Installing Ubuntu 10.10 on a ThinkPad T510

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Success Chart - Out of the box experience

I had posted a howto for 10.04. This howto is similar and i changed somethings to make the istallation easier!

Item Working Notes
Installation Local CD/DVD install yes
Network Installation unknown
USB Installation yes
Display Laptop Screen (15.6" TFT display with 1920x1080(FHD) or 1600x900(HD+)) yes See notes below
VGA yes
Power Management Software Suspend (hibernate) yes
Suspend to Memory (ACPI sleep) yes
Audio yes
Wireless WiFi - ThinkPad 11b/g/n Wireless LAN Mini-PCI Express Adapter II yes
Bluetooth yes It did detect my HTC legend and i transferred some files from it.
Input Keyboard yes
(TrackPoint / Touchpad combo) yes
Extra keys partial see ThinkPad Extra keys section below
Fingerprint yes See notes below
Ports Ethernet yes
Modem unknown
ExpressCard_slot unknown
USB yes
Firewire_Port unknown
5-in-1 MultiCard Reader yes 2GB SanDisk Ultra II SD flash card automatically detected.
2.0MP webcamera yes Tested with Skype. Works perfectly.
Harddisk Active Protection yes See notes below
TPM (security subsystem) unknown
Dock removal unknown

Tested and Verified on ubuntu 10.10

Information in this section has been tested and verified using ubuntu 10.10.

Installation

Installation is very easy and a breeze. The system boots really fast. Even faster then windows. I was like WOW!!! However as the default installation came with windows and drive was not partitioned, i had to manually resize the partitions. I used the following guide to partition the HDD

ATTENTION!
Be careful! Make sure you have make your recovery disks and Boot disk first prior to partitioning. These disks are made in windows itself. In my case i had 2 recovery DVD's and 1 boot cd. Well this time i deleted all partitions. Why would i use windows when i can install it using virtualbox

Updating

I recommend you update your system after installation to get all the bugs sorted out

Configuration

Kernel

..

Issues


NVIDIA

Update the driver by selecting System-->Administration-->Hardware drivers. You will be prompted if you want to upgrade to the relevant driver, Accept and restart. There is a bug in ubuntu in that the startup and shutdown logos get blurred. Beats me why they have not sorted it out yet but its not "important" as the logo only comes up when you start or shut down the system.


Backlight controls are not functional while running nVidia driver 195. They can be controlled by either changing brightness in a VT or adding the following to the "Devices" section of /etc/X11/xorg.conf

   Option "RegistryDwords" "EnableBrightnessControl=1"

Reboot and the keys now work

WiFi

Works smoothly.

# sudo aptitude upgrade

Then reboot and the wifi card works flawlessly.

FingerPrint Reader

There are two possibilities:

Get the proprietary software from the Upek page (32bit only)
or try the Fingerprint GUI project which uses upeksonly driver from the fprint project

Trackpoint

You can adjust the sensitivity and speed by running this script at boot

make a new config file nano /etc/init/trackpoint.conf

description "Trackpoint settings"
env TPDIR=/sys/devices/platform/i8042/serio1/serio2
start on virtual-filesystems
script

  while [ ! -f $TPDIR/sensitivity ]; do
    sleep 2
  done

  echo -n 200 > $TPDIR/sensitivity    // values from 0 to 250 for sensitivity
  echo -n 150 > $TPDIR/speed          // values from 0 to 250 for speed
  echo -n 0 > $TPDIR/press_to_select  // 1 or 0 to turn on/off press to select

end script

from ubuntuusers

For some reason the settings get lost after hibernate or standby and you need to reboot to get this working again.

Setup ThinkVantage ActiveProtection

$ sudo cp /etc/modules /etc/modules_backup

$ sudo apt-get -y install tp-smapi-dkms hdapsd

$ sudo modprobe tp-smapi

$ sudo /etc/init.d/hdapsd restart


You can set the activeprotection sensivity:

cd /etc/default/
gedit hdapsd
# sensitivity
SENSITIVITY=25


Now you can try, if the modules are loaded yet. Do so with

lsmod | grep hdaps


If the installation of hdapsd succeeded, you can test it by typing this into your terminal:

sudo hdapsd -d sda -s 15 -a -v -y 

If you suddenly move your laptop the output will change! (stop it with pressing Ctr + C)

Reboot. Now HDAPS should work. If you want to have a HDAPS icon in your notification area like in Windows, simply install AVN

$ sudo apt-get -y install avant-window-navigator awn-applets-python-core

Now you can run the avn

Click Applications > Accessories > Avant Window Navigator

to make the ThinkHDAPS icon appear in the navigator, right click on the navigator bar and select "Dock Preferences"

Go to applets and under the catefory "All" browse down and select the applet named ThinkHDAPS

A new applet should appear on the dock. The applet changes when you shake your laptop:)

Selection 003.png

Setup Think Sensors

The gnome sensors applets allow you to monitor all important temperatures, including battery, hdd, cpu and gpu and system fan

$ sudo apt-get -y install sensors-applet Add the hardware sensor monitor to the panel and then configure it. You can add the sensors eighter in the gnome panel or Avant Window Manager. Note: I had to reboot the system first so that the applet appeared in gnome panel.

  1. libsensors: temp2 to 8 do not work for me. I have no idea if they are supposed to work or not.
  2. hddtemp: /dev/sda is the sensor of the harddisk. It is important to keep the harddisk always below 45°, normally under 40°.

Menu 004.png


ThinkPad Extra keys

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

Key Function Handled by Event Works Notes
FnF2 Lock the computer - unknown yes
FnF3 Select Power Plan - unknown yes
FnF4 Put Computer to sleep/standby mode - unknown yes
FnF5 wireless - unknown yes Switches the bluetooth off
FnF6 Change camera/audio settings - unknown yes
FnF7 Switch Display output location - unknown yes
FnF8 Change ultranav device settings - unknown yes
FnF12 Put computer in hibernation mode - unknown unknown
FnHome brightness up - unknown yes
FnEnd brightness down - unknown yes
FnPgUp thinklight - unknown yes
FnSpace zoom - unknown unknown
FnPrtSc Have the same function as the SysRq key. - unknown unknown
FnScrLk Enable or disable the numeric keypad. - unknown yes
FnPause Have the same function as the Break key. - unknown unknown
ThinkVantage Vendor key - unknown unknown
VolumeUp Volume Up - unknown yes
VolumeDown Volume Down - unknown yes
VolumeMute Volume Mute - unknown yes
MicMute Microphone Mute - unknown no
NextTab Browser Next tab - unknown yes
PreviousTab Browser Previous tab - unknown yes
Power Power button - unknown yes
Lid Lid button - unknown yes