Installing Ubuntu 5.04 on a ThinkPad T43 (1875)

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I installed Ubuntu 5.04 "Hoary Hedgehog" on a IBM T43 1875-E5U.

Before starting the installation, make a copy of the IBM system restore CD's. You can do this in Windows by going to the Access IBM Start Menu option, and clicking on Create Rescue Cd's. This is extremely important!!! In case you erase your IBM system rescue partition, or remove the BootLoader, these CD's are the only way you can restore your machine to Factory settings. You'll need six blank CD's, or one blank CD and one blank DVD, if you have a DVD-Writer.

Once this is done, install as usual. The only gotcha is the installation of the Boot-loader. There is a method by which you can save your current MBR, so that you don't lose the Access IBM button's functionaltiy, but I don't know it. Please update this page if you know.

I installed grub in the MBR of my hard disk. After rebooting, the Access IBM button was not working anymore. My rescue partition would not boot. After the text based installation ended, Ubuntu said that it starting X. Then I got a blank screen.

My machine has the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 installed. To get X working, I had to edit the x.org file. I did this in the following manner: 

Press Ctrl+Alt+F2 to get a Virtual Terminal
Login as the user you made while installing
sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup # keep a backup
sudo vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf
scroll down to this section 
Section "Device"
       Identifier  "Intel Corporation Intel Default Card "
       Driver      "i810"
       BusID       "PCI:0:2:0"
EndSection
Change Driver "i810" to Driver "vesa"
save and exit

After this, I used Ctrl+Alt+F7 to come back to the X terminal, then Ctrl+ALt+Backspace to restart it. X started successfully.

The next thing to do was use the excellent Unofficial Ubuntu Guide to set up various things.

I will be editing this page after I get the Suspend to Ram, and other things working. If anyone knows how to install GRUB so that the Access IBM button works, and how to restore the MBR without completely resetting the HDD to factory settings please update this page.

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