Thinkpad T61 Sound and Wireless

I have a lenovo thinkpad T61 and there are three things left until it's perfect
-Sound
-Wireless
-Desktop Effects

Starting with sound, I got information from these two sources.
http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/sho...d.php?t=159516
http://carrot.hep.upenn.edu/wiki/dok...thinkpad:start

It appears that I must patch the newest alsa driver, however i don't know exactly how to do it and if someone could show me the exact commands and steps that would be great.

Wireless support means that I have to roll an entire new kernel, the steps in the above sources are a little confusing, with the second link I got as far as mkinitdr and it said that wasn't a command so I was stuck.

Desktop Effects can wait until I fix these first two things.
I'm relatively new to linux but i know how to edit config files somewhat
All help is appreciated
~Thanks

[bbfuller]

Hello zman14321

Really I should be asking you to run:

/sbin/lspci

and copy and paste the lines that relate to your wireless and sound. You'll need to do that for the sound, but if you are sure you have 3945ABG wireless then there is a much easier way to do it...I'm assuming you have fedora 7 here.

There are now precompiled rpm's to get that particular wireless card working again.

Good howto here:

http://www.fedoraguide.info/index.ph...#Intel_IPW3945

post back with any questions/problems.

Oh, by the way, welcome to the forum.

Actually I have the Intel 4965 AGN, but I will run the lspci and post my specs here. Thanks for responding so quickly. I am using Fedora 7 x86_64 and if you need anymore information that I forgot just let me know.

Thanks for welcoming me to the forums, glad to be here

[bbfuller]

Hello zman4321,

I've been looking around for support on your 4965 wireless and a search on the forum turned up this:

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/forum/...hlight=4965AGN

Post #2 on that thread seems to offer some hope but I have no experience of the card at all so you'll be better either joining that thread or starting one of you own with the card description in it. Those who have started their own threads (try searching the forum for 4965) don't seem to be getting many answers though.

It's a problem for linux, brand new hardware, and you rarely know exactly what you are getting in a laptop till you have it.

If the above doesn't work then a cheap, supported, external card will probably be the only answer until linux catches up.

Thanks for your help, do you know of any cheap external cards that definitely work you'd recommend?

[bbfuller]

Ah, now there is a question.

I'll give you some general words on that and then think about it over night.

If you look at threads on this forum you'll see that one of the most common problems is manufacturers changing the chipset inside their wireless cards without changing the model number. Belkin are particularly good at this, one particular version of their cards comes in several variants I'm aware of so far. It's the F5D7000 and they are up to v6 and none of them have the same chipset inside.

If you don't mind usb, I've got one in mind, it's a netgear, but I've had a little trouble with a similar card dropping the connection under fedora and I'm not sure if it's usb or the machine or fedora. I'll connect it and let you know. sometime tomorrow. I've seen them for about 15 British Pounds on e-bay.

Thanks again, I have never had this great an experience with forums. I'm sure you've kept many people interested in keeping and learning more about gnu/linux.

From the two links in the first post, do you understand what commands I have to type to get sound working?

here's my /sbin/lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile Memory Controller Hub (rev 0c)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)
00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82566MM Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Contoller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 03)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation Mobile SATA IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
02:00.0 Memory controller: Intel Corporation Unknown device 444e (rev 01)
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Unknown device 4230 (rev 61)
15:00.0 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev ba)
15:00.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 04)
15:00.2 Generic system peripheral [0805]: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 21)
15:00.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd Unknown device 0843 (rev 11)
15:00.4 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 11)
15:00.5 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev 11)

[bbfuller]

As to the sound, I'm not usually very clued up about that.

However, before you try anybodys fixes I would make sure that your system is fully updated.

My laptop, a Lenovo C200 was dead soundwise with Fedora7 as installed, but as soon as we upgraded from the 2.6.21 range of kernels to the 2.6.22 series sound started to work. Probably won't be the same for yours but who knows.

Now you know Fedora is a very cutting edge distribution and therefore the kernel changes quite often, there was a time at the end of last month when we had three in the space of about a week and a half though the turnover is not usually that high.

However, the command in the thread you pointed me to where the author has provided precompiled rpm's for the sound needs to be run each time the kernel changes and you are reliant on those rpm's being there. I assume that all the while the author has the laptop it'll be OK, after that who knows. Perhaps by then general linux will have caught up.

The relevant part is that you type - or copy/paste:

rpm -i http://carrot.hep.upenn.edu/~vbraun/T61/alsa-kmdl-`uname -r`-1.0.14-61.fc7.lcg.x86_64.rpm

at the command prompt and it does it all for you.

rpm -i

tells linux to install an rpm file, the rest is the location to get the file from and its name. The uname -r part is a way of determining which kernel you are running so that you download the correct file for your kernel.

He's put a lot of work into that howto. I'm not sure I'd go as far as compiling my own kernel to get the wireless going though.

Missing Dependency: atrpms-kmdl-helper is needed by package alsa-kmdl-2.6.21-1.3228.fc7
Missing Dependency: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.21-1.3228.fc7 is needed by package alsa-kmdl-2.6.21-1.3228.fc7

That's what I get before I enter the i rpm command, when I attempt to download and install the alsa-kmdl-2.6.21-1.3228.fc7-1.0.14-61.fc7.lcg.x86_64.rpm he links to

I am fully up to date and running the kernel 2.6.22.1 which I think may be why it isn't working.

[bbfuller]

Yes, just had a look myself, I inputted the:

http://carrot.hep.upenn.edu/~vbraun/T61/

part of the command in a web browser. He obviously got it going for the 3228 kernel and either hasn't updated his kernel or has found some other way to get his card going.

Here is his home web page:

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~vbraun/

there is a link to contact him. I suppose you could always ask.

I haven't looked by the way, but there is an interesting site here where you may find some more information:

http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/

or maybe not!

[bbfuller]

Hello zman14321

Well, I've had the chance to try a couple of wireless cards now and I'm prepared to say a:

Netgear WG111 v2

or a

Netgear MA401 (mine says rev.D in small letters but I think there is only one sort)

The former is USB memory stick type format and the 54Mbps standard, easily found; the latter 11Mbps and PCMCIA card and rarer now.

11Mbps is fast enough for Internet, slower for file transfer. I just have a preference for the PCMCIA format.

They are both extremely reliable and work just for the plugging in. By the time you get to the Network Setup boxes they are listed, all drivers built in. I configure mine in the Network Setup and set them to be controllable by users but not to start at boot. When I've got them working there I start Network Manager, if it isn't already, and use that to control the card.

There are doubtless other cards that work as easily, I just haven't got one.

Great! I'll be picking one of those up, and wait for the 4965 agn to be integrated into the kernel (fedora 8?) I will continue on to try and figure out how to configure my sound card by emailing that guy, and intel x3100 for compiz fusion.

For any other lenovo t61 user reading this thread check out the links i put in the first post, they will get you going and set up a lot of useful things.

Thanks for your help bbfuller.

[bbfuller]

Hello zman14321

Since I've talked to you last, I've come across some more news on your card, see here:

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/forum/...d.php?t=163977

It's not exactly the same model number, but the downloaded files look like they should fit yours as well.

Might be worth a try before spending money.

Got sound and wireless working with the excellent help from ciphermonk and his post I linked to on the fedora forums.

If anyone needs help who has the same laptop as me just shoot me an email at zman14321@mac.com
I'd be glad to help out.