Installing OPENSUSE 11.0 on a ThinkPad T61p

Introduction

How to install openSuSE 11.0 x64 on a T61p

Hardware

My T61p is a 8889-3FG, Intel Core2Duo 2,4GHz, 2GB RAM, 100 GB HDD 7200 rpm, Nvidia Quadro FX 570M, 14.1" TFT (1400x1050), Intel 82655MM GB-Ethernet, Intel AGN 4965 wifi, Bluetooth.

Installation

Network install worked pretty much straight forward. Be careful, there's a hidden recovery partition which could screw up your partition table. Just call Lenovo, get the recovery DVDs for free and delete the hidden partition.

Graphics

X might not work with the vesa driver, so if your KDE or gnome goes blank on first boot press STRG+ALT+BACKSPACE, open yast in console and install the binary driver from nvidia. I chose the 177.13 beta version because i had suspend2disk trouble with openSuSE 10.3, works fine now, see below.

I also encountered some strange font-size trouble in kdm & yast, to fix this set dpi to 120 in systemsettings (both as root and user) and set font size in /etc/X11/qtrc to a very small value (i chose 7)

Haven't tried the SUB-D connector for external graphic devices yet.

Sound

Worked out of the box.

Ethernet

Worked out of the box.

WiFi

still working on a solution.

Bluetooth

Haven't tried it yet.

Power Saving

Had to install kpowersave to use it, but works fine now.

Suspend2Disk and Suspend2RAM (had to add S2RAM_OPTS=--force to /etc/pm/config.d/s2ram because this model is not yet whitelisted) both worked out of the box (again, with nVidia beta).

Hotkeys

partial: Suspend (after installing kpowersave) and backlight hotkeys work but not the sound hotkeys.

Fingerprint Reader

Works, but no KDE-support (yet). Remember to set your fingerprint in Yast -> Security and Users -> User and group management -> edit your user account -> plugins -> set user's fingerprint.