkPads network adapter as the boot media.
*The ThinkPad should now boot from the Knoppix Terminal Server directly.

===Using any Linux on the server side===
{{Todo|needs better formating, maybe a list where to find the kernel/initrd images on other distros and a hint to speed up booting}}

# TFTP Server
#* Download and install an tftp Server
#* Configure it to serve {{path|/tftpboot}}
# Get the kernel and initrd image from your distribution
#* For fedora-core they are in {{path|os/images/pxeboot}}
#* Copy both to {{path|/tftpboot/vmlinuz}} resp. {{path|/tftpboot/initrd.img}}
# [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/boot/syslinux/ Bootloader]
#* Download the current syslinux-X.YZ.tar.bz2 tarball
#* Copy the included pxelinux.0 to {{path|/tftpboot/pxelinux.0}}
#* Create a directory for the configuration with {{cmdroot|mkdir /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg}}
#* Create the file {{path|/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default}} with the following contents:
DEFAULT install
PROMPT 1
TIMEOUT 0
LABEL install
kernel vmlinuz
append initrd.img --
# DHCP Server
#* Download and install an DHCP Server
#* Configure it to for your Thinkpad, the following configuration assumes that the MAC-address of your Thinkpad is DE:AD:BE:EF:00:00 and should use the IP 192.168.0.2 with namesever/router/tftpserver 192.168.0.1
allow booting;
allow bootp;
host thinkpad {
hardware ethernet DE:AD:BE:EF:00:00;
fixed-address 192.168.0.2;
option domain-name-servers 192.168.0.1;
option routers 192.168.0.1;
default-lease-time 28800;
filename "pxelinux.0";
next-server 192.168.0.1;
}
#* Now you can boot your thinkpad via lan

==Installation from the internal harddrive==
The idea here is to have all required files allready on the internal harddrive when you power up your ThinkPad for installation, including of course a minimal system to boot up and start the installation process.

Convenient, but how do you get the files there?
*One option is to copy them via network boot (see above).
*Some Linux distributions offer ways to download the installation files from a FTP server and to choose this directory as installation source instead of a CD-ROM.
*A second way, if you already have a 'working' copy of DOS or MS Windows installed, is to start the installer from loadlin or GRUB. This is detailed [http://marc.herbert.free.fr/linux/win2linstall.html here].
*Another one is to remove the harddrive from the ThinkPad and connect it to the other machine. Again, this can be achieved in several ways:
**putting the harddrive into an UltraBay secondary HDD adapter of a second ThinkPad
**putting the harddrive into an external casing and connect it to the second machine via USB, PCMCIA or whatever
**connecting the harddrive via a 2.5" (laptop) to 3.5" (desktop) harddrive adapter

Follow one of the following instructions.

===Installing [[:Category:Windows|Windows]] 2000 or XP===
*Attach the harddrive to the host computer and install a minimal bootable DOS system i.e. by booting a Win98 Emergency Boot Disk and performing the command "SYS X:" (where X = the laptop's harddrive).
*Copy FDISK.EXE to the laptop harddrive.
*Return the harddrive to the laptop and boot to DOS. (If you have Win98 installed by default, you can skip the first two steps and simply reboot in Windows to DOS.)
*Run FDISK and set up your new Windows system partition on this laptop. (If you do not do this on the laptop, after reboot you will receive the infamous "NTLDR IS MISSING" error. This error may still occur if the partition is greater than 7.8gb in size)
*Then return the drive to the host and format the drive as FAT32. (DO NOT format as NTFS.)
*Repeat the "SYS X:" step to make the new partition bootable.
*Copy Himem.sys and Config.sys, too. Otherwise SMARTDRIVE.EXE won't run
*Get SMARTDRV.EXE from the internet and copy it to your Thinkpads harddrive.
*Also, from the Win2K or WinXP CD, copy the I386 folder to the harddrive.
*Return the laptop's harddrive to the Thinkpad one final time and boot to DOS.
*Run SMARTDRV.EXE first, then change directories to I386 and run WINNT.EXE, this will allow the installation to begin.
*During installation, choose NOT to format the destination partition, since it contains the installation files. If you want that filesystem to be NTFS you can convert it after installation from within Windows.

==Installation from Diskette==
===Installing from CD===
Many distributions have software on CD that will make a boot floppy that will allow you to install from an unbootable CD drive.

===Installing over a network===
Some distributions have a set of diskettes that will allow you to boot a machine, enable a network device and start installation over a network. For example, {{Slackware}} supports installing via an NFS mount. An unofficial add-on adds an option to install over FTP.

===Installing from floppy===
Some distributions did allow for a complete installation from diskette. As the size of distributions and the number of required diskettes has grown, and the ubiquity of optical storage increased, support for floppy installation has diminished.

However, there are still some Linux distributions that fit on as few as one diskette - with very limited functionality, of course.

==Installation from an ISO image==
Some distributions offer a way of installing directly from the downloadable ISO image, residing on your harddisk. Examples are VectorLinux 5.1 and {{SUSE}} 10. The individual distributions installation manuals will guide you through the process.

==External Sources==
*[http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/altinstall.xml Gentoo alternative installation method HOWTO]

{{footnotes|
#External CD-ROM drives typically are connected through USB or [[PCMCIA]]. Be aware that not all of these drives are [[Supported Boot Devices|capable of booting]]. USB connected drives are more likely to be bootable on a ThinkPad than PCMCIA connected ones.
#USB drive here means any kind of USB connected bootable data storage device, including external harddisk drives, memory card readers or memory sticks.
}}

[[Category:TransNote]] [[Category:560]] [[Category:560E]] [[Category:560X]] [[Category:560Z]] [[Category:570]] [[Category:570E]] [[Category:X20]] [[Category:X21]] [[Category:X22]] [[Category:X23]] [[Category:X24]] [[Category:X30]] [[Category:X31]] [[Category:X32]] [[Category:X40]] [[Category:X41]] [[Category:X41 Tablet]] [[Category:Knoppix]]

Installation on ThinkPads without CD-ROM drive

2006-04-06T23:38:55Z

Till:

{| width="100%"
|style="vertical-align:top;padding-right:20px;width:10px;white-space:nowrap;" | __TOC__
|style="vertical-align:top" |
Some ThinkPads (e.g. the whole X series) come without a CD-ROM drive by default. Even though there are options to buy a solution like the UltraBase, a full dock or simply an external CD-ROM drive{{footnote|1}}, this is not the cheapest option and might not always be neccessary. Also, with some external CD-ROMs the problem might arise that the ThinkPad is not able to boot from them. See our [[Supported Boot Devices|List of supported boot devices]] for various ThinkPads.

So the question arises how to get your system of choice onto that precious piece of hardware. This page should tell you about the possible solutions.

Since in most cases the installation base packages come on CD, you'll need a second computer, equipped with a CD-ROM drive, for all of those solutions.

Many older ThinkPads came with only a floppy drive and cannot boot from any CD drive at all. For those machines, booting from floppy is the only option. Then one can install from CD, over a network, or from the hard drive.
|}

==Installation from USB drive==
Note: Not all thinkpads have a BIOS that supports USB booting.

This is probably the easiest approach.
*Connect the USB drive{{footnote|2}} to the host and format it.
*Get a bootable system and all needed installation files onto the USB drive, i.e. by copying the complete filesystem from your installation CD-ROM to the USB drive. Of course if your USB drive is not big enough for that you'll have to make more sofisticated choices about what to copy and what to leave behind.
*Insert the USB drive into the USB port of your ThinkPad.
*Power on the ThinkPad an press F12 to get to the boot menu.
*Select the USB drive as boot media and boot.
*Follow the installation process.

It seems some bioses don't use the code on MBR (sda), or at least skip it when it's blanked and needs a Extended-IPL boot loaderm, can be found here: http://www.tsden.org/ryutaroh/extipl/
* ''dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1 count=446"''
* ''dd if=/usr/lib/extipl/aldebaran.bin of=/dev/sda''

==Installation via network boot==
Thinkpads support PXE to boot off another system that is connected via [[Ethernet]]. In this case the ThinkPad acts as a network boot client, the other system as server. The idea is to boot a system on the server that the ThinkPad can boot into then by loading all required data directly from that server.

For this to work you will have to either have both the server and the ThinkPad connected in the same subnet of your LAN, or have them connected directly via a crossed Ethernet cable.

===using Windows as a server===
To get your Thinkpad to boot over a network, you must set up a DHCP and a TFTP server. For Windows, the freeware program [http://tftpd32.jounin.net TFTPD32] does both.
*Create a directory that will contain the PXE boot code.
*Copy the boot code into that directory. (For a Debian Sarge install, for example, you can find code to initiate a network install under <code>debian/dists/sarge/main/installer-i386/current/images/netboot/</code> from a Debian mirror -- copy files to simulate symlinks for <code>pxelinux.0</code> and <code>pxelinux.cfg/</code>)
*Launch the TFTPD32 program.
*"Browse" to set the current directory to the directory containing the PXE boot code (i.e. the directory you created in the first step, above).
*On the DHCP server tab, set:
**<code>IP pool starting address</code> to something appropriate for your network
**<code>Size of pool</code> to a non-zero value (all you really need is 1)
**<code>Boot file</code> to the PXE boot image (from Debian, the filename is <code>pxelinux.0</code>)
**<code>WINS/DNS Server</code> to the DNS server used by your network
**<code>Default router</code> to the IP of your default gateway
**<code>Mask</code> to your network's netmask
**<code>Domain Name</code> to your network's domain
*Disable any other DHCP servers on your network
*Boot your Thinkpad, and press {{key|F12}} to select an alternate boot device
*Use "<code>Intel(R) Boot Agent Version 4.0.17</code>" (or similar -- on the Transnote used to make this guide, "<code>Network Boot</code>" did not work while the Boot Agent option did)
The TFTPD32 server window should show activity as the Thinkpad downloads files.
Once the first stage has installed and the Thinkpad is ready to boot from its own hard drive, shut down TFTPD32 and re-enable your permanent DHCP server.

===using [[:Category:Knoppix|Knoppix]] on the server side===
*Insert the Knoppix CD into the server and boot it up.
*Make sure to boot with the 2.6 kernel by giving the <code>kernel26</code> boot option.
*Once your KDE desktop is loaded, look in the K-Menu hierarchy for the link to the terminal server setup.
*Launch the Terminal Server and make it use the appropriate network device.
*Power on your ThinkPad and press F12 to get to the boot menu.
*Select the ThinkPads network adapter as the boot media.
*The ThinkPad should now boot from the Knoppix Terminal Server directly.

===Using any Linux on the server side===
Prerequisites

# TFTP Server
#* Download and install an tftp Server
#* Configure it to serve {{path|/tftpboot}}
# Get the kernel and initrd image from your distribution
#* For fedora-core they are in {{path|os/images/pxeboot}}
#* Copy both to {{path|/tftpboot/vmlinuz}} resp. {{path|/tftpboot/initrd.img}}
# [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/boot/syslinux/ Bootloader]
#* Download the current syslinux-X.YZ.tar.bz2 tarball
#* Copy the included pxelinux.0 to {{path|/tftpboot/pxelinux.0}}
#* Create a directory for the configuration with {{cmdroot|mkdir /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg}}
#* Create the file {{path|/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default}} with the following contents:
DEFAULT install
PROMPT 1
TIMEOUT 0
LABEL install
kernel vmlinuz
append initrd.img --
# DHCP Server
#* Download and install an DHCP Server
#* Configure it to for your Thinkpad, the following configuration assumes that the MAC-address of your Thinkpad is DE:AD:BE:EF:00:00 and should use the IP 192.168.0.2 with namesever/router/tftpserver 192.168.0.1
allow booting;
allow bootp;
host thinkpad {
hardware ethernet DE:AD:BE:EF:00:00;
fixed-address 192.168.0.2;
option domain-name-servers 192.168.0.1;
option routers 192.168.0.1;
default-lease-time 28800;
filename "pxelinux.0";
next-server 192.168.0.1;
}
#* Now you can boot your thinkpad via lan

==Installation from the internal harddrive==
The idea here is to have all required files allready on the internal harddrive when you power up your ThinkPad for installation, including of course a minimal system to boot up and start the installation process.

Convenient, but how do you get the files there?
*One option is to copy them via network boot (see above).
*Some Linux distributions offer ways to download the installation files from a FTP server and to choose this directory as installation source instead of a CD-ROM.
*A second way, if you already have a 'working' copy of DOS or MS Windows installed, is to start the installer from loadlin or GRUB. This is detailed [http://marc.herbert.free.fr/linux/win2linstall.html here].
*Another one is to remove the harddrive from the ThinkPad and connect it to the other machine. Again, this can be achieved in several ways:
**putting the harddrive into an UltraBay secondary HDD adapter of a second ThinkPad
**putting the harddrive into an external casing and connect it to the second machine via USB, PCMCIA or whatever
**connecting the harddrive via a 2.5" (laptop) to 3.5" (desktop) harddrive adapter

Follow one of the following instructions.

===Installing [[:Category:Windows|Windows]] 2000 or XP===
*Attach the harddrive to the host computer and install a minimal bootable DOS system i.e. by booting a Win98 Emergency Boot Disk and performing the command "SYS X:" (where X = the laptop's harddrive).
*Copy FDISK.EXE to the laptop harddrive.
*Return the harddrive to the laptop and boot to DOS. (If you have Win98 installed by default, you can skip the first two steps and simply reboot in Windows to DOS.)
*Run FDISK and set up your new Windows system partition on this laptop. (If you do not do this on the laptop, after reboot you will receive the infamous "NTLDR IS MISSING" error. This error may still occur if the partition is greater than 7.8gb in size)
*Then return the drive to the host and format the drive as FAT32. (DO NOT format as NTFS.)
*Repeat the "SYS X:" step to make the new partition bootable.
*Copy Himem.sys and Config.sys, too. Otherwise SMARTDRIVE.EXE won't run
*Get SMARTDRV.EXE from the internet and copy it to your Thinkpads harddrive.
*Also, from the Win2K or WinXP CD, copy the I386 folder to the harddrive.
*Return the laptop's harddrive to the Thinkpad one final time and boot to DOS.
*Run SMARTDRV.EXE first, then change directories to I386 and run WINNT.EXE, this will allow the installation to begin.
*During installation, choose NOT to format the destination partition, since it contains the installation files. If you want that filesystem to be NTFS you can convert it after installation from within Windows.

==Installation from Diskette==
===Installing from CD===
Many distributions have software on CD that will make a boot floppy that will allow you to install from an unbootable CD drive.

===Installing over a network===
Some distributions have a set of diskettes that will allow you to boot a machine, enable a network device and start installation over a network. For example, {{Slackware}} supports installing via an NFS mount. An unofficial add-on adds an option to install over FTP.

===Installing from floppy===
Some distributions did allow for a complete installation from diskette. As the size of distributions and the number of required diskettes has grown, and the ubiquity of optical storage increased, support for floppy installation has diminished.

However, there are still some Linux distributions that fit on as few as one diskette - with very limited functionality, of course.

==Installation from an ISO image==
Some distributions offer a way of installing directly from the downloadable ISO image, residing on your harddisk. Examples are VectorLinux 5.1 and {{SUSE}} 10. The individual distributions installation manuals will guide you through the process.

==External Sources==
*[http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/altinstall.xml Gentoo alternative installation method HOWTO]

{{footnotes|
#External CD-ROM drives typically are connected through USB or [[PCMCIA]]. Be aware that not all of these drives are [[Supported Boot Devices|capable of booting]]. USB connected drives are more likely to be bootable on a ThinkPad than PCMCIA connected ones.
#USB drive here means any kind of USB connected bootable data storage device, including external harddisk drives, memory card readers or memory sticks.
}}

[[Category:TransNote]] [[Category:560]] [[Category:560E]] [[Category:560X]] [[Category:560Z]] [[Category:570]] [[Category:570E]] [[Category:X20]] [[Category:X21]] [[Category:X22]] [[Category:X23]] [[Category:X24]] [[Category:X30]] [[Category:X31]] [[Category:X32]] [[Category:X40]] [[Category:X41]] [[Category:X41 Tablet]] [[Category:Knoppix]]

Installation on ThinkPads without CD-ROM drive

2006-04-06T23:37:21Z

Till: /* Using any Linux on the server side */

{| width="100%"
|style="vertical-align:top;padding-right:20px;width:10px;white-space:nowrap;" | __TOC__
|style="vertical-align:top" |
Some ThinkPads (e.g. the whole X series) come without a CD-ROM drive by default. Even though there are options to buy a solution like the UltraBase, a full dock or simply an external CD-ROM drive{{footnote|1}}, this is not the cheapest option and might not always be neccessary. Also, with some external CD-ROMs the problem might arise that the ThinkPad is not able to boot from them. See our [[Supported Boot Devices|List of supported boot devices]] for various ThinkPads.

So the question arises how to get your system of choice onto that precious piece of hardware. This page should tell you about the possible solutions.

Since in most cases the installation base packages come on CD, you'll need a second computer, equipped with a CD-ROM drive, for all of those solutions.

Many older ThinkPads came with only a floppy drive and cannot boot from any CD drive at all. For those machines, booting from floppy is the only option. Then one can install from CD, over a network, or from the hard drive.
|}

==Installation from USB drive==
Note: Not all thinkpads have a BIOS that supports USB booting.

This is probably the easiest approach.
*Connect the USB drive{{footnote|2}} to the host and format it.
*Get a bootable system and all needed installation files onto the USB drive, i.e. by copying the complete filesystem from your installation CD-ROM to the USB drive. Of course if your USB drive is not big enough for that you'll have to make more sofisticated choices about what to copy and what to leave behind.
*Insert the USB drive into the USB port of your ThinkPad.
*Power on the ThinkPad an press F12 to get to the boot menu.
*Select the USB drive as boot media and boot.
*Follow the installation process.

It seems some bioses don't use the code on MBR (sda), or at least skip it when it's blanked and needs a Extended-IPL boot loaderm, can be found here: http://www.tsden.org/ryutaroh/extipl/
* ''dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1 count=446"''
* ''dd if=/usr/lib/extipl/aldebaran.bin of=/dev/sda''

==Installation via network boot==
Thinkpads support PXE to boot off another system that is connected via [[Ethernet]]. In this case the ThinkPad acts as a network boot client, the other system as server. The idea is to boot a system on the server that the ThinkPad can boot into then by loading all required data directly from that server.

For this to work you will have to either have both the server and the ThinkPad connected in the same subnet of your LAN, or have them connected directly via a crossed Ethernet cable.

===using Windows as a server===
To get your Thinkpad to boot over a network, you must set up a DHCP and a TFTP server. For Windows, the freeware program [http://tftpd32.jounin.net TFTPD32] does both.
*Create a directory that will contain the PXE boot code.
*Copy the boot code into that directory. (For a Debian Sarge install, for example, you can find code to initiate a network install under <code>debian/dists/sarge/main/installer-i386/current/images/netboot/</code> from a Debian mirror -- copy files to simulate symlinks for <code>pxelinux.0</code> and <code>pxelinux.cfg/</code>)
*Launch the TFTPD32 program.
*"Browse" to set the current directory to the directory containing the PXE boot code (i.e. the directory you created in the first step, above).
*On the DHCP server tab, set:
**<code>IP pool starting address</code> to something appropriate for your network
**<code>Size of pool</code> to a non-zero value (all you really need is 1)
**<code>Boot file</code> to the PXE boot image (from Debian, the filename is <code>pxelinux.0</code>)
**<code>WINS/DNS Server</code> to the DNS server used by your network
**<code>Default router</code> to the IP of your default gateway
**<code>Mask</code> to your network's netmask
**<code>Domain Name</code> to your network's domain
*Disable any other DHCP servers on your network
*Boot your Thinkpad, and press {{key|F12}} to select an alternate boot device
*Use "<code>Intel(R) Boot Agent Version 4.0.17</code>" (or similar -- on the Transnote used to make this guide, "<code>Network Boot</code>" did not work while the Boot Agent option did)
The TFTPD32 server window should show activity as the Thinkpad downloads files.
Once the first stage has installed and the Thinkpad is ready to boot from its own hard drive, shut down TFTPD32 and re-enable your permanent DHCP server.

===using [[:Category:Knoppix|Knoppix]] on the server side===
*Insert the Knoppix CD into the server and boot it up.
*Make sure to boot with the 2.6 kernel by giving the <code>kernel26</code> boot option.
*Once your KDE desktop is loaded, look in the K-Menu hierarchy for the link to the terminal server setup.
*Launch the Terminal Server and make it use the appropriate network device.
*Power on your ThinkPad and press F12 to get to the boot menu.
*Select the ThinkPads network adapter as the boot media.
*The ThinkPad should now boot from the Knoppix Terminal Server directly.

===Using any Linux on the server side===
Prerequisites

# TFTP Server
#* Download and install an tftp Server
#* Configure it to serve {{path|/tftpboot}}
# Get the kernel and initrd image from your distribution
#* For fedora-core they are in {{path|os/images/pxeboot}}
#* Copy both to {{path|/tftpboot/vmlinuz}} resp. {{path|/tftpboot/initrd.img}}
# [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/boot/syslinux/ Bootloader]
#* Download the current syslinux-X.YZ.tar.bz2 tarball
#* Copy the included pxelinux.0 to {{path|/tftpboot/pxelinux.0}}
#* Create a directory for the configuration with {{cmdroot|mkdir /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg}}
#* Create the file {{path|/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default}} with the following contents:
DEFAULT install
PROMPT 1
TIMEOUT 0
LABEL install
kernel vmlinuz
append initrd.img --
# DHCP Server
#* Download and install an DHCP Server
#* Configure it to for your Thinkpad, the following configuration assumes that the MAC-address of your Thinkpad is DE:AD:BE:EF:00:00 and should use the IP 192.168.0.2 with namesever/router/tftpserver 192.168.0.1
allow booting;
allow bootp;
host excalibur {
hardware ethernet DE:AD:BE:EF:00:00;
fixed-address 192.168.0.2;
option domain-name-servers 192.168.0.1;
option routers 192.168.0.1;
default-lease-time 28800;
filename "pxelinux.0";
next-server 192.168.0.1;
}
#* Now you can boot your thinkpad via lan

==Installation from the internal harddrive==
The idea here is to have all required files allready on the internal harddrive when you power up your ThinkPad for installation, including of course a minimal system to boot up and start the installation process.

Convenient, but how do you get the files there?
*One option is to copy them via network boot (see above).
*Some Linux distributions offer ways to download the installation files from a FTP server and to choose this directory as installation source instead of a CD-ROM.
*A second way, if you already have a 'working' copy of DOS or MS Windows installed, is to start the installer from loadlin or GRUB. This is detailed [http://marc.herbert.free.fr/linux/win2linstall.html here].
*Another one is to remove the harddrive from the ThinkPad and connect it to the other machine. Again, this can be achieved in several ways:
**putting the harddrive into an UltraBay secondary HDD adapter of a second ThinkPad
**putting the harddrive into an external casing and connect it to the second machine via USB, PCMCIA or whatever
**connecting the harddrive via a 2.5" (laptop) to 3.5" (desktop) harddrive adapter

Follow one of the following instructions.

===Installing [[:Category:Windows|Windows]] 2000 or XP===
*Attach the harddrive to the host computer and install a minimal bootable DOS system i.e. by booting a Win98 Emergency Boot Disk and performing the command "SYS X:" (where X = the laptop's harddrive).
*Copy FDISK.EXE to the laptop harddrive.
*Return the harddrive to the laptop and boot to DOS. (If you have Win98 installed by default, you can skip the first two steps and simply reboot in Windows to DOS.)
*Run FDISK and set up your new Windows system partition on this laptop. (If you do not do this on the laptop, after reboot you will receive the infamous "NTLDR IS MISSING" error. This error may still occur if the partition is greater than 7.8gb in size)
*Then return the drive to the host and format the drive as FAT32. (DO NOT format as NTFS.)
*Repeat the "SYS X:" step to make the new partition bootable.
*Copy Himem.sys and Config.sys, too. Otherwise SMARTDRIVE.EXE won't run
*Get SMARTDRV.EXE from the internet and copy it to your Thinkpads harddrive.
*Also, from the Win2K or WinXP CD, copy the I386 folder to the harddrive.
*Return the laptop's harddrive to the Thinkpad one final time and boot to DOS.
*Run SMARTDRV.EXE first, then change directories to I386 and run WINNT.EXE, this will allow the installation to begin.
*During installation, choose NOT to format the destination partition, since it contains the installation files. If you want that filesystem to be NTFS you can convert it after installation from within Windows.

==Installation from Diskette==
===Installing from CD===
Many distributions have software on CD that will make a boot floppy that will allow you to install from an unbootable CD drive.

===Installing over a network===
Some distributions have a set of diskettes that will allow you to boot a machine, enable a network device and start installation over a network. For example, {{Slackware}} supports installing via an NFS mount. An unofficial add-on adds an option to install over FTP.

===Installing from floppy===
Some distributions did allow for a complete installation from diskette. As the size of distributions and the number of required diskettes has grown, and the ubiquity of optical storage increased, support for floppy installation has diminished.

However, there are still some Linux distributions that fit on as few as one diskette - with very limited functionality, of course.

==Installation from an ISO image==
Some distributions offer a way of installing directly from the downloadable ISO image, residing on your harddisk. Examples are VectorLinux 5.1 and {{SUSE}} 10. The individual distributions installation manuals will guide you through the process.

==External Sources==
*[http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/altinstall.xml Gentoo alternative installation method HOWTO]

{{footnotes|
#External CD-ROM drives typically are connected through USB or [[PCMCIA]]. Be aware that not all of these drives are [[Supported Boot Devices|capable of booting]]. USB connected drives are more likely to be bootable on a ThinkPad than PCMCIA connected ones.
#USB drive here means any kind of USB connected bootable data storage device, including external harddisk drives, memory card readers or memory sticks.
}}

[[Category:TransNote]] [[Category:560]] [[Category:560E]] [[Category:560X]] [[Category:560Z]] [[Category:570]] [[Category:570E]] [[Category:X20]] [[Category:X21]] [[Category:X22]] [[Category:X23]] [[Category:X24]] [[Category:X30]] [[Category:X31]] [[Category:X32]] [[Category:X40]] [[Category:X41]] [[Category:X41 Tablet]] [[Category:Knoppix]]

Installation on ThinkPads without CD-ROM drive

2006-04-06T23:11:23Z

Till:

{| width="100%"
|style="vertical-align:top;padding-right:20px;width:10px;white-space:nowrap;" | __TOC__
|style="vertical-align:top" |
Some ThinkPads (e.g. the whole X series) come without a CD-ROM drive by default. Even though there are options to buy a solution like the UltraBase, a full dock or simply an external CD-ROM drive{{footnote|1}}, this is not the cheapest option and might not always be neccessary. Also, with some external CD-ROMs the problem might arise that the ThinkPad is not able to boot from them. See our [[Supported Boot Devices|List of supported boot devices]] for various ThinkPads.

So the question arises how to get your system of choice onto that precious piece of hardware. This page should tell you about the possible solutions.

Since in most cases the installation base packages come on CD, you'll need a second computer, equipped with a CD-ROM drive, for all of those solutions.

Many older ThinkPads came with only a floppy drive and cannot boot from any CD drive at all. For those machines, booting from floppy is the only option. Then one can install from CD, over a network, or from the hard drive.
|}

==Installation from USB drive==
Note: Not all thinkpads have a BIOS that supports USB booting.

This is probably the easiest approach.
*Connect the USB drive{{footnote|2}} to the host and format it.
*Get a bootable system and all needed installation files onto the USB drive, i.e. by copying the complete filesystem from your installation CD-ROM to the USB drive. Of course if your USB drive is not big enough for that you'll have to make more sofisticated choices about what to copy and what to leave behind.
*Insert the USB drive into the USB port of your ThinkPad.
*Power on the ThinkPad an press F12 to get to the boot menu.
*Select the USB drive as boot media and boot.
*Follow the installation process.

It seems some bioses don't use the code on MBR (sda), or at least skip it when it's blanked and needs a Extended-IPL boot loaderm, can be found here: http://www.tsden.org/ryutaroh/extipl/
* ''dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1 count=446"''
* ''dd if=/usr/lib/extipl/aldebaran.bin of=/dev/sda''

==Installation via network boot==
Thinkpads support PXE to boot off another system that is connected via [[Ethernet]]. In this case the ThinkPad acts as a network boot client, the other system as server. The idea is to boot a system on the server that the ThinkPad can boot into then by loading all required data directly from that server.

For this to work you will have to either have both the server and the ThinkPad connected in the same subnet of your LAN, or have them connected directly via a crossed Ethernet cable.

===using Windows as a server===
To get your Thinkpad to boot over a network, you must set up a DHCP and a TFTP server. For Windows, the freeware program [http://tftpd32.jounin.net TFTPD32] does both.
*Create a directory that will contain the PXE boot code.
*Copy the boot code into that directory. (For a Debian Sarge install, for example, you can find code to initiate a network install under <code>debian/dists/sarge/main/installer-i386/current/images/netboot/</code> from a Debian mirror -- copy files to simulate symlinks for <code>pxelinux.0</code> and <code>pxelinux.cfg/</code>)
*Launch the TFTPD32 program.
*"Browse" to set the current directory to the directory containing the PXE boot code (i.e. the directory you created in the first step, above).
*On the DHCP server tab, set:
**<code>IP pool starting address</code> to something appropriate for your network
**<code>Size of pool</code> to a non-zero value (all you really need is 1)
**<code>Boot file</code> to the PXE boot image (from Debian, the filename is <code>pxelinux.0</code>)
**<code>WINS/DNS Server</code> to the DNS server used by your network
**<code>Default router</code> to the IP of your default gateway
**<code>Mask</code> to your network's netmask
**<code>Domain Name</code> to your network's domain
*Disable any other DHCP servers on your network
*Boot your Thinkpad, and press {{key|F12}} to select an alternate boot device
*Use "<code>Intel(R) Boot Agent Version 4.0.17</code>" (or similar -- on the Transnote used to make this guide, "<code>Network Boot</code>" did not work while the Boot Agent option did)
The TFTPD32 server window should show activity as the Thinkpad downloads files.
Once the first stage has installed and the Thinkpad is ready to boot from its own hard drive, shut down TFTPD32 and re-enable your permanent DHCP server.

===using [[:Category:Knoppix|Knoppix]] on the server side===
*Insert the Knoppix CD into the server and boot it up.
*Make sure to boot with the 2.6 kernel by giving the <code>kernel26</code> boot option.
*Once your KDE desktop is loaded, look in the K-Menu hierarchy for the link to the terminal server setup.
*Launch the Terminal Server and make it use the appropriate network device.
*Power on your ThinkPad and press F12 to get to the boot menu.
*Select the ThinkPads network adapter as the boot media.
*The ThinkPad should now boot from the Knoppix Terminal Server directly.

===Using any Linux on the server side===

==Installation from the internal harddrive==
The idea here is to have all required files allready on the internal harddrive when you power up your ThinkPad for installation, including of course a minimal system to boot up and start the installation process.

Convenient, but how do you get the files there?
*One option is to copy them via network boot (see above).
*Some Linux distributions offer ways to download the installation files from a FTP server and to choose this directory as installation source instead of a CD-ROM.
*A second way, if you already have a 'working' copy of DOS or MS Windows installed, is to start the installer from loadlin or GRUB. This is detailed [http://marc.herbert.free.fr/linux/win2linstall.html here].
*Another one is to remove the harddrive from the ThinkPad and connect it to the other machine. Again, this can be achieved in several ways:
**putting the harddrive into an UltraBay secondary HDD adapter of a second ThinkPad
**putting the harddrive into an external casing and connect it to the second machine via USB, PCMCIA or whatever
**connecting the harddrive via a 2.5" (laptop) to 3.5" (desktop) harddrive adapter

Follow one of the following instructions.

===Installing [[:Category:Windows|Windows]] 2000 or XP===
*Attach the harddrive to the host computer and install a minimal bootable DOS system i.e. by booting a Win98 Emergency Boot Disk and performing the command "SYS X:" (where X = the laptop's harddrive).
*Copy FDISK.EXE to the laptop harddrive.
*Return the harddrive to the laptop and boot to DOS. (If you have Win98 installed by default, you can skip the first two steps and simply reboot in Windows to DOS.)
*Run FDISK and set up your new Windows system partition on this laptop. (If you do not do this on the laptop, after reboot you will receive the infamous "NTLDR IS MISSING" error. This error may still occur if the partition is greater than 7.8gb in size)
*Then return the drive to the host and format the drive as FAT32. (DO NOT format as NTFS.)
*Repeat the "SYS X:" step to make the new partition bootable.
*Copy Himem.sys and Config.sys, too. Otherwise SMARTDRIVE.EXE won't run
*Get SMARTDRV.EXE from the internet and copy it to your Thinkpads harddrive.
*Also, from the Win2K or WinXP CD, copy the I386 folder to the harddrive.
*Return the laptop's harddrive to the Thinkpad one final time and boot to DOS.
*Run SMARTDRV.EXE first, then change directories to I386 and run WINNT.EXE, this will allow the installation to begin.
*During installation, choose NOT to format the destination partition, since it contains the installation files. If you want that filesystem to be NTFS you can convert it after installation from within Windows.

==Installation from Diskette==
===Installing from CD===
Many distributions have software on CD that will make a boot floppy that will allow you to install from an unbootable CD drive.

===Installing over a network===
Some distributions have a set of diskettes that will allow you to boot a machine, enable a network device and start installation over a network. For example, {{Slackware}} supports installing via an NFS mount. An unofficial add-on adds an option to install over FTP.

===Installing from floppy===
Some distributions did allow for a complete installation from diskette. As the size of distributions and the number of required diskettes has grown, and the ubiquity of optical storage increased, support for floppy installation has diminished.

However, there are still some Linux distributions that fit on as few as one diskette - with very limited functionality, of course.

==Installation from an ISO image==
Some distributions offer a way of installing directly from the downloadable ISO image, residing on your harddisk. Examples are VectorLinux 5.1 and {{SUSE}} 10. The individual distributions installation manuals will guide you through the process.

==External Sources==
*[http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/altinstall.xml Gentoo alternative installation method HOWTO]

{{footnotes|
#External CD-ROM drives typically are connected through USB or [[PCMCIA]]. Be aware that not all of these drives are [[Supported Boot Devices|capable of booting]]. USB connected drives are more likely to be bootable on a ThinkPad than PCMCIA connected ones.
#USB drive here means any kind of USB connected bootable data storage device, including external harddisk drives, memory card readers or memory sticks.
}}

[[Category:TransNote]] [[Category:560]] [[Category:560E]] [[Category:560X]] [[Category:560Z]] [[Category:570]] [[Category:570E]] [[Category:X20]] [[Category:X21]] [[Category:X22]] [[Category:X23]] [[Category:X24]] [[Category:X30]] [[Category:X31]] [[Category:X32]] [[Category:X40]] [[Category:X41]] [[Category:X41 Tablet]] [[Category:Knoppix]]