Installing Slackware 12.1 on a ThinkPad T30

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Installation of Slackware 12.1 on a ThinkPad T30 (2366-81U).

Features

In addition to the above, I have installed

Summary

What works out of the box

  • Onboard display (1024x768)
  • TrackPoint (except center button)
    • TrackPad may work, but I can't stand them so I disabled in the BIOS.
  • NTFS volume mounting

What needs to be fixed post-install

  • Wireless
  • Suspend, Sleep, and other FN+ keys
  • Sensors/Fan recognition

Not tested

  • Modem
  • DVD / CD-R
  • What else?
  • 10/100 Ethernet (I use this for wireless only)
  • Docking Station (I have one, but I'm not currently using it and haven't checked yet)

Details

Install with Windows

A good friend of mine provided me with a 60GB drive that had the original IBM Restore partition still available. He even shrunk it down to half for me so that I could dual-boot without having to resize using GParted or something similar.

Once I'd completed the setup of Windows (for the wife), I began the install of Slackware 12.1 on the second partition.

I performed a standard install, selecting all packages, and allowing the setup to configure lilo for me. Slackware found the windows partition and asked for a mount point for fstab, as well as recognizing it in lilo and adding a boot entry for it.

Once the installation was completed, a simple reboot brought up the lilo boot menu, and I chose my new Slackware installation.

Getting the system booted

System Updates

I downloaded the latest kernel from kernel.org and installed it. Performed a custom compile of the kernel to remove unwanted/unnecessary features, and to add in those that were missing. As a matter of personal preference, I also compiled everything directly instead of using them as modules, the only exception being the ndiswrapper module.

What needs to be fixed post-install

Wireless

Under Windows I downloaded ndiswrapper and saved the source file somewhere I'd remember. I then rebooted into linux and copied the file over and compiled it.

After compiling it I ran:

# ndiswrapper -i Mrv8000c.inf (the driver for the Airlink+ card)

and then:

{{{2}}} ndiswrapper -m

which installed it as a module into /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper

I then modified /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf by uncommenting:

IFNAME[4]="wlan0" USE_DHCP[4]="yes"

There are some other settings for wireless encryption, but I think that's beyond the scope of this how-to.

Suspend, Sleep, and other FN+ keys

  • FnF3
  • FnF4
  • FnF7
  • FnF12
  • FnHome / FnEnd Correct adjustment of brightness.
  • FnPgUp Correct activation of ThinkLight.

Sensors/Fan

This model comes with several temperature sensors which I was able to compile support for into the kernel. Once restarted, GKrellM was able to see the sensors, as well as the fan speed.

External Sources

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