Installing Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) on a ThinkPad X61
I installed Ubuntu 9.10 on the same ThinkPad X61 model 7673-CTO that I installed Ubuntu 9.10 on last year.
In the coming days I will test various features and extend this page.
Contents
DMI info for this model
# dmidecode -s system-manufacturer LENOVO # dmidecode -s system-product-name 7673CTO # dmidecode -s system-version ThinkPad X61
Kernel misdetects memory
Right at the beginning there was an important obstacle to overcome. The installed kernel would panic on boot.
I ran memtest to see if I had a memory problem. It reported errors above 4 GiB. That's odd, because I only have 4 GiB of RAM installed.
I surmised that the new kernel, version 2.6.31-14-generic-pae, errs in reckoning the amount of RAM. And indeed, the solution to the kernel panic was to add mem=4096M to the kernel boot parameter list.
Adding the tp-smapi module
$ sudo aptitude install tp-smapi-source $ sudo module-assistant build tp-smapi-source $ sudo module-assistant install tp-smapi-source $ sudo modprobe thinkpad_ec tp_smapi hdaps
Edit the file /etc/modules to add these lines:
thinkpad_ec tp_smapi hdaps
There is currently (19 November 2009) no hdaps-utils package in Karmic and so no hdaps-gl application.
Increasing battery life
To make the battery last longer by reducing the number and depth of charge cycles, edit /etc/sysfs.conf to add the lines:
# Make battery live longer devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/start_charge_thresh = 50 devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/stop_charge_thresh = 90
To effect the change either reboot or do:
$ sudo su # echo 50 > /sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/start_charge_thresh # echo 90 > /sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/stop_charge_thresh