[ltp] T40 / Pentium M and Linux

[Will McDonald]

1) Thanks, Pam!!!
2) Damn, I want one of these, too.
3) I like both IBM and linux, and I think the combination of the two
(i.e. this list) shows an obvious synergy. Also, it's nice that IBM
employees use and care about linux support for their products.

On Wed, Mar 26, 2003 at 02:59:04PM -0500, Pam Huntley wrote:
> So,  I've been doing some rather informal testing of Linux on the T40, and
> it's been rather interesting.  Excellent hardware (I want one for myself!),
> and the basics work under Linux.  Here's some details about what I've
> found:
> 
> T40 and Red Hat 8.0
> Install - required the most recent kernel (2.4.18-27.8.0) to boot after
> install (although the install kernel worked just fine), which was a major
> pain to get installed as the only thing I could boot off was the boot CD,
> which didn't have the ethernet drivers on it.   Pheobe (RH 9.0 beta) didn't
> have this problem.
> Video - radeon card well supported, 2D accel.  not sure of 3D support
> status currently, ATI said they made docs available (on website). FireGL
> (on T40p models, 64MB RAM!) seen as a radeon, no 3d support????
> Audio - configured ok.  i810_audio (ac97_codec)
> Sound buttons - work (can get code for onscreen display, I think from
> freshmeat)
> PCMCIA - works. tested with wireless card.  had to manually specify cardctl
> insert, but once I did it detected it and loaded the wvlan_cs drivers.
> Power management - acpi of course not working.  apm --suspend worked
> (resumed okay), as well as suspend/resume from buttons.  hibernation not
> tested.
> Ethernet - 10/100 card supported with eepro100 driver.  Gigabit card also
> has a driver but I forgot it's name (intel gigabit card).  I only tested
> gigabit with pheobe, but driver worked ok.
> Wireless - 3 kinds of wireless cards.  Cisco - has driver, proprietary, no
> wireless extensions.  get it from cisco's website.  Phillips 802.11a/b card
> - no driver available yet, they are working on one, no formal ETA set
> (probably this year tho).   Intel 802.11b & 802.11a/b - no driver, and
> we're talking to them about that :-).
> Bluetooth - same old card, works with bluez stack from sourceforge.
> supposedly all the right stuff will be included in RH 9.0, including the
> utilities, but haven't tested it.
> Modem - works with Agere's driver, still not released :-(
> 3rd mouse button - doesn't work on trackpoint, can get patches for X and
> gpm.  Actually I think the changes are already in gpm, but X acceptance is
> very slow.
> IR - not tested
> speedstep - reports that support for this processor not (yet) available.
> (although you have some control over this in the BIOS setup)
> 
> Results for SuSE 8.1 were very similar, except I had to turn off acpi in
> the grub boot line, they offered to install experimental 3D acceleration
> drivers for the radeon card (seemed to work), and couldn't deal with the
> FireGL at all (had to configure it as framebuffer).
> 
> Red Hat 7.3 had a lot of issues, some that were fixed in updates
> Install completed ok
> sound card reported as not supported via sndconfig - worked with updates.
> video - using radeon/M7 driver.  uses 1024x768 (correct).  some error
> messages in logs, but it works.
> 3rd trackpoint button doesn't work (patch available for download from
> Linuxcare)
> bluetooth utilities not included, need to download from
> bluez.sourceforge.net
> wireless - cisco is only card that has a driver, Phillips (atheros) is
> working on one...
> modem - driver in development (some people have been able to get the
> competitor's driver, by smlink, to work!)
> a little confused about the pci controller, but it works.
> manual suspend & resume worked okay.
> PCMCIA does not work
> cdrom/DVD combo works.
> 
> 
> Please note I didn't do any kind of stress testing or detailed analysis,
> just quick "does it work?" type stuff.  Also I'm not sure of the current
> status of 3D support for the ATI cards under Linux.  SuSE appears to have
> them though, make what you will of that.
> 
> Hopefully we will have official certifications up soon.
> 
> Hope that helps some,
> 
> Pam
-- 
---------Will McDonald-----------------will@upl.cs.wisc.edu----------
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