Installing Debian 3.1 (Sarge) on a ThinkPad A30p

This is a documentation of some of the installation and configuration steps required for installing Debian/Sarge on a Thinkpad A30p and getting the most out of it.

Basic installation

The recommended procedure is, to get a Debian/Sarge DVD put it in the DVD-drive and boot from the DVD. Proceed with the installation as on an arbitrary computer.

Components

ACPI

For a detailed description of how to operate ACPI on IBM Thinkpads, take a look at How_to_make_ACPI_work.

Tv output

The A30p is supplied with an ATI Radeon Mobility M6 graphics adapter. It comes with a tv output and a tv input connector. Read How to get SVideo output to work.

Kernel

This is a short summary on the kernel features needed on the A30p. The supplied kernel in Debian/Sarge is 2.6.8. It is advisable to get a newer Version. You can use either a newer debianized kernel or get a vanilla kernel. At the time this documentation is written, the latest known version is 2.6.12.4.

Enable support for: (recommended: as Module or Statically compiled in )

• Modules and module unloading
• Support for Pentium-III processor
• ACPI (how to make it work) S
• cpu-freq with ondemand governor (alternatively userspace governor) S
• PIIX chipset
• IDE/ATA drives and floppy (at least HDD S or initrd needed)
• PCMCIA - Yenta cardbus
• e100 network device M
• usb-uhci for usb host controller M
• i810 sound card M
• nvram M
• i2c M
• AGP and radeon support M

(not yet completed)

Software

• acpid
• acpi-support Version 0.21 (not contained in Debian, lent from Ubuntu)
• laptop-mode-tools
• atitvout tool for radeon video adapters
• ati.2 driver up to date driver for ATI radeon cards