A Lenovo W520 Thread.

[jdii1215]

I have a Lenovo W520 Laptop. I tried to get Fedora 16 to load onto a Sandisk Cruzer Flash Drive from the DVD install, and ended up with installing on HD instead because the 64-bit DVD installer told me I did not have enough room for updates and test updates on the freshly (by the installer, supposedly) wiped Cruzer Flash Drive, which has 14-15 true Gigabytes of Flash memory. Looks like the installer only set up enough area to install from DVD in it's temp partitiion, and the Flash Drive needs to be formatted all the way. The Fedora 16 install to HD was uneventful, after having to find the right symbol for the wireless router(DIR 655 A4 hardware version) to enter the router's WPA key as password.

The installer set up:
1. flat panel at 1600x900 which is correct for the HD+ panel option I ordered on my Lenovo, and set up color at 24 bit only. Would love to know how to set it to 32-bit (the HD+ has true 32 bit capability).

2. The format of HD correctly. 500 GB (true Gigabytes, about 475 GB) SATA HD.

3. Handled the install of my USB printer right, better than any orher distro I have tried. The printer needed a cups-gutenprint setup to work, and the base support was there for setup-- the printer setup only had to load the task handler for Epson printers package (forget the name, sorry) for the printer to behave right. The printer module did this right and automatically, though it properly asked for permission and the default Gnomeish desktop permissions handler properly (for fedora) asked for root password before loading the task handler package.

4. Loaded proper handling for everything, except the fingerprint reader (which I had to turn off in BIOS for Linux, because Lenovo makes no support software for it for Linux) AND the 2nd head for video (off in BIOS also) which is a Nvidiia Quadro 1000M which NO distro has handled right. This is not too surprising, the 1000m does use brand-new Optimus technology.

I would like to eventually get the Nvidia head working so I can move to larger flat screen external (the Lenovo has a DisplayPort for that, AND a VGA port for older projectors). So, the video is baing handled by the Intel integrated (Intel 3000) video for now.

5. Will have to talk to Lenovo about software for Linux. I knda liked the stuff they provided that they called ThinkVantage software. It checked all sorts of thiings, including an automatic 10-min system (hardware)validation test every week or ten days.

I know this is long, and as I think functionally and empriically and am self-taught a lot I lack the apptitude to have detailed package names andknow how to isolate things fully in Linux yet - so expect amny questions as I learn how to ask them in an answerable way.

John C. Danielson, II

[stevea]

Originally Posted by jdii1215

The installer set up:
1. flat panel at 1600x900 which is correct for the HD+ panel option I ordered on my Lenovo, and set up color at 24 bit only. Would love to know how to set it to 32-bit (the HD+ has true 32 bit capability).

I have doubts that you are right about this, especially since there is no 32 color standard. There are some 30 bit flavors including HDMI 1.3. In any case this is a vid driver parameter issue that might be setup on your xorg.conf file IF the driver supports it. If you "man intel" or "man radeon" or "man nv" you'll see the depth parameter is sometimes configurable(Option "DepthBits" "integer"), but not beyond 24 bits for these drivers. You might find 30bit on the proprietary (non-free) vid driver, but not in the free driver. See Leigh123 vid driver thread.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_depth
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=204752

2. The format of HD correctly. 500 GB (true Gigabytes, about 475 GB) SATA HD.

Unless you plan to dual-boot then you want a GPT partition table. If your laptop has UEFI hen you can use GPT adn dual-boot Win7 or later.

On a single-spindle system I suggest you avoid the LVM (logical volume manager) and just create a root ("/"), swap and maybe /home partitions. Grub can boot off your ext4 "/" root - you don't need a separate boot partition. For a 64bit Fedora install 30GB of root is fine. Your swap should be the size of DRAM or larger if you wan suspend to work (and you do on a laptop). The size of /home is up to you. Since yo uhave a lot of disk, maybe set aside another 30GB root for the next Fedora distro, and you can mount anything else you like at /opt or /common ... later.

...

4. Loaded proper handling for everything, except the fingerprint reader (which I had to turn off in BIOS for Linux, because Lenovo makes no support software for it for Linux) AND the 2nd head for video (off in BIOS also) which is a Nvidiia Quadro 1000M which NO distro has handled right. This is not too surprising, the 1000m does use brand-new Optimus technology.

I have a T510 and had no problem getting the fingerprint reader setup in F14. The
system-config-authentication has a fingerprint enable toggle I don't use it, so can't say about F16.

I would like to eventually get the Nvidia head working so I can move to larger flat screen external (the Lenovo has a DisplayPort for that, AND a VGA port for older projectors). So, the video is baing handled by the Intel integrated (Intel 3000) video for now.

The DP interface works fine on my T510. You do need an adapter to get from DP to anything rational like an HDMI. The nvidia drives a 1080p screen nicely. I little choppy with the Intel.

best wishes - sounds like a nice system.

[jdii1215]

Originally Posted by stevea

I have doubts that you are right about this, especially since there is no 32 color standard. There are some 30 bit flavors including HDMI 1.3. In any case this is a vid driver parameter issue that might be setup on your xorg.conf file IF the driver supports it. If you "man intel" or "man radeon" or "man nv" you'll see the depth parameter is sometimes configurable(Option "DepthBits" "integer"), but not beyond 24 bits for these drivers. You might find 30bit on the proprietary (non-free) vid driver, but not in the free driver. See Leigh123 vid driver thread.

I understand, although Lenovo specified the panel was 32-bit color capable when I queried that to them. That was part of the significance of the + after the HD - it was atrue-color panel. It might well be that they have sold me something tht will support 32-bit color later, when that is adopted. I will look at your links, but also will look at displayport linkings I can find.

Unless you plan to dual-boot then you want a GPT partition table. If your laptop has UEFI hen you can use GPT and dual-boot Win7 or later.

...GPT???? I am sorry, do not understand that acronym, but I think LVM was set up anyway, with one big partition of 473 true GB for / and one swap of unknown size - will look at it with Parted Magic on the UBCD CD.

I have a T510 and had no problem getting the fingerprint reader setup in F14. The system-config-authentication has a fingerprint enable toggle I don't use it, so can't say about F16.

Ok, thanks, I have no idea what you mean by system-config-authentication, I am using the system configurer from the menu in the default F16 install. I see no authentication icon or option there.

The DP interface works fine on my T510. You do need an adapter to get from DP to anything rational like an HDMI. The nvidia drives a 1080p screen nicely. I little choppy with the Intel.

I have an Intel Integrated Graphics 3000 on a Gen 2 Quad-core Intel i7 2760QM CPU. It is quite unchoppy. As to the Nvidia, I have as of now no externel video device to plug into it.

best wishes - sounds like a nice system.

thanks for the best wishes.

[leigh123linux]

Originally Posted by jdii1215

I understand, although Lenovo specified the panel was 32-bit color capable when I queried that to them. That was part of the significance of the + after the HD - it was atrue-color panel. It might well be that they have sold me something tht will support 32-bit color later, when that is adopted. I will look at your links, but also will look at displayport linkings I can find.





...GPT???? I am sorry, do not understand that acronym, but I think LVM was set up anyway, with one big partition of 473 true GB for / and one swap of unknown size - will look at it with Parted Magic on the UBCD CD.





Ok, thanks, I have no idea what you mean by system-config-authentication, I am using the system configurer from the menu in the default F16 install. I see no authentication icon or option there.





I have an Intel Integrated Graphics 3000 on a Gen 2 Quad-core Intel i7 2760QM CPU. It is quite unchoppy. As to the Nvidia, I have as of now no externel video device to plug into it.



thanks for the best wishes.

I doubt your monitor is anything special, they labelled 32 bit (24 bit colour = 8 bit redundant), the highest monitor is 30 bit (1 billion colours).

http://www.nvidia.com/docs/IO/40049/...01_v02_new.pdf


You wont get a 30bit monitor for under £1200

http://www.cclonline.com/product/437...lack-/MON6537/

[jdii1215]

Originally Posted by leigh123linux

I doubt your monitor is anything special, they labelled 32 bit (24 bit colour = 8 bit redundant), the highest monitor is 30 bit (1 billion colours).

You wont get a 30bit monitor for under £1200

Ok, I now understand what you are talking about.... As to price, I am in USA and have a situation where I expect to pay about $1300.00 USD on sale for a 24" flat screen when I get enough money set aside for that - maybe a year from now. We have some large electronics warehouses in the US, and they tend to discount things a lot when they overstock.... Newegg and Best Buy are a couple of them.

The computer is a laptop, so it is a 15.6 inch wide (seeable part) flat panel built in to laptop that is1600x900 native resolution. I will more probably end up with a displayport-compatible flat-screen TV-grade display, as they are only about 599-799 USD here, for now sooner than a year from now.

Thanks for the help though, I have learned some things from you and Stevea regarding monitors. And with the ideas about fingerprint scanners, that works to power on laptop now.

[rcpaul]

I have been using my W520 for a few months and would like to get the nvidia 1000m to work as well.

Has anyone had any luck with this on the W520 with F15?

If so, what has been your experience with battery life?

[jdii1215]

NVidia proprietary drivers will enable you to use it, but the way it is set up in the W520 leads me to think that is best done when the laptop is hooked to an external monitor and plugged in. I never did get it working that way, no external monitor to hook up to.

As to getting it to work in even Windows, Lenovo's software implies that it is run best to an external monitor and plugged in. The most modern W520's are equipped with a CPU that has a sub-revision 3000 Intel graphics circuit set amongst the choices, and it behaves well here in fc16 - I never ran it in fc15, so YMMV.

[stevea]

Originally Posted by jdii1215

I understand, although Lenovo specified the panel was 32-bit color capable when I queried that to them. That was part of the significance of the + after the HD ...

No - at Lenovo HD+ just refers to the screen resolution.
HD 1366x768
HD+ 1600x900
FHD 1920x1080

...GPT???? I am sorry, do not understand that acronym, but I think LVM was set up anyway, with one big partition of 473 true GB for / and one swap of unknown size - will look at it with Parted Magic on the UBCD CD.

GPT = GUID Partition Table.
LVM on a single spindle machine is IMO a bad idea. You'll see.

Ok, thanks, I have no idea what you mean by system-config-authentication, I am using the system configurer from the menu in the default F16 install. I see no authentication icon or option there.

At a terminal window do ....
su -
<root-passwd>
yum -y install authconfig-gtk
system-config-authentication
exit

Examine the second tab of the window.

[jdii1215]

Originally Posted by stevea

No - at Lenovo HD+ just refers to the screen resolution.
HD 1366x768
HD+ 1600x900
FHD 1920x1080

Um, the 32-bit color I refer to is a Windows 7 and Windows Vista and XP usage. My W520 came with Win7 Pro 64 bit plus XP Mode on a special ordered W520. In this case, Wikipedia explains that 32-bit color is 24 bits of color data (from Linux perspective this is 24-bit color, understand that after Googling a lot) plus 8 bits of alpha-channel (transparency degree) data.

The info is in Wikipedia's Color Depth article. Alpha-channel manipulation plus color specs is how the transparency fades are done in Windows 7 and also, it LOOKS LIKE, in fc16's default GUI when it fades to black on fedora desktop exit or suspend.

Thusly did Lenovo US, from Windows 7 perspective, say the color was 32-bit properly from rep's point of view. In any case, I now have a dual-boot W520 with Win7 and fc16 on it. Did some Parted Magic stuff(UBCD).

John.

GPT = GUID Partition Table.
LVM on a single spindle machine is IMO a bad idea. You'll see.

Ok, but LVM sees my USB 1.8 TB USB 3.0 HDD as a valid second spindle.
Thanks for explaining the GPT.

At a terminal window do ....
su -
<root-passwd>
yum -y install authconfig-gtk
system-config-authentication
exit

Examine the second tab of the window.

Thanks for trying, but I got new drivers and BIOS update for my W520 and the fingerprint pre-auth partly works (Auth before Grub loads works). What you said works in other than fc16, BTW, it probably works in fc14 but I do not have fc14 to try.

Thanks for trying to help. What I found Googling between time of original post and now is that Lenovo has altered what exact way they fingerprint auth, AND what they use. Also, the system-config-authentication has been deprecated.