[ltp] Networking T61 on Intrepid x86_64

[John Jason Jordan]

Just tried the latest live CD of Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex (beta). My T61 has (other things deleted for brevity):

jjj@Devil7:~$ lspci
00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82566MM Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Quadro NVS 140M (rev a1)
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 4965 AG or AGN Network Connection (rev 61)

The video came up correctly at 1680 x 1050. I always worry about the video because when I first installed Ubuntu on this machine it was back in the days of Gutsy and I had to muck around to get the video working. And it is not auto-detected and auto-configured on many distros.

I use a bluetooth mouse and the bluetooth manager in the gnome panel failed to connect it, although it did find it and detect its address. I finally got it working from the command line with sudo hidd --connect <address>.

That is the good part. 

The audio completely failed to work and I did not spend any time trying to fix it. 

The ethernet also failed to work. There is a new GUI for network manager, but it did not even display the adapter. However, lspci did detect it, it just failed to install whatever driver it needed. This is surprising - over the past couple of years that I have owned this computer I have occasionally tried other distros (live CDs only) and the ethernet has always "just worked."

The wireless also failed to work or appear in the network manager GUI. Again, it was detected because it appears in lspci, but whatever driver it needs was apparently not loaded.

Because I had no network connection I was unable to install drivers to fix anything. There is also a little troubleshooting GUI thing that tests all your stuff and will send a bug report to Intrepid testing. I went through it and it made a list of problems, but I could not send it because of lack of network.

Intrepid is scheduled for release October 30, but it appears there is a lot yet to fix. Meantime, Hardy x86_64 works fine, so I am in no rush to upgrade. I am posting this here just in case it is useful to someone else.