Installing Gentoo on IBM T41

[squareHat]

Installing Gentoo on IBM T41

Note: This is a work in progress...

Just picked up a new IBM T41 2394-DJU.

I have been running gentoo on a R31 for about a year, I remember it took me a few weeks (OK months:-) to get it really working perfectly with that machine.

This time round I thought I would create a how to of all the steps to get the machine up and humming. Hopefully this will be a help other T41 Linux and Gentoo users.

I bought a new drive, One for linux and one for that other operating system that I need from time to time... If you need to share the drive with windows follow one of the excellent guides out there.

BIOS CHANGES

I turned off:

*Power Mode for AC : Custom
*Power Mode for Battery : Custom
I defined the Custom mode as follows:
* Processor speed : Fixed Max
* Suspend Timer : Disabled
* LCD off timer : Disabled
* HDD off timer : 3 Min

Install Steps: (if you have never installed Gentoo read the excellent installation guide and use this as notes)

I used x86-Basic-1.4-20030911.iso to boot the machine.

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# date

(Make sure your time and date is correct. If wrong, set it with date MMDDhhmmCCYY )

NETWORK CARD: the network card worked out of the gate along with framebuffer and like most people I have DHCP server running on my LAN so the network in my case is already configured

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# fdisk /dev/hda

(Partition your drive)
I went with the following scheme:

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 5 40131 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 6 255 2008125 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda3 256 280 200812+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda4 281 7296 56356020 8e Linux LVM

FILESYSTEMS
I went with

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#mke2fs -j /dev/hda1 (Ext3 for boot)
#mkswap /dev/hda2 (swap)
#mke2fs -j /dev/hda3 (Ext3 for root 200Megs in this case)

for lvm you need to execute

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#vgscan
#pvcreate /dev/hda4
#vgcreate vg /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part4 (assuming you got on hda4)
# lvcreate -L5G -nusr vg (repeat for var, tmp, home, opt, change -L5G e.g. 5gig as appropriate...)

and I put reiserfs on the rest.

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#mkreiserfs /dev/vg/usr (repeat for var, tmp, home, opt)

MOUNT THE FILESYSTEMS

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# swapon /dev/hda2 (Activate the swap partition)
# mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/gentoo (Mount the root partition)                       
# cd /mnt/gentoo
# mkdir boot usr opt var tmp home (Create the OTHER mountpoints as appropriate)
# mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/gentoo/boot (repeat for usr,home,var,tmp,opt and so on)

grab the latest tarball

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 #wget url (check out http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/mirrors.xml  )

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# tar -xvjpf /mnt/cdrom/stages/stage*.tar.bz2           
# mirrorselect -a -s4 -o >> 
# cp /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/gentoo/etc/resolv.conf
# mount -t proc none /mnt/gentoo/proc
# chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash
# env-update; source /etc/profile
# emerge sync

INSTALL GENTOO:

I went with the following use flags in /etc/make.conf

CFLAGS="-march=pentium3 -O3 -pipe -msse2 -fomit-frame-pointer"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
USE="-kde -qt gtk2 oci8 imap sasl maildir"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
VIDEO_CARDS="radeon"

then

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# cd /usr/portage; scripts/bootstrap.sh
# emerge system
# ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/<path to time zone file> /etc/localtime
# nano -w /etc/fstab

my /etc/fsatb looks this:

/dev/hda1 /boot ext3 noauto,noatime 1 1
/dev/hda3 / ext3 noatime 0 0
/dev/hda2 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/cdroms/cdrom0 /mnt/cdrom iso9660 noauto,ro 0 0
/dev/vg/usr /usr reiserfs noatime 0 2
/dev/vg/opt /opt reiserfs noatime 0 0
/dev/vg/var /var reiserfs noatime 0 2
/dev/vg/home /home reiserfs noatime 0 2
/dev/vg/tmp /tmp reiserfs noatime 0 2
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0

INSTALL THE KERNEL

I went with gentoo-sources which as of this date gave me gentoo-sources-2.4.22r7

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# emerge gentoo-sources
# cd /usr/src/linux

copy my .config to /usr/src/linux (this is my initial try)

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#make oldconfig (I think this step is necessary if you are copying someone .config file into a new kernel source tree?)
#make menuconfig

You will need LVM if you choose LVM and for gentoo VM fs, /proc fs, /dev fs, /dev fs auto mount at boot)

So for I have found that you need to have:

Local APIC support on uniprocessors has to be disabled for the machine to shutdown properly

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# make dep && make clean bzImage modules modules_install
# cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage.date ; cp .config /boot/config.date

I installed the following tools

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# emerge syslog-ng vixie-cron reiserfsprogs lvmuser

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# rc-update add syslog-ng default
# rc-update add vixie-cron default   
# rc-update add domainname default

Finalise settings before your first boot:

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# passwd
# useradd your_user -m -G users,wheel,audio -s /bin/bash
# passwd your_user
# echo mymachine > /etc/hostname
# echo mydomain.com > /etc/dnsdomainname 

/etc/hosts "127.0.0.1 localhost mymachine")

Set up Networking

edit /etc/conf.d/net ( iface_eth0="dhcp" )

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# rc-update add net.eth0 default

I went with grub

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# emerge grub
# grub
grub> root (hd0,0)
grub> setup (hd0)
grub> quit
# nano -w /boot/grub/grub.conf

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default 1
timeout 5
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
                                                                                                                                
title=Gentoo Linux Stable
  root (hd0,0)
  kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinux.stable root=/dev/hda3
                                                                                                                                
title=Gentoo Linux du jour
  root (hd0,0)
  kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinux.new root=/dev/hda3 video=vesa,mtrr vga=834

REBOOT


TWEAKS

edit /etc/conf.f/hdparm

all_args="-d1 -c3"

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#rc-update add hdparm default

XFREE GNOME etc

I used this guide as you main reference: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/desktop.xml

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#emerge xfree xfree-drm gnome mozilla

(etc...)

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#/usr/bin/X11/xf86cfg

works to get you up and running with X quickly

First I tried the Now to get the ATI drivers wasn't too impressed, they worked, but didn't match the reliability of the rest of the system.

I got Xfree to work reliabilty and 1200 GLX Gears,

here is my XF86Config.

However after purchasing a new whiz bang laptop, and being confident enought with Desktop linux to give windows the boot:-) I installed accelerated-X, it's not free and not open source, but it's still an X server and an open standard, so I can still sleep at night:-) . I get 1950 in GLXgears, and everything related to the screen seems to really work well. Flightgear works nicely, things scroll better etc.

CREDITS

These are sites that I found most usefull:

http://bellet.info/~bellet/laptop/t40.html
http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/ibm.html

[balou]

Great!!! I have juste bought the same notebook and i planned to install a gentoo on it shortly.
Thx for your precious information.

[ph03n1x]

Great tutorial

Didn't need though but it would have helped me

I'm messing around with xf86 atm, it says no screen found...

However on my previous install i somehow made it work with ati-drivers but i cannot remember how, too bad ...

[Ian]

Very nice guide.

I'm hoping on getting a T41 for college in a few months, but that depends on how much my parents feel like giving me. I'd probably need Windows on it as well, for school, but oh well, at least this guide will save me some time with X11 and such.

Speaking of X11, can you try to install X.org's X11 implementation, instead of XFree86? I'd like to know if there's any issues with that, though I doubt it.

[ph03n1x]

Me again


Did u get those LEDs working? My W-Lan led and the num-lock stay dark, althout both functions are working correct. Any progress concerning ati?

I have actually a t41p and shell runs @ 1440x1050 and X did so too. Since I emerged gnome it doesn't want to do more than 1280x1024 weird, eh?

[cineto]

You may want to try synaptics drivers., then you will get:

- Movement with adjustable, non-linear acceleration and speed.
- Button events through short touching of the touchpad.
- Double-Button events through double short touching of the touchpad.
- Dragging through short touching and holding down the finger on the
touchpad.
- Middle and right button events on the upper and lower corner of
the touchpad.
- Vertical scrolling (button four and five events) through moving
the finger on the right side of the touchpad.
- The up/down button sends button four/five events.
- Horizontal scrolling (button six and seven events) through moving
the finger on the lower side of the touchpad.
- The multi-buttons send button four/five events, and six/seven
events for horizontal scrolling.
- Adjustable finger detection.
- Multifinger taps: two finger for middle button and three finger
for right button events. (Needs hardware support. Not all models
implement this feature.)
- Run-time configuration using shared memory. This means you can
change parameter settings without restarting the X server.

Let's install it:

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cervinia root # ACCEPT_KEYWORDS=~x86 emerge -vp synaptics
 
These are the packages that I would merge, in order:
 
Calculating dependencies ...done!
[blocks B     ] x11-base/xfree ("virtual/x11" from pkg x11-base/xorg-x11-6.7.0)
[blocks B     ] x11-base/xfree (from pkg x11-base/xorg-x11-6.7.0)
[blocks B     ] x11-base/xfree ("virtual/xft" from pkg x11-base/xorg-x11-6.7.0)
[ebuild  N    ] x11-base/xorg-x11-6.7.0  +3dfx -cjk -debug +doc -hardened -ipv6 +nls +pam -pie -sdk -static  0 kB
[ebuild  N    ] x11-misc/synaptics-0.12.5   0 kB
[ebuild  N    ] app-arch/rpm2targz-9.0-r2   0 kB
[ebuild  N    ] sys-apps/utempter-0.5.3.2-r1   0 kB
[ebuild  N    ] x11-terms/xterm-184  -Xaw3d +truetype  0 kB

As I dont want (yet) move into xorg, I just downloaded the synaptics tarfile, untarred it and run make.
After that I followed the steps described in acompaning INSTALL file, basically:

1. cp synaptics_drv.o into /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/input/ (I'm unsure about the permisions so just chmod'ed it to have same permisions as the other files in the directory)

2. Add some lines to the XF86config file. Mine is below, it allows you to use any of the usb mouse, touchpad and clit pointer even at the same time:

• Section "Files"
  RgbPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
  ModulePath "/usr/X11R6/lib/modules"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/CID/"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/"
  EndSection
  
  Section "ServerFlags"
  DontZoom
  DontZap
  EndSection
  
  Section "Module"
  Load "dbe"
  Load "extmod"
  Load "type1"
  Load "freetype"
  Load "dri"
  Load "glx"
  Load "record"
  Load "xtrap"
  Load "speedo"
  EndSection
  
  Section "DRI"
  Mode 0666
  EndSection
  
  Section "InputDevice"
  Identifier "Keyboard0"
  Driver "Keyboard"
  # Option "AutoRepeat" "500 30"
  # Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
  # Option "XkbLayout" "us_intl"
  EndSection
  
  Section "InputDevice"
  Identifier "Mouse0"
  Driver "mouse"
  Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
  Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
  Option "Emulate3Buttons" "off"
  Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
  
  EndSection
  
  #############################################
  #synaptics pointer
  Section "InputDevice"
  Driver "synaptics"
  Identifier "Mouse[1]"
  Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
  Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
  Option "LeftEdge" "1700"
  Option "RightEdge" "5300"
  Option "TopEdge" "1700"
  Option "BottomEdge" "4200"
  Option "FingerLow" "25"
  Option "FingerHigh" "30"
  Option "MaxTapTime" "180"
  Option "MaxTapMove" "220"
  Option "VertScrollDelta" "100"
  Option "MinSpeed" "0.06"
  Option "MaxSpeed" "0.12"
  Option "AccelFactor" "0.0010"
  Option "SHMConfig" "on"
  EndSection
  #################################################
  
  Section "Monitor"
  Identifier "monitor0"
  VendorName "Generic"
  ModelName "Flat Panel 1400x1050"
  HorizSync 31.5-90
  VertRefresh 59-75
  
  
  # TV fullscreen mode or DVD fullscreen output.
  # 768x576 @ 79 Hz, 50 kHz hsync
  # ModeLine "768x576" 50.00 768 832 846 1000 576 590 595 630
  
  # 768x576 @ 100 Hz, 61.6 kHz hsync
  # ModeLine "768x576" 63.07 768 800 960 1024 576 578 590 616
  
  EndSection
  
  Section "Device"
  Identifier "device0"
  VendorName "ATI"
  BoardName "ATI Radeon (fglrx)"
  Driver "ati"
  Option "DPMS"
  BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
  Option "AGPMode" "4"
  Option "Accel"
  Option "EnablePageFlip" "on"
  Option "DDCMode" "on"
  Option "IgnoreEDID" "off"
  # Option "AGPFastWrite" "on" hang!
  
  EndSection
  
  Section "Screen"
  Identifier "screen0"
  Device "device0"
  Monitor "Monitor0"
  DefaultColorDepth 24
  
  Subsection "Display"
  Depth 24
  Modes "1400x1050" "1280x1024"
  # Modes "1280x1024"
  EndSubsection
  EndSection
  
  Section "ServerLayout"
  Identifier "Cervinia Layout"
  Screen "Screen 0"
  InputDevice "Mouse[1]" "CorePointer"
  InputDevice "Mouse0" "AlwaysCore"
  InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
  EndSection

3. You will also need a kernel with this options on it:

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/tmp/syna/synaptics-0.12.5
> gzip -dc /proc/config.gz | grep CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2
CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2=y
/tmp/syna/synaptics-0.12.5
> gzip -dc /proc/config.gz | grep CONFIG_INPUT_EVDEV
CONFIG_INPUT_EVDEV=y

That all, works like a charm.
Now you don't have to mis the scroll wheel of your mouse when you are in the road.

Now set up gestures in mozilla to take plenty use of your pointers...[/quote]

[vrghost]

Just received one of these T41 and playing around with it. But there are three devices I still have not got running.

1. WiFi interface
Found a lot of docs on how to get it running. But right now it is rather unimportant. Will have to wait until tomorrow or something.

2. IRDa interface.
Might be fun, but not important at the moment, but anyone who knows what chipset/driver to use, please do tell.

3. Bluetooth interface.
This is the one that I realy want running. And I have a problem finding any kind of info on how to get the bluetooth environment running properly.

So if anyone happens to have a clue how I can get the IRDA and the bluetooth working in the kernel I would owe that person a pint. And I stand by my word (even though you might have to be in London for the occasion)

[phuber]

Kernel 2.6: For bluetooth support, enable that bluetooth protocols found under networking then enable the bluetooth-usb device driver since the bluetooth chip is internally hooked to the usb. fn-f5 to enable the chip.

I compiled it as a module so I can load that as needed and save power when I don't need bt.

I tried connecting to my ericsson but that didn't seem to work at all. Nevertheless, the kernel config mentioned above should basically work.

--

I myself have lots of troubles getting 3D to work. There are ton's of hints out there but nothing seems to work. I also wonder why I have to enter this ChipID in the X config and what value it should be. Nothing seems to work

And since xfree-drm is kernel 2.4 only (as of now) I'm messing with the ati fglrx driver but...

Has anyone a working X setup with 3D under 2.6? I'd love to have a look at you configs...

[kpoman]

Hello!
I am very interested in buying that laptop, they say its autonomy is very good! But I know IBM uses its own software to enhance battery length;
I'd like to know if its gonna work well with Linux. Could someone please tell, using same apps, whats the ratio between windows and linux lifetime cycle ?
thanks

[squareHat]

I don't know much about the enhancement for windows.

But you can throttle the CPU, under Linux

you can use ACPI, or you can use APM,

I am still using APM as I still are using a 2.4 kernel, so you can suspend, blank the screen when your not doing anything.

In order to get the disk to power down you will need to change the journalling options on whatever filesystem you choose.

[phuber]

I found acpi to be somewhat not working. x does not survive a suspend regardless of the video card driver so I went back to APM (kernel 2.6).

cpu frequency scaling works very well with the modules speedstep_centrino and freq_table loaded and the powernowd loaded (the powernowd is cpu-independent). cpufreqd didn't seem to work at all.

[ph03n1x]

Enable also the speedstepping stuff for the kernel, this works as well

Concerning xorg i can say it works

[phuber]

My last post wasn't clear. It should've read something like speedstep didn't work for a while but now does with modules x, y and the powernowd.

From my observations, it seems that speedstep doesn't work automatically - you need a daemon that tells the cpu what speed to run at.

For XFree... You got everything working with 2.6, acpi, and what video driver? So far, the X radeon driver was the only one to wake up reliably from suspend. And that under apm only.

Could you please post the important parts of your config files etc?

thanks

[OSTSJoe]

Nice howto. I've got a t41 with gentoo and 2.6. I've got throttling working agressivly and tried all sorts of tweaks with the hard drive, but I can't get the battery to last over 2.5 hours. I even called ibm and had them overnight me a new battery (hows that for customer service) but that didn't help at all. Anyone know whats causing this?

[!db!]

Hello,

I just bought a T41 (should be getting it next week). I currently use Gentoo on 2 other computers: 1 desktop and a Thinkpad 600. Both have dual boot with XP.

IBM preinstalls XP Pro (under, I believe, a single NTFS partition) on T41s. They offer a reinstallation disk which resets everything to factory settings. I've never really had any problems dual-booting with my other machines, but I'm slightly concerned about this one ... what are you experiences, and/or how have you manage to dual-boot (or are you all using Gentoo only)?

Thanks for any feedback (and great overview of a Gentoo install on a T41!)

[barlad]

No problem dual booting here. I resized my NTFS partition using PartitionMagic (there are a lot of freewares/sharewares out there for that kind of work) then installed gentoo on the freespace. I am using grub to dual boot.

There are a few things that I still have to make work on my T41:

- Fn+F12 for suspend to disk. Neither apm or acpi seem to recognize that event. (it is not even logged). Regular suspend to disk works well unless I activate dri.

- Fn + F2 for "blank out screen" is not recognized by ACPI. Not sure how I can make that work.

- Suspend to Ram crashes due to X. It's due to dri. Did any of you manage to have resume work with X using dri (either ati or xfree drivers)?

- Cannot use IBM sensors. You have to use ACPI if you want to get CPU temperature and a few other information. lm-sensors won't work since apparently some IBM laptops can get their hardware corrupted if you are trying to use lm-sensors on them.

[!db!]

Thanks barlad!

Going through another forum on thinkpads, resizing the NTFS seems like the preferred option. My question now would be how much resizing is possible? Could you split up a 30GB hard drive into 2?

[barlad]

Yeah without any problem. As far as I remember, you can resize your partition as much as you want as long as it does not imply deleting some datas (otherwise it would ruin the whole purpose of "resizing").

[lblblb]

Hi,

I'm having problems with my grub config. I came across your documentation. It's great, very easy to follow (except note the difference for the 2.6 kernel in the make bzImage)

I know this will sound funny, given that I'm having problems with grub, but I think you may have mis-written grub/partition related info. Please confirm.

You say your partitions are:

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 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 5 40131 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 6 255 2008125 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda3 256 280 200812+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda4 281 7296 56356020 8e Linux LVM

mapped to the filesystem as:

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#mke2fs -j /dev/hda1 (Ext3 for boot)
#mkswap /dev/hda2 (swap)
#mke2fs -j /dev/hda3 (Ext3 for root 200Megs in this case)

then, you mount the filesystems into the proper subtree for chroot'ing, and then you chroot.
....do a bunch of system set up stuff...
then grub:

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grub> root (hd0,0)
grub> setup (hd0)
grub> quit 

I'm with you so far -- the "root" here "the disk" and "the partition" numbers (counting from 0, of course) of the partition housing /boot, right? (in your case /dev/hda1). Any time we see "(hd0,0)", we can effectively replace it in our minds with "/boot". If I follow your document, then "root" doesn't *actually* mean the location of the root filesystem which would be (hd0,2) aka /dev/hda3 , right? It instead points to "/boot".

and " setup (hd0)" means to install the bootloader to the MBR of /dev/hda , right?

and so then, a clip from your grub.conf...

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default 1
timeout 5
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title=Gentoo Linux Stable
  root (hd0,0)
  kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinux.stable root=/dev/hda3

now, in the splashimage, we have the path (using substitution) of /boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz" , which looks correct to me.
Then, for some reason, grub wants us to again declare "root" (but it's actually "/boot"), so we do; as before, "root" (aka "/boot") still points to "(hd0,0)" (aka "/dev/hda1")

but then there's (using the "(hd0,0)" = "/dev/hda1" = "/boot" substitution):

kernel /boot/boot/vmlinux.stable root=/dev/hda3

so, the path for the kernel *appears* to me to be incorrect, as it should be instead "(hd0,0)/vmlinux.stable -- can you confirm this as correct or erroneous?
and then, somehow, after all this, because of grub's screwy, dumb syntax for using the keyword "root" to mean both "root location for grub" and "root filesystem", "root"="/dev/hda3"="/"="(hd0,2)"

What just happened in that last line?

[miju]

Hi there,

since kernel 2.6.7 i got everything work i need:

Suspend to Ram with ACPI
Software Suspend (swsusp2)
both with the r200 DRM without crashes and working usb after resume

the only thing that i don't like is to restart the computer if i want to use atitvout...

do you know alternatives?

[phuber]

I'm still having problems with acpi. Could you please post the following things:

- XF86config
- Kernel Config
- /etc/acpi

Thanks!

[miju]

I use the 2.6.7 stable Kernel from kernel.org

patched with software-suspend-2.0.0.88-for-2.6.7 from swsusp.sourceforge.net

I installed the drm r200 and common files from http://www.freedesktop.org/~dri/snapshots

I am using xorg-x11 because software suspend with xfree 4.3 and drm did not work.

my .config:
http://www.student.informatik.tu-darmst ... ig/.config

my xorg.conf
http://www.student.informatik.tu-darmst ... /xorg.conf

my suspend script:
http://www.student.informatik.tu-darmst ... suspram.sh


important lines in the /etc/suspend.conf are:
SWSUSP_LEAVE_X_BEFORE_SUSPEND="nvidia"
SWSUSP_UNLOAD_MODULES_BEFORE_SUSPEND="yes"


Hope that helps.

Greets Fabio

[vrghost]

First, nice walkthrough, saves time, and thats allways nice.

Jupp, someone decided that I should have one of these small nice T41 (think it is the T41P, it is the one with Wi-Fi and bluthouth, also a gigabit ethernet adapter, last time I installed it on this machine it seem to take the eepro100 driver but not anymore, (yes this is the second time, I was stupid enough to actually belive that the internal winblows team at my company would understand that I did not mean ghost my disk when I said dont touch the partition table).

Anyway, the driver seems to be

(have some problems with sockets on this one, so if you are building from stage one you might want to wait a while with this one)
Will get back to this some other day.

e1000. so just modprobe that after boot and it seems to do the trick, will add any other usefull information I find (so I can find it the next time I or someone else manage to fuck up the install )

[!db!]

I just bought a T41 from IBM (2378DMF). Here's a bit of info on how I successfully configured gentoo-dev-sources. Thanks to all previous Gentoo'ers who successfully, through trial and error, managed to configure various thinkpads ... and who have posted their experiences.

I need, like many, a Win/'Nix combo (dual-boot), so I first let the T41 boot straight out of the box so the IBM preinstallation XP PRO/NTFS setup could do it's thing. Changed the BIOS so it could boot from CDs. Then defragged the HD and resized the NTFS partition with QtParted available on the SystemRescueCD. Only kept 8GB for Gentoo ...

2.6.7-r8 stage 1 installation from a 1.4 LiveCD downloaded over 6 months ago. Didn't try setting up the built-in wireless at first, instead went for the built-in ethernet. A few tweaks and away I went ...

fdisk /dev/hda

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DEVICE    BOOT START  END  BLOCKS     ID  SYSTEM
/dev/hda1 *    1      2293 17335048+  7   HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2 *    2294   2298 37800      83  Linux
/dev/hda3      2299   2365 506520     82  Linux swap
/dev/hda4      2366   3403 7847280    83  Linux

/etc/make.conf

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USE="-gnome f77 kde qt X gtk2 tcltk dvd cdr samba cups alsa"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-O3 -march=pentium3 -fomit-frame-pointer -funroll-loops -pipe"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"

My .config for 2.6.7-r8. Reading various posts, with a fair amount of additional tweaking, I got the main hardware I'm interested in working perfectly. It isn't always clear from their posts if Gentoo'ers are installing gentoo-dev-sources or not, so one can get quite confused as to what kernel options and what modules should be installed . What I think are key kernel settings:

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Processor type and features ---> Processor family (Pentium M)
Power management options (ACPI, APM) ---> Power Management Support (Y)
                                     ---> ACPI Support et cie (Y)
                                     ---> APM (N)
Bus Options ---> PCI Support (Y) ---> PCI Hotplug support ---> Support for PCI Hotplug (Y)
                                                          ---> ACPI PCI Hotplug driver (Y)
Device Drivers ---> Networking Support (Y) ---> Bluetooth subsystem support (M)
                                           ---> Ethernet (1000 Mbit) ---> Intel Pro/1000
               ---> Input device support ---> (1400) Horizontal screen resolution
                                         ---> (1050) Vertical screen resolution
               ---> Character devices ---> /dev/agpgart (Y)
                                      ---> Intel 440LX ... (Y)
                                      ---> Direct Rendering Manager (Y)
                                      ---> ATI Radeon (Y)
               ---> Graphics support ---> ATI Radeon display support (Y)
                                     ---> DDC/I2C for ATI Radeon support (Y)
               ---> Sound (M) ---> ALSA (mostly M)
               ---> USB (mostly M)

NB - Bluetooth and USB are installed as modules, but are not currently loaded - No such devices at home, so no testing yet.

/etc/fstab

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/dev/hda2           /boot      ext2        noauto,noatime   1 2
/dev/hda4           /          reiserfs    noatime          0 1
/dev/hda3           none       swap        sw               0 0
/dev/cdroms/cdrom0  /mnt/cdrom auto        noauto,user,ro   0 0
none                /proc      proc        defaults         0 0
none                /dev/shm   tmpfs       defaults         0 0

Emerged xfree (no xfree-drm!!!). XF86Config here and some snippets:

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Load "glx"
Load "dri"

...

Section "Device"
  Identifier "Mobility 7500"
  Driver     "radeon"
  #...
  Boardname  "ATI radeon Mobility M7 LW"
  Option     "AGPMode" "4"
  Option     "Accel"
  Option     "AGPFastWrite" "Yes"
  Option     "EnablePageFlip" "on"
  Option     "DDCMode" "Yes"
  BusID      "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

...

Section "DRI"
  Mode 0666
EndSection

Emerged ipw2100 for the wireless. Many posts on various configurations (scripts, ifplugd, etc.) for getting wireless/wired/no-lan setups on boot, but I haven't tweaked with this much yet. For the moment ...

/etc/conf.d/net

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iface_eth0="dhcp"
dhcpcd_eth0="-t 2"
# only waits a few seconds on boot for a 'wired' dhcp, if not moves on
# (but of course slightly complains that no eth0 was found ...)

I only use the built-in wireless at home, and for the moment I just:

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modprobe ipw2100
dhcpcd eth1

and that works fine for me when I need it ... Note: whenever a new kernel is recompiled, hostap-drivers and ipw2100 need re-emerging.

Set up ALSA sound exactly as x86processor did here ... bottom of the page ... ... thanks! Worked like a charm.

I'm very happy with the T41. Thin, light, and awfully quick compared to what I'm used to. Battery life is well over 3.5 hours for sure. IBM keys work fine. In the end, I think 2.6-xx makes life simpler for hardware recognition and configuration. I can say this because I previously spent some time configuring a Thinkpad600 running 2.4 ... and not as easy. Hope this may help someone. Good luck.

[Eagle_]

Hi
I bought recently a T41 (IBM ThinkPad) computer and i install Gentoo on it.

I had been told it would be good for the battery to be empty completly once a month. I saw at my friend computer (runing windows on it) that he had a program he can acces it while the computer just starting by pressing on Access IBM. This program can empty his computer battery completly. I didnt press on Access IBM before i install my gentoo on my computer so i dont know if i where having this program or not.

My qestion is: Is there a program from linux which can empty the battery completly? or i just suppose to use the battery until the computer crash by out of battery volts? (I think the second way is not so good).

P.S

I bought the bigger battry cepasety, and it last for about 6.5h with XFCE4 and about 5.8-5.9 with KDE 3.2.2

Thanks