Installing Fedora 15 on a ThinkPad T410

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Revision as of 08:01, 4 August 2011 by Tonko (Talk | contribs) (Success Chart - Out of the box experience)
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NOTE!
This is based on the x86-64 version of Fedora 15 with the default GNOME desktop. Your experience with the 32bit version and/or KDE may be different.
Help needed
Not all models of this ThinkPad are equal, you may have a different WiFi adapter or graphics, or some options I did not have. If you tested them, please add their status down below.

New in this release

New in this Fedora release, with regards to this model ThinkPad is the following;

  • Gnome3 which you either love or HATE.
  • Improved support for the Intel HD graphics
  • Fn-F6 (Conference key) can now be associated

Regressions;

  • Changes made with gpointing-device-settings are not persistent
  • Increased power consumption because ASPM is being turned off (see below in the kernel section for a workaround)

Success Chart - Out of the box experience

The SMOLT profile for the T410 used for testing Fedora 15 is here.

Item Working Notes
Installation Local CD/DVD install yes
Network Installation yes
USB Installation yes
Display - Intel HD Graphics Laptop Screen yes
VGA yes
Displayport unknown
DVI yes Requires a dock or Displayport to DVI adapter
Display - NVidia Laptop Screen unknown
VGA unknown
Displayport unknown
DVI unknown Requires a dock or Displayport to DVI adapter
Power Management Software Suspend (hibernate) yes
Suspend to Memory (ACPI sleep) yes
Audio yes
Wireless WiFi - Intel 6200 yes
WiFi - Intel 6300 yes
WiFi - Realtek unknown
Bluetooth yes
WWAN with GPS unknown
Input Keyboard yes
TrackPoint yes Install gpointing-device-settings rpm for full configuration capabilities
TouchPad yes Install gpointing-device-settings rpm for full configuration capabilities
Extra keys partial see ThinkPad Extra keys section below
Fingerprint reader unknown
Ports Ethernet yes
Modem no Should work with the binary Conexant HSF modem drivers.
USB yes
ExpressCard unknown
Smartcard Reader unknown
5-in-1 MultiCard Reader partial Reads SD and SDHC, but not MemoryStick
eSATA unknown
Firewire 400 unknown
Harddisk Active Protection no Fedora ships the hdapsd rpm, but not the tp_smapi kernel module, which is required to read the motion sensor bugzilla
Ultrabay device hotswap partial see below, use with caution out of the box
TPM yes tpm_tis is automatically loaded. After installing the tpm-tools rpm, and starting the tcsd service, the tpm_* commands seem to work.
Docking partial Dock/Undock works, but since Series 3 docks are not docks but port-replicators there is no true dock/undock handling. They do however cause KEY events on dock/undock, but those are currently not exposed by the thinkpad-acpi driver. This issue is fixed upstream in the 3.0 kernel, and has been made available through Updates as the 2.6.40 kernel (=3.0 in disguise)

Tested and Verified on Fedora 15

Information in this section has been tested and verified using Fedora 15.

Installation

Installation is straight forward; you can follow the generic Fedora install instructions.

Configuration

Kernel

You may want to consider editing /boot/grub/grub.conf and adding pcie_aspm=force to the kernel line. This will force enable PCIe ASPM power saving functions, which are getting disabled because the BIOS claims not to support it, but it does work and it makes a significant difference in battery life. A potential downside is that if the system really does not support it, you could experience system freezes, but I have not noticed any (YMMV).

X Server - Intel HD Graphics

Works out of the box.

Instructions for locating the correct colour profile for your ThinkPad LCD can be found on the Colour profile page.

External VGA and DVI (through a Dock) displays work, DisplayPort has not yet been tested.

X Server - NVidia

?

ThinkPad Extra keys

ThinkPad keys are handled by a mixture of the thinkpad_acpi, acpi button, acpi dock and acpi video drivers.

Key Function Handled by Event Works Notes
FnF2 lock screen thinkpad_acpi HAL yes
FnF3 battery thinkpad_acpi HAL yes
FnF4 suspend acpi button HAL yes
FnF5 wireless thinkpad_acpi HAL partial Works as a radio kill switch, kills WiFi but not Bluetooth
FnF6 video conference thinkpad_acpi HAL partial No default action, but can be associated in the Gnome keyboard settings
FnF7 videomode thinkpad_acpi HAL yes
FnF8 mouse input select thinkpad_acpi yes yes
FnF12 hibernate acpi button HAL yes
FnHome brightness up acpi video HAL yes includes on-screen display of brightness level
FnEnd brightness down acpi video HAL yes includes on-screen display of brightness level
FnPgUp thinklight - no yes no OSD.
FnSpace zoom thinkpad_acpi HAL no Known Xorg limitation, scheduled to be fixed with the new XKB2 extension, whenever that may be.
VolumeUp Volume Up ? HAL yes
VolumeDown Volume Down ? HAL yes
VolumeMute Volume Mute ? HAL yes
MicMute Mic Mute ? no no
ThinkVantage Vendor key thinkpad_acpi HAL partial No default action, but can be associated in the Gnome keyboard settings
NextTab Browser Next tab standard keyboard driver HAL yes
PreviousTab Browser Previous tab standard keyboard driver HAL yes
Fn Up Stop standard keyboard driver HAL yes
Fn Left reverse standard keyboard driver HAL yes
Fn Right forward standard keyboard driver HAL yes
Fn Down play/pause standard keyboard driver HAL yes
Power Power button acpi button HAL yes Need to press button for ~1 second to trigger a Suspend event.
Lid Lid button acpi button HAL yes Triggers suspend event
Dock Dock eject - no yes works, but the KEY events are not passed to userspace so you cannot use it to do custom actions. Also check out this page for some potential issues and workarounds. The HKEY event issue is fixed upstream in the 3.0 kernel.
Ultrabay Ultrabay eject switch acpi dock udev no Missing handler, see Ultrabay instructions below
Radio switch Radio kill switch thinkpad_acpi udev yes

Ultrabay

The Ultrabay has some glitches out of the box with respect to hotswapping. It is possible to lock the machine when pulling out devices, even the CD/DVD device.

The culprit is that the Ultrabay pre-eject switch is not hooked into anything useful. It does cause udev events, but nothing is listening for them. When a device that has a mounted partition or CD is actually pulled out it is too late to do the right thing. linux will usually just complain, sometimes bitterly, but may also lock up for some unknown reason, even if just pulling out a CD/DVD device with a mounted CD.

Manually unmounting before removal will help. Manual powering down may also be required for correct performance.

A better solution is to set up a udev rule and script to handle the pre-eject switch event for Ultrabay devices that have mountable things in them as in How to hotswap Ultrabay devices.