[ltp] Re: What to take care of when buying a Lenovo?

[Donald P Kong]

On Sun, 2008-03-09 at 12:01 +0100,
linux-thinkpad-request@linux-thinkpad.org wrote:

> Message: 24
> Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2008 21:40:58 -0500
> From: Vincent C Jones <v.jones@networkingunlimited.com>
> Subject: Re: [ltp] What to take care of when buying a Lenovo?
> To: linux-thinkpad@linux-thinkpad.org
> Organization: Networking Unlimited, Inc.
> Reply-To: linux-thinkpad@linux-thinkpad.org
> 
> I'm running SuSE 10.3 on a Lenovo X61 (hard to beat the size & weight).
> The only things I found which did not work out of the box were: 
> 
> 1 - Hibernate worked but suspend to RAM was disabled (needed to add
> params "-f -a 3" for s2ram).
> 

on Debian Lenny/Sid, i added a file to /etc/pm/config.d/ with those
options and suspend works from Gnome Power Manager as well. will not try
hibernate as it once caused data loss and i'll try again after backing
up /home. not sure if it was caused by hibernate.

> 2 - SD card slot & USB slots were disfunctional (needed to add
> "irqfixup" to boot parameters until release of Jan 08 BIOS).
> 

SD and USB works fine in Debian Lenny and Ubuntu 7.10

> 3 - Hard drive active protection system (HDAPS) only has sensor support
> in main stream kernels, but no support for head unload. Posted patches
> work on SuSEified kernel sources.
> 

there are patches for this but i haven't tried them.

> 4 - SuSE release of Intel 4965AGN drivers do not support 802.11n.
> 

my X61 came with 3945abg and it works with ipw3945 or iwl3945. just no
LED indication when wireless is on. on Lenny, the Fn+F5 switches between
bluetooth and wifi, but not both at the same time. on Ubuntu 7.10, it
can alternate between all off, either one on or both on. LED indication
works on Ubuntu with ipw3945 but not iwl3945.

> 5 - Had to uninstall 64 bit Firefox and replace with 32 bit version to
> get Java plugin support. (General 64 bit problem, not unique to Lenovo).


did not use 64bit on this

> 6 - Volume and brightness buttons are not mapped correctly. Events are
> generated and command line controls work, so it is just a matter of
> tracking down the scripts SuSE uses and adjusting them appropriately.
> 

volume/brightness buttons work properly on Ubuntu 7.10. brightness
doesn't work on Lenny so i use the brightness applet in Gnome panel.

> As always, your mileage may vary. Check out the posted solutions for
> whatever models you are considering, watching out for configuration
> specifics such as graphics chip and installed miniPCI cards. 
> 
> Good luck and have fun!
> 
> Vince

overall, i feel Debian runs faster on this compared to Ubuntu. maybe
since Ubuntu loads more services which makes it more "friendly" to new
users.

sound on Lenny works with the 2.6.24 kernel from Sid. no sound with the
2.6.22-3 kernel in Testing.

-- 

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Donald P Kong
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