Installing Fedora Core 4 on a ThinkPad T43

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Installation Log Fedora Core 4 System components Thinkpad T43 (1871-4AG)


Preparations

  • When first switched on, preinstalled Win XP immediately converted almost the entire hard disk to NTFS. The last 4 GB are occupied by a FAT partition containing IBM recovery software
  • Boot into Win XP and burn recovery CDs (access IBM button or start menu entry)
  • Boot Knoppix (3.9, http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html) and use qtparted to reduce the size of the NTFS partition


Installation of Fedora Core 4


Working out of the box

  • Touchpad
  • Touchpad buttons
  • Trackpoint
  • LAN
  • USB flash


Need some attention

  • WLAN (Intel Wireless 2200 BG):

The driver is already included in the kernel, although an update will include configuration scripts to help load/unload modules, verify hardware, check status, etc. The only thing missing is the firmware. Apparently, this is proprietary and thus not included in the distribution. It can be downloaded however. The kernel I installed with the first upgrade (2.6.12-1.1387_FC4) includes driver version 1.0.2 (?). This driver version requires firmware version 2.2.

- Download appropriate firmware from http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/firmware.php

- Extract and copy files to /lib/firmware

- Reload Modules (Optionally using the scripts included with the ipw2200 driver)

 # load

- Configure wireless network using

 # /usr/bin/system-config-network
  • Suspend to RAM

- As described on http://www.ces.clemson.edu/linux/suspend_mem.shtml - Additional comment: make sure there are no backup copys (FILE~) left in the directories. If there are, the laptop will go straight back into suspend after waking up and you have to wake it again. Backup files seem to be read as well, so that all events are processed twice. - You can restart the acpi daemon straight away using

 # /etc/init.d/acpid restart

- You can also configure klaptop

  • Special keys (volume, brightness)

- Install tpb and xosd from extras repository

 # yum install tpb xosd

- If you like, you can also use the kde thinkpad configuration settings: kcontrol - System Administration - IBM Thinkpad Laptop - KMilo

External Sources