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Intalling Gentoo Linux on an IBM Thinkpad T43p
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Model: IBM Thinkpad T43p, 2668-G2G,
14" display, IBM order number: UC3G2GE
Weight without CD drive: 2.15kg (4.74 lbs)
1GB RAM, 60GB HDD, 14.1 SXGA+(1400x1050) TFT LCD,
128MB ATI FireGL V3200
I really love the T-series Thinkpads. They are small, powerful
and work well with Linux. Too bad that IBM does not ship Linux
pre-installed.
Preparation
I use only Linux. Lenovo does not provide
BIOS update possibilities for USB floppies (only real floppy
drives attached to the docking station). There is also the
problem that this type of notebook works only with harddisks
which have a special IBM firmware loaded. It is therefore a good
idea to keep XP to be able to still perform firmware and Bios
updates if needed.
The blue Access IBM button
The T43p has a little blue
button which can be pressed at boot time. It offers mainly a
backup and recovery system. Using a set of CDs/DVDs you can
restore the harddisk (only windows).
Pressing the blue Access IBM button at boot time causes the PC to
boot from a second harddisk partition which contains the recovery
system (a win98 application?).
I created frist such a recovery system on CD/DVD. This would
allow me to restore the harddisk later on in case the Linux
installation/partitioning fails some how [Win XP->IBM
access->Rescue and Recovery]. The best solution is to use one
CD and one DVD. The CD is bootable and works even if you mess up
the HD completly.
Warning: Using the restore harddisk function of the Rescue and
Recovery CD/DVD re-partitions the disk and removes Linux. Don't
use them once Linux is working.
Patitioning
Create the above mentioned Rescue and
Recovery (1 CD + 1 DVD) and then you are ready to start.
Press F1 for BIOS and then select
Security->Pre-desktop area
Disable the Pre-desktop area. This will make more diskspace available.
You don't really need the Windows to HD backup if you run Linux.
Download the latest version of ntfsprogs (in my case
ntfsprogs-1.12.1.tar.gz) and save them on an usb key. ntfsprogs
1.12 and higher can shrink the NTFS partition without defragmenting
it. The ntfsresize on Knoppix did not have this function.
Uning an older ntfsresize and defargmenting NTFS from XP may not
help if, as in my case. XP created two big clusters, one at the
beginning and one at the end. It could not be convinced to
combine the disk usage into one block at the beginning of the
disk.
Disk layout before starting:
Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60011642880 bytes
240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7752 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 7685 58098568+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 * 7686 7751 498960 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
Boot from Knoppix, compile ntfsprogs and run
ntfsresize -i /dev/sda1
This tells you how much disk space is used. 11GB in my case.
Therefore I decided to go for a 12GB sda1 partition.
./ntfsresize -s 12G /dev/sda1
Now the ntfs filesystem is only 12GB. Next we must change the
partition table using fdisk.
Start fdisk and delete sda1. Recreate it with a size of
12000MB.
Now we need to move the "Access IBM" partition (sda2):
1) print the layout from fdisk (p)
2) delete sda2
3) create a new sda2 immediately after the now resized sda1 with
the same size as the original sda2 ("End minus Start" gives the block size
you need).
4) create a sda3 partition at exactly the same place as the original
sda2 (block 7686 to 7751 in my case)
Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60011642880 bytes
240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7752 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 1551 11725528+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 1552 1617 498960 12 Compaq diagnostics
/dev/sda3 7686 7751 498960 12 Compaq diagnostics
5) leave fdisk (w)
6) run
dd if=/dev/sda3 of=/dev/sda2
to copy the content over
Now that the content of the "Access IBM" partition is copied
we can start fdisk again and delete sda3 + create linux partitions:
Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60011642880 bytes
240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7752 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 1551 11725528+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 1552 1617 498960 12 Compaq diagnostics
/dev/sda3 1618 1750 1005480 82 Linux swap
/dev/sda4 1751 7751 45367560 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 1751 1790 302368+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 1791 3987 16609288+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 3988 7751 28455808+ 83 Linux
Format the linux partitions with mkfs.ext3 and mkswap.
Shutdown Knoppix and boot into XP. It will perform a file system
check. You can also boot into "Access IBM" to verify this
function still works.
Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60011642880 bytes
240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7752 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 1551 11725528+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 * 1552 1617 498960 b W95 FAT32
/dev/sda3 1618 1750 1005480 82 Linux swap
/dev/sda5 1751 1790 302368+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 1791 3987 16609288+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 3988 7751 28455808+ 83 Linux
The hardware model of the internal disk is a Hitachi disk:
HTS726060M9AT00
I ordered also a spare disk, HTS541060G9AT00, which I wanted
to use in the UltraBay Sim HD adapter and as replacement if the
main disk would ever fail. For this purpose I downloaded the
firmware upgrade ISO image from www.thinkpad.com but it turns out
that the firmware in original Hitachi disks can not be
flashed despite beeing listed as supported models in the
firmware upgrade kit! The more expensive Hitachi disks from IBM are
not identical to the orignial disks from Hitachi despite having the
same model name!
Now I can only use it in the UltraBay Sim HD adapter :-(
Gentoo Linux installation
General
I used gentoo 2005.1. The installation is
straiged forward and works well. The gentoo installation finishes
when the Linux command line console is usable. Everything else
has to be added later. I like that very much because I can tune
the system as I like and I know also afterwards what is
configured where.
The main advantage of gentoo is that you will later on (in 1
year, 2 years ...) always be able to install software new
software whitout upgrading everything again. The price is that it
takes much longer at the beginning.
Here is a list of packages which I have installed (this file will
be updated from time to time): gentoo-t43p-packages.txt. This
file was generated with the command "equery --nocolor list -i"
.
You can use it to speed up your installation.
Gentoo package handling
The installation can be
accellerated significantly by mounting the package-CD iso file at
/usr/portage/packages with the "mount -o loop " commands.
Search for a package
emerge search substring_of_package_name
Check what would be installed:
emerge -k -p package_name
Do the install:
emerge -k package_name
List packages:
equery list
or
epm -qa
or
/usr/lib/gentoolkit/bin/qpkg
Check which files are contained in a package:
equery file package_name
List USE-flags:
equery uses package_name
Which package owns this file:
equery belongs /the/file
Hardware
The disk is a normal ATA laptop disk (Hitachi HTS726060M9AT00) but
uses some ATA to SATA conversion feature. For this reason you need to
use SCSI/SATA to access the disk with full speed and DMA.
The older IBM thinkpads (e.g my T20) used a harder type of plastic for the keyboard.
This made the keyboard really durable. On this T43p I am approximately
replacing the keyboard every second year. The keys become really slippery
and shiny after about one year of intensive use and the space-bar stops
working a year later. The part number for the
US international keyboard for the 14" inch model is #39T0548.
You can use "smartctl -d ata -a /dev/sda" to check the SMART data of your
disk (needs a 2.6.15 kernel).
For the rest of the Hardware see this lspci.txt file
Kernel
I used 2.6.15 vanilla. With the following patches:
- Sata patch to get suspend to ram working: sata_pm.2.6.15-rc6.patch
(originally from:
http://tpctl.sourceforge.net/tmp/sata_pm.2.6.15-rc6.patch)
- Patch for ibm_acpi to enable possibly better fan speed control
ibm_acpi_patch.txt
My Kernel .config file:
config-2.6.15.txt (normal vga console, suspend to ram with ati graphics works)
config-2.6.22.16.txt (framebuffer console, suspend to ram works on console but not when ati driver is loaded, need boot parameter vga=0x318 )
My grub configuration:
grub_conf.txt
CD/DVD access
I use the libata atapi feature to get DMA access for CD/DVD.
Here is my grub.conf file. The important options are libata.atapi_enabled=1
and ide1=noprobe. The CD/DVD will then be /dev/scd0.
Sound
Sound works out of the box with alsa and the following modules (part of
the standard 2.6.15 kernel):
snd_intel8x0m
snd_intel8x0
snd_ac97_codec
snd_ac97_bus
snd_pcm
snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer
snd_seq
snd_page_alloc
Graphics
I used x11-base/xorg-x11-6.8.2-r6 with the
binary fglrx driver from ati. It was quite a headache to get
suspend to ram working with the ati fglrx. The needed patches are
listed below to save you the headaches.
To use the middle mouse button for pasting and emulate wheel scrolling
at the same time you need to patch the xorg-x11-6.8.2 file xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/input/mouse/mouse.c with this mouse_EmulateWheelTimeout_mouse_c_patch.txt patch.
My /etc/X11/xorg.conf file is: xorg_conf.txt
The t43p has a 14" monitor with a very high resolution of
1400x1050. The display is clear and sharp but you will have to
use quite large fonts and this can be a problem with some
webpages while surfing the net. Other resolutions are not really
possible as this is an LCD monitor.
For the graphics driver I downloaded the
ati-driver-installer-8.20.8-i386.run from ati.com and intalled it
using the --install option to this shell archive.
3D graphics are fast and worked immediately (can be tested with
fgl_glxgears)... but the driver crashed at every start of X11
with:
[fglrx] module loaded - fglrx 8.20.8 [Dec 6 2005] on minor 0
[fglrx] ACPI power management is initialized.
Bad page state at free_hot_cold_page (in process 'X', page c1103e20)
flags:0x80000414 mapping:00000000 mapcount:0 count:0
Backtrace:
[<c013b9a1>] bad_page+0x81/0xc0
[<c013c1c0>] free_hot_cold_page+0x70/0x100
[<c0146064>] zap_pte_range+0x154/0x210
[<c01461f3>] unmap_page_range+0xd3/0x150
[<c014635d>] unmap_vmas+0xed/0x1a0
[<c014a387>] unmap_region+0x87/0x100
[<c014a6af>] do_munmap+0x10f/0x150
[<c014a745>] sys_munmap+0x55/0x80
[<c0103039>] syscall_call+0x7/0xb
Trying to fix it up, but a reboot is needed
[fglrx] free PCIe = 54804480
[fglrx] max PCIe = 54804480
[fglrx] free LFB = 114208768
[fglrx] max LFB = 114208768
[fglrx] free Inv = 0
[fglrx] max Inv = 0
[fglrx] total Inv = 0
[fglrx] total TIM = 0
[fglrx] total FB = 0
[fglrx] total PCIe = 16384
Suspend to ram would also just freeze the complete machine at
resume.
Solution to those problems:
- Go to /lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod/ and apply the following
patch to the files firegl_public.c and agpgart_be.c: ati-fglrx8.20.8-patch.txt
- Rebuild the driver using the make.sh script from
/lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod/ and install it
- It will complain about verify_area undefined in
fglrx_agp.ko which can be fixed with the kernel module from
http://www.colino.net/wordpress-1.5/archives/2005/10/29/fglrx-unknown-symbol-verify_area/
but we do not need fglrx_agp.ko. Just fglrx.ko is used for the
t43p with a FireGL V3200 card. Just the above patch is
important.
- Add to your grub.conf file acpi_sleep=s3_bios e.g:
kernel /kernel-2.6.15 acpi_sleep=s3_bios
- Reboot the after installation of the new fglrx and try
suspend to ram with "acpitool -s" (resume by pressing the Fn
key).
Update 2006-01-18: Ati has released a new version (ati-driver-installer-8.21.7-i386.run) but it has the same problems as above.
Update 2006-05-10: Ati has released a new version (ati-driver-installer-8.24.8-x86.run) which fixes all the above problems. No more patches are needed.
powersave etc...
if [ -f /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor ]; then
echo "setting cpu governor ondemand ..."
echo ondemand > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor
fi
The fglrx Ati driver has different power states.
Print states:
aticonfig --list-powerstates
Set to powersave:
aticonfig --set-powerstate=2 --effective=now
It is unfortunately not possible to control this permanently
via the xorg.conf file.
The biggest power savers are on-demand CPU scaling and the above ati power
save. It is also possible to spin down the disk. Here is a small script
which uses the laptop_mode and reduces the commit interval of ext3.
There is a whole set of tools around this laptop_mode but I rarely use
the disk spin down and therefore I prefer a simple script:
#!/bin/sh
echo "setting 15min commit for ext3..."
# adjust those lines to your mountpoints:
mount -o remount,commit=900 /dev/sda7 /home
mount -o remount,commit=900,noatime /dev/sda7 /home
echo "setting laptop_mode 5sec..."
echo "5" > /proc/sys/vm/laptop_mode
# spin down after timeout:
hdparm -S 8 /dev/sda
To undo this I use
#!/bin/sh
echo "0"> /proc/sys/vm/laptop_mode
hdparm -S 0 /dev/sda
# there is no need to change the commit interval back
# but remember to shutdown properly otherwise you will
# loose 15min of work
acpid
At the moment I just use the "suspend to ram (=Fn
F4, lid close) button via /etc/acpi/default.sh.
Here the /etc/acpi/default.sh file: acpi_default_sh.txt
Suspend to disk
There is a problem that acpid does not generate any events anymore
after the system came back from suspend to disk. Otherwise it is
however working fine. Just configure the kernel .config option
CONFIG_PM_STD_PARTITION="/dev/sda3"
to point to a large enough swap partition (format it with mkswap).
In order to trigger the suspend to disk run "acpitool -S".
Modules
Some modules are not automatically loaded because they are not
directly needed by the corresponding hardware. Those need to be
explicitly loaded at boot time.
My /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6 file for loading modules
at boot time:
# eth0 should be the wire. Load first
tg3
# modprobe sr_mod SCSI CD...
sr_mod
# modprobe ppdev ...
ppdev
# modprobe ibm_acpi ...
ibm_acpi
# modprobe hdaps ...
hdaps
#
The kernel module
called ibm-acpi adds very useful things under
/proc/acpi/ibm/
Wlan
The standard kernel modules ipw2200, ieee80211 and firmware_class
support the Intel PRO/Wireless of the t43p.
To actually use it you still need to download the firmware from:
ipw2200.sf.net/firmware.php
and copy the .fw files to /lib/firmware/
The ipw2200-fw-2.4.tgz which was at the time of this writing the latest
software. It is unfortunately very unstable. It is ok for webbrowsing but
nfs and high volume applications will not work. I hope that Intel will
fix this. The firmware restarts and you will always loose a few packets
when this happens too often then the whole thing will die.
ipw2200: Sysfs 'error' log already exists.
ipw2200: Firmware error detected. Restarting.
ipw2200: Sysfs 'error' log already exists.
ipw2200: Firmware error detected. Restarting.
ipw2200: Sysfs 'error' log already exists.
ipw2200: Firmware error detected. Restarting.
ipw2200: Sysfs 'error' log already exists.
ipw2200: Firmware error detected. Restarting.
ipw2200: Sysfs 'error' log already exists.
Update 2006-01-19: The "Firmware error" problem is tied to WEP encryption.
It can be solved by using
options ipw2200 hwcrypto=0
in modprobe.conf
The card does no longer cryptography in this configuration.
The ipw2200 driver disables the IPW_IOCTL_WPA_SUPPLICANT ioctl in
the 2.6.15 kernel. Therefore you need to use the -Dwext driver from
wpa_supplicant:
wpa_supplicant -w -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -ieth1 -Dwext
I reported the firmware bug also to Intel but it looks like they are not
able to find the fault in their firmware. It was first time reported
in summer 2005 and since then nothing has changed.
Update 2006-02-22: ipw2200-1.0.13.tgz solves this problem (it has
hwcrypto=0 by default) and has a fix for a dhcp not problem working which
plagued version 1.0.11 and 1.0.12.
Modem
Linuxant (http://www.linuxant.com/drivers)
has a modem driver (hsf modem)
which will work for PCI ID 8086:266D. I downloaded
hsfmodem-7.18.00.07full.tar.gz. It will not work without
patches. To patch it you need to install it first:
Unpack the tar.gz file
make install
hsfconfig --patch
I had two paches to choose from:
1) class_device_parent Yes Support for the 2.6.15-rc1 kernel.
2) refrigerator No Power management improvement.
Install both patches.
Edit cnxthw_common.c and add:
#include <linux/pm_legacy.h>
Run again:
make install
Then run
hsfconfig
to configure the modem
Test it and then order a license to get full speed.
Problems: Power management does not work with this modem. The latop
will not suspend to ram if the hsf modules are loaded and the modem
was used before.
Here the /etc/init.d/hsf file: hsf_init_d.txt
Update 2006-02-09: linuxant has released hsfmodem-7.43.00.01full.tar.gz.
This version works out of the box with the 2.6.15 kernel and does not
need any patches. I find it really good that linuxant is so responsive.
Finger-print login
The integrated USB Finger Print Scanner (Biometric Coprocessor from STMicroelectronics) works quite well but does really require
training. The most important thing is to possition the finger everytime
the same way.
An extermely good description (with gentoo ebuild files) on how
to install it can be found here: http://toe.ch/~tsa/ibm-fingerprint/ (local copy)
All ebuild files and software for the bioapi in one tar file for easy download:
sys-auth_bioapi_2006-01.tar.gz
I have security-level="3" in /etc/tfmessbsp.cfg because 5 is too
annoying.
The finger print reader works best if you have a slighly wet finger.
Laptop Bag
I was for a long time looking for a small bag that protects the t43p.
I don't want a bulky bag. Afterall I don't pay for a slimline T-series
notebook to carry a bulky bag. I found the solution "Umates CPU Pouch Large":
http://www.umates.com/uk/cpupouch-large.asp
This is a pouch made of material similar to a diver suit. It protects
against bumps and scratches and does not increase the size of the laptop
too much. It's ideal to carry the laptop in your rucksack.
Improved cooling system
The t43p has basically the same hardware layout as the t40 but
computing power has grown. IBM should have improved to cooling
but probably due to the restructuring with Lenovo this did not happen.
Here is how I have solved the cooling problem: Guido's improved t43 cooling system
Fixing the thinkpad fan noise problem
The t43p and later models have all a manufacturing defect related to the fan.
For a description
of how to fix the fan noise problem see Thinkpad fan-noise fix.
HDAPS
The HardDisk Active Protection Sytem (accelerometer originally invented to park the disc when the
laptop falls).
The driver for this accelerometer is available in the standard 2.6.15
kernel. The homepage is:
http://hdaps.sourceforge.net/
Acceleration values can e.g be read at /sys/bus/platform/drivers/hdaps/hdaps/position and a temperature is available at /sys/bus/platform/drivers/hdaps/hdaps/temp1.
There is a gkrellm2 plugin called gkhdaps-0.0.1.tar.gz available
from hdaps.sourceforge.net. To get it
to work you need to change
the SYSFS_TEMP_FILE define in data.c to point to the temp1 sysfs file.
The .so plugin files must be copied to /usr/lib/gkrellm2/plugins/
Using HDAPS as a notbook theft protection
The idea is that the accelerometer can be used to detect if somebody
tries to carry the notebook way. For this to work you leave your
notebook in state "on" on the table. If somebody comes and moves the
notebook then an alarm will be generated.
The below scripts are based on http://thinkwiki.org/wiki/Script_for_theft_alarm_using_HDAPS. I have however modified them to use a simpler alarm
procedure. By writing 15 to /proc/acpi/ibm/beep you can generate a constant
alarm sound. In other words programming becomes easier as you can terminate
the tp-theft script as soon as you detect a "theft". To stop this
alarm a "0" has to be written to /proc/acpi/ibm/beep.
Browser Backward and Forward keys
The thinkpad has some additional keys next to the arrow keys.
Those keys can e.g be used as browser Backward and Forward keys.
Add this to your .Xmodmap file:
! t43p .Xmodmap file addon for your home directory
! the thinkpad extra keys, next to the arrow keys:
!keycode 233 = XF86Back
!keycode 234 = XF86Forward
keycode 233 = F20
keycode 234 = F19
! after changing run the command xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap
Now install
http://extensionroom.mozdev.org/more-info/keyconfig
Quit firefox and add to
~/.mozilla/firefox/SomeThing/prefs.js
the lines:
user_pref("keyconfig.main.goBackKb", "VK_F20");
user_pref("keyconfig.main.goForwardKb", "VK_F19");
Conclusion
The T43p is a very nice slimline laptop. IBM laptops have 3 mouse buttons
something that is important and rarely found on any other laptop.
Everything that I have tried
works with no problems under Linux.
In the past I had with other laptops the problem that sound or other
services would not work after suspend to ram. Here everything works.
The fingerprint reader sounds like something really cool but
it becomes rather annyoing to use over time because it often needs
2-3 retries until you are recognized. It's much faster to type a
password.
IBM/Lenovo has however a real problem with their thermal design. The laptop
fan is too loud and the cooling of north-bridge and south-bridge is not efficient.
This is really disappointing.
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