Installing CentOS 5 on a ThinkPad 600X - Revision history

Whizkid: typo fix

2007-05-02T22:33:03Z

typo fix

Whizkid: /* Suspend and Resume */

2007-04-30T19:13:17Z

‎Suspend and Resume

Whizkid: Added (stub) Modem section

2007-04-16T19:53:03Z

Added (stub) Modem section

Whizkid: typo fix

2007-04-16T19:51:41Z

typo fix

Whizkid: Disk use and capacity

2007-04-16T19:50:01Z

Disk use and capacity

Whizkid: Nice to specify which file to change.

2007-04-15T23:51:45Z

Nice to specify which file to change.

Whizkid: TrackPoint configuration

2007-04-15T23:47:47Z

TrackPoint configuration

Whizkid: checkpoint

2007-04-15T20:42:39Z

checkpoint

Whizkid: checkpoint

2007-04-15T16:42:04Z

checkpoint

Whizkid: checkpoint

2007-04-15T15:39:08Z

checkpoint

@@ Line 25: / Line 25: @@
 === Screen Expansion ===
-The graphical install runs at 800x600 resolution, and will enable screen expansion by default. This is rather ugly on the 600X. You can change disable this on the fly by pressing Fn+F8 (perhaps twice) if you prefer. I certainly recommend it.
+The graphical install runs at 800x600 resolution, and will enable screen expansion by default. This is rather ugly on the 600X. You can toggle this on the fly by pressing Fn+F8 (perhaps twice) if you prefer. I certainly recommend it.
 === Begin ===

@@ Line 77: / Line 77: @@
 At this point, the machine will suspend and resume, but there are a few glitches. If the screen shows a bunch of lines and the entire display slowly turns white, just change to a text console and back: Press Ctrl+Alt+F1, wait a few seconds then press Alt+F7. The text consoles will all not be usable until you reboot. This is not generally a big loss.
-The big loss is sound. The driver for the sound chip in the 600X does not respect suspend and resume, and sound will not work until you can restart the driver, which can be rather tricky because the Gnome desktop holds the device open. The easy way to get sound back is to reboot, but that is a lengthy process.
+The big loss is sound. The driver for the sound chip in the 600X does not respect suspend and resume, and sound will not work until you can restart the driver, which can be rather tricky because the Gnome desktop holds the device open. There is a bug open on this in the Alsa Project since May 2004.
 The second method to re-enable sound is log out, go to a text console (which can no longer be seen), and type these two commands:
@@ Line 83: / Line 85: @@
   #modprobe snd_cs46xx
-There is a third method that should fix all of this, but I've only found the solution for Ubuntu and am still working on a solution for RHEL.
+I have tried setting RESTORE_SOUND="yes" in /etc/sysconfig/suspend, but it was of no help.
 === TrackPoint ===

@@ Line 97: / Line 97: @@
 === IrDA ===
 Enable and test infrared.
 == Enhancing Performance ==

@@ Line 86: / Line 86: @@
 === TrackPoint ===
-To get the middle TrackPoint button to work as a scrolling device, add this section jst after the Keyboard0 InputDevice section of '''/etc/X11/xorg.conf'''.
+To get the middle TrackPoint button to work as a scrolling device, add this section just after the Keyboard0 InputDevice section of '''/etc/X11/xorg.conf'''.
   Section "InputDevice"
           Identifier "TrackPoint"

@@ Line 18: / Line 18: @@
 === Disk Space ===
-Every 600X shipped with a hard drive of at least 6GB capacity. This is enough for CentOS 5. You may also wish to consider a larger, newer (and more reliable) hard drive for data storage.
+Every 600X shipped with a hard drive of at least 6GB capacity. This is enough for CentOS 5. After my default install, 2.7GB of disk space was used. A larger disk will not hurt, and the 600X can use any ATA drive up to 120GB of space with no effort.
 == Installation ==

@@ Line 68: / Line 68: @@
 === CardBus ===
-At this point, I installed a wired network card. It identified correctly, and the link, speed and activity LED's all worked, but it would not acquire an IP address. I've had issues like this before. If you have problems getting cards to work, add this to the end of each line that begins with '''kernel /vmlinuz-'''...
+At this point, I installed a wired network card. It identified correctly, and the link, speed and activity LED's all worked, but it would not acquire an IP address. I've had issues like this before. If you have problems getting cards to work, add this to the end of each line that begins with '''kernel /vmlinuz-''' in the file '''/boot/grub/grub.conf'''.
   acpi=noirq

← Older revision		Revision as of 20:42, 15 April 2007
Line 64:		Line 64:

	== More Configuration ==		== More Configuration ==
		+	=== Video, CD, Serial, Parallel ===
		+	All of these devices are properly configured at this point. You may wish to configure your display to a generic 1024x768 LCD, but that is optional.

		+	=== CardBus ===
		+	At this point, I installed a wired network card. It identified correctly, and the link, speed and activity LED's all worked, but it would not acquire an IP address. I've had issues like this before. If you have problems getting cards to work, add this to the end of each line that begins with '''kernel /vmlinuz-'''...
		+	acpi=noirq
		+
		+	=== Sound ===
		+	The '''acpi=noirq''' kernel parameter also allows the Soundcard Detection to work properly. You may have to slide the volume up nearly all the way to hear it. If it's still not working, try pressing Fn+PgUp several times to increase the speaker volume.
		+
		+	=== Suspend and Resume ===
		+	At this point, the machine will suspend and resume, but there are a few glitches. If the screen shows a bunch of lines and the entire display slowly turns white, just change to a text console and back: Press Ctrl+Alt+F1, wait a few seconds then press Alt+F7. The text consoles will all not be usable until you reboot. This is not generally a big loss.
		+
		+	The big loss is sound. The driver for the sound chip in the 600X does not respect suspend and resume, and sound will not work until you can restart the driver, which can be rather tricky because the Gnome desktop holds the device open. The easy way to get sound back is to reboot, but that is a lengthy process.
		+
		+	The second method to re-enable sound is log out, go to a text console (which can no longer be seen), and type these two commands:
		+	#rmmod snd_cs46xx
		+	#modprobe snd_cs46xx
		+
		+	There is a third method that should fix all of this, but I have to find it again and test it.
		+
		+	=== TrackPoint ===
		+	Getting the middle button to scroll a page.
		+
		+	=== IrDA ===
		+	Enable and test infrared.
		+
		+	== Enhancing Performance ==
		+	There are several ways to get the best experience while running CentOS 5 on your 600X.
		+	=== Memory ===
		+	As I mentioned above, the 600X can have up to 576MB of memory installed. You can run '''top''' to see if your memory is full and you are using swap space. Do not be alarmed if your memory is all used. Linux likes to use all you have. But if your used swap is large and performance is slow, more memory may help.
		+
		+	=== Hard Drive ===
		+	The 600X came with a 4200RPM hard drive with a small cache. Newer drives are faster (sometimes much faster) and can improve your experience greatly.
		+
		+	=== Services ===
		+	Click '''System -> Administration -> Services''' to bring up the Service Configuration tool. Turn off the services you will not be using. Sendmail, bluetooth, httpd and many more can be turned off. This will speed up startup and shutdown times, and leave more memory available for your applications and data.
		+
		+	=== Desktop ===
		+	If you want to further lighten the memory footprint of your machine, you can avoid the Gnome desktop and go with something lighter.
		+	==== XFCE ====
		+	The first option is the XFCE4 desktop. To use this, start Add/Remove Software. In Desktop Environments, select XFCE and turn on options you like. When you next log on, you can click Session to select the XFCE desktop environment and it will save some memory.
		+	==== Lightweight GUI ====
		+	Another choice is to not use any desktop environment and just use a window manager, such as fluxbox or others to run your GUI. There are many web sites to learn how to use those packages.
		+	==== No GUI ====
		+	Of course, you can just use a text console and log on that way too. This will save a lot of memory and give really good performance, but you'll turn into '''that guy''' and probably start using emacs to edit your configuration files.


	[[Category:600X]] [[Category:CentOS]]		[[Category:600X]] [[Category:CentOS]]

@@ Line 7: / Line 7: @@
 == Requirements ==
 === CPU ===
-The 600X has a Pentium III at 450, 500 or 650MHz. The 650MHz models can easily be upgraded with processors running at 850MHz. This is easily enough processor to run a modern Linux like CentOS 5.
+The 600X has a Pentium III at 450, 500 or 650MHz. The 650MHz models can easily be upgraded with processors running at 850MHz. Even the slowest is easily enough processor to run CentOS 5.
 === Optical Drive ===
-I'll be using a set of installation CD's since every 600X shipped with a drive that can read CD-R discs. If your 600X has a DVD drive, it may not read recordable DVD discs, but you can certainly try. DVD-R is more likely to work than DVD+R. You will not need disc 6 for the default selections.
+I'll be using a set of installation CD's since every 600X shipped with a drive that can read CD-R discs. If your 600X has a DVD drive, it may not read recordable DVD discs, but you can certainly try. DVD-R is more likely to work than DVD+R. You will not need disc 6 for the default selections. Unfortunately, CD's 3, 4 and 5 seem to have one or two packages each in the default install.
 === Memory ===
@@ Line 26: / Line 28: @@
 === Begin ===
-Configure EZ Setup to boot from the CD drive before the hard disk, or clear the boot order altogether, and that will ensure the CD drive boots before the hard drive. Put CD 1 in the drive and boot (or reboot) the system. If you have at least 512MB RAM, or want to try the graphical install anyway, just press enter or wait for the bootloader to continue.
+Configure EZ Setup to boot from the CD drive before the hard disk, or clear the boot order altogether, and that will ensure the CD drive boots before the hard drive. Put CD 1 in the drive and boot (or reboot) the system. If you have at least 512MB RAM, or want to try the graphical install anyway, just press enter or wait for the bootloader to continue. I used the graphical install with 448MB, and it worked just fine.
-To use the text mode installer (and if you have than 512MB RAM but at least 128MB RAM you should do this), enter
+To use the text mode installer (for low RAM or if you just prefer it), enter
   linux text
 at the boot prompt. This will use the text-mode installer.
@@ Line 45: / Line 47: @@
 You will be asked once more to continue. This is the last stage at which you can abort and keep your current system intact. You will not be offered a chance to cancel once you go on.
 [[Category:600X]] [[Category:CentOS]]