Installing Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) on a ThinkPad X61 Tablet

From ThinkWiki
Revision as of 05:44, 30 April 2008 by Aliencam (Talk | contribs) (added external link)
Jump to: navigation, search

Here is an expanding description on what we did to get Alpha_5 of Hardy on working better on the X61 Tablet. I downloaded the alternate Version and installed as the instructions said.

Graphic

Graphics Card

3D acceleration and Compiz Fusion worked out of the box.

X

Edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf and add to Section Screen

SubSection "Display"
	Virtual 3000 2250
EndSubSection

The Parameters behind Virtual must be bigger than all your Displays added together (3000 = 1400 + 1600) Now you can adust you settings with xrandr. e.g.:

xrandr --output LVDS --rotate left
xrandr --output LVDS --rotate normal
xrandr --output VGA --auto --right-of LVDS
…

Konsole

Edit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-framebuffer and comment this out:

#blacklist vesafb
#blacklist vga16fb

Add to /etc/initramfs-tools/modules

fbcon
vesafb
vga16fb

Run

sudo update-initramfs -u

Edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and change at defoptions:

vga=0x31b

Run

sudo update-grub

Input Devices

Keyboard

In some cases the mute button won't work.

For this add in the /boot/grub/menu.lst file following kernel parameter:

acpi_osi="Linux"

Run

sudo update-grub

Stylus

Enable it as described in Wacom_Serial_Tablet_PC_Stylus: Add to /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

  Section "InputDevice"
    Driver        "wacom"
    Identifier    "cursor"
    Option        "Device"        "/dev/ttyS0"
    Option        "Type"          "cursor"
    Option        "ForceDevice"   "ISDV4"     
    Option        "Mode"          "Absolute"
  EndSection
  
  Section "InputDevice"
    Driver        "wacom"
    Identifier    "stylus"
    Option        "Device"        "/dev/ttyS0"
    Option        "Type"          "stylus"
    Option        "ForceDevice"   "ISDV4"
  EndSection
  
  Section "InputDevice"
    Driver        "wacom"
    Identifier    "eraser"
    Option        "Device"        "/dev/ttyS0"
    Option        "Type"          "eraser"
    Option        "ForceDevice"   "ISDV4"
  EndSection

and in Section ServerLayout:

  InputDevice    "cursor" "SendCoreEvents"
  InputDevice    "stylus" "SendCoreEvents"

Trackpoint

The three mouse buttons and trackpoint nipple/stick/nub work out of the box.

If you want the middle mouse button and the nipple to function together as a mouse wheel, add the following to the Configured Mouse Input Device section in /etc/X11/xorg.config:

Option "EmulateWheel" "true"
Option "EmulateWheelButton" "2" 

Tilt Detection

These steps have been referenced from Krizka's Blog with a few changes.

1) Install the necessary build tools:

sudo aptitude install build-essential linux-kernel-headers

2) Download the tp_smapi package. It contains all the necessary sources for the hdaps module. This tutorial will be using tp_smapi version 0.36. Download Here. I downloaded the package to /opt.

3) Extract the packge:

sudo tar -xvzf tp_smapi-0.36.tgz

4) After unpacking, I didn't have permissions to enter the folder. Still being new to Linux, I changed the folder's access permissions using:

sudo chmod 777 tp_smapi-0.36

For those of you who know better, I wouldn't recommend using 777, as that allows the folder to be read and edited by anyone. Enter the folder:

cd tp_smapi-0.36

5) Build the sources:

sudo make HDAPS=1 KSRC=/usr/src/linux-headers-`uname -r`

6) Install the module:

sudo make install HDAPS=1 KSRC=/usr/src/linux-headers-`uname -r`

7) Install hdaps-utils in order to test the new module:

sudo aptitude install hdaps-utils

8) Load the new modules:

sudo modprobe -a tp_smapi hdaps

9) Run a test. hdaps-gl should open up a new window showing the tablet's orientation. If you don't want to use a graphical tool, hdaps-pivot prints its output to the command line:

hdaps-gl

10) To make sure your system loads the modules at boot time add "tp_smapi" and "hdaps", without the quotes and one per line, to /etc/modules. Using echo didn't work for me, so I used pico:

sudo pico /etc/modules

11) And update your initramfs:

sudo update-initramfs -u


External Links

Customized Ubuntu Hardy Setup Guide on X61t Hardware.