[ltp] T61p with nVIDIA Quadro FX 570M / WUXGA on 15.4" ?

[Robin Randhawa]

Greetings.

On Tue, 2007-09-11 at 17:35 +0100, gneeki@gmail.com wrote:
> Quick scan of the archives and nothing definitive - briefly, can anyone
> tell me if the T61p with nVIDIA Quadro FX 570M works well under linux?

I own a T61p and am running Ubuntu Feisty on it. Currently I have most
things working just fine but getting here was a fair bit of trouble.
I'll enumerate some of the things for your benefit :

1. The proprietary NVIDIA driver works just fine. However,
suspend/resume goes out the door with these and since I rely on that
feature, I'm using the kernel VESA driver instead.

2. I had to use compatibility mode for the SATA controller in the BIOS
in order to get the installation going. I switched back to AHCI mode and
things are fine.

3. The audio chipset isn't supported by the ALSA drivers in the ubuntu
mainline kernel for feisty or gutsy - even now. One must build them from
cvs and then things work fine. I didn't realise that one must explicitly
un-mute the sound using the special button - keep that in mind.

4. The Intel 4965 wireless chipset is unsupported by the ubuntu kernels,
last time I checked, so I had to get gutsy kernel sources from the git
repository, patch in mac80211 support, rebuild, and then build the
iwl4965 Intel drivers separately. With these drivers, all the Network
management utilities work fine. I hope this gets sorted out within the
Ubuntu kernel itself.

5. I also have the fingerprint recognition subsystem working after
following the instructions on thinkwiki.

> Very general question I know!  I'm after the best build/graphics
> Thinkpad available - dual-boot - only need tip-top graphics power in
> Windows - but it has to be functional in Linux!

If you can live with the initial labour, this is by far a very powerful
beast. I'm quite pleased with its performance.

> Any gotchas with the T61p with this card?

Look above.

> Also, is 1920x1200 WUXGA only readable by small animals on a 15.4"
> screen or is it ok for humans too?  I'm very happy with 1400x1050 on
> a 14.1" T40, as a comparison point.

Initially, I was a bit daunted and was reaching for my glasses but am
quite used to the 1920x1200 resolution now. Cannot use anything lower.

Hope this helps.

Cheerio!
Robin