FC2 on IBM T40

[nothingface]

Due an upgrade for my trusty T21 to a T40 here at work. Are there any gotchas etc that I need to look out for with FC2. I will need to get up and running as soon as possible so hoping I can get a heads up on anything.

I guess I will be needing to turn off acpi in the kernel at boot time again right?

Thanks for any info.

[dezrock]

- Blowing away the predesktop? Then get the Windows recovery cd's from IBM support, or burn them yourself (possible but more risky). If not, make sure BIOS is set to protect it, and watch the installer carefully that it detects the reduced disk size information.
- Dual booting? Then remember not to touch the MBR (can interfere w/ IBMs Rescue & Recovery / predesktop access). FC2 can also be installed on a secondary drive in Ultrabay, to minimize gotchas w/ any preconfigurations from your office.
- APM suspend/hibernate needs work still
- Wireless is also not perfect right-out-of-the-box yet.

- dezrock
(T41-2379)

[grnchile]

To emphasize the "needs work" APM point: APM suspend/resume in the latest kernel (2.6.6-1.427 - released as a security upgrade today) seems to be completely broken on this hardware (T41-2373). Repeated suspends fail and the keyboard/mouse (at least) are inoperative after that. APM sort of worked for me with the FC2 release kernel, although the Trackpoint needed work and there was spurious keyboard junk that had to be ignored on resume.

I haven't tried ACPI yet with this kernel.

Bottom line is that it's likely to be an interesting adventure...

[grnchile]

ACPI has problems as well. See:

http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/sho...8791#post18791

[nothingface]

Originally posted by dezrock
- Blowing away the predesktop? Then get the Windows recovery cd's from IBM support, or burn them yourself (possible but more risky). If not, make sure BIOS is set to protect it, and watch the installer carefully that it detects the reduced disk size information.
- Dual booting? Then remember not to touch the MBR (can interfere w/ IBMs Rescue & Recovery / predesktop access). FC2 can also be installed on a secondary drive in Ultrabay, to minimize gotchas w/ any preconfigurations from your office.

- dezrock
(T41-2379)

Thanks for that. A couple more questions though. I was not aware of this predesktop and was thinking of dual booting. Is it possible to install grub anyway without screwing this pre-desktop thing?

Im thinking that I should just get hold of another hdd and install onto that.

[dezrock]

Yes, 2.6.6-??? is available on fc2 update repositories, as of this morning, so I guess things are getting better as we discuss this.

Concerning sleep/resume w/ touchpad, I have left mine disabled in the BIOS settings since I don't use it, so that may be why I don't see as many problems as grnchile.

Another good resource for you is at: http://forum.thinkpads.com/

The PARTIES (aka, Predesktop) is a region of the harddisk that is hidden by the BIOS. IBM uses it as a place to store the equivalent of your Windows system recovery disks, ThinkPad device drivers, related scripts and utilities, and an environment to allow backup and recovery. For Windows users, this function is very exciting because it works even when Windows appears not to. This is the environment you get when you press the 'Access IBM' button at boot. It's nice in that you don't need to carry recovery CD's with you durring business travel, but not nice in that it doesn't support either extended partitions or linux filesystems. I found it to be a terrible waste of space, since I can do all this and more under Linux (~3.5GB + RR/RR windows s/w and level0 backup on first partition + last space in table for IBM_Service partition, possibly), and so removed it. I have also found it to be not very robust in dual boot setups. You may not have such luxury in your office.

If you would like to install linux on the primary disk, and are able to get the machine before your IT dept. gets to it, read some of the posts on tuxmobile.org (?) concerning resizing the Windows partition PRIOR TO BOOTING WINDOWS FOR THE FIRST TIME (much more difficult to resize when auto-converted NTFS).

I use my Ultrabay drive for all of my backups (XP and FC2), and have partitions on my primary drive for all else. I installed GRUB on my /boot partition, and use an entry in C:\BOOT.INI to chainload GRUB. If you will wish to make your Ultrabay bootable, that should be no problem, as the Thinkpad is able to boot from almost any device.

This (IBM Rescue and Recovery with Rapid Restore - Customization and Deployment Guide) seems to contain the most up-to-date info (and more):
ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs.../sdftmst15.pdf
also see (Predesktop Area white paper): http://www-3.ibm.com/pc/support/site...cid=MIGR-46023


- will be happy to post more info and links if desired,
dezrock

[grnchile]

Hmm... I'm a little confused by those two links to IBM documents. One seems to imply that the MBR is involved in accessing the predesktop and the other implies that it's not required.

I've used the HPA (Hidden Protected Area - need to make sure we're all getting our RDA of IBM acronyms) to restore XP on machines with corrupt dual boot installations (don't ask - I don't know how they did it either). The only trouble I've had is when there are small leading partitions that won't hold the XP install. The process is pretty fragile in the presence of partitions and the diagnostics in this case are abysmal. It's probably best to delete the partitions and start over if you can easily do it. Restore from predesktop worked fine even if LILO was in the MBR and it looks like it's prepared to do the same on this GRUB-based machine in front of me.

Having said all that, I'd agree that it's mostly an annoying waste of space. I'd really much prefer CDs and the extra disk space. I could start a rant here about monopolies, but maybe not today...

[grnchile]

Isn't the new kernel, 2.6.6-1.435, a security release? It doesn't seem to address any of the ACPI and APM issues related to the T41. Both still fail as described above. Unfortunately.

APM on the FC2 release kernel might be the best bet for now if the security fixes aren't required and you share dezrock's disdain for onboard pointers. I don't have a good feeling about the security part, but don't see workarounds for T41-related problems in the newer kernels yet.

[Hawkeye]

Using acpi=off works pretty good on my T41p (2373-GHG) and the latest kernel (2.6.6-1.435). With ACPI activated it's a no-go. Just have to rearrange that close lid -> suspend thing.

[grnchile]

Interesting. Suspend/resume "just worked" when I was using the FC2 release kernel with acpi=off. On the latest kernel it works once. The second time the machine refuses to finish suspending. All access to the keyboard/mouse is gone after that point.

What did you do besides adding "acpi=off"? What's the rearrangement?

[Hawkeye]

With the base kernel, I had the problem of not getting the notebook back alive from standby. Same was with .427 (?). I just added the "acpi=off". That's all. Had some trouble with the network, cause I had to change the profiles from work (DHCP) to home (static). But I guess that's a problem of system-control-network and not APM. system-config-network does crash in certain situations too. I haven't tracked that down yet, but it seems to happen when creating/copying a new profile.

About that lid closing:
I don't like my system going down just after closing the lid. Just a personal preference.

[dezrock]

Originally posted by grnchile

...
Restore from predesktop worked fine even if LILO was in the MBR and it looks like it's prepared to do the same on this GRUB-based machine in front of me.
...

It worked once for me, as well, flawlessly. I'm not clear on all the IBM boot wizardry either; a restore operation does not seem to be bothered by a modified MBR, to my knowledge. I had a failure case, however, in which HPA access was subsequently lost. An install/reinstall of the recovery software, as suggested by Support, resulted in destruction; fixmbr and then fixboot were used to get it going again. Now, this may have been a special case, where all the planets aligned in the wrong direction, but it performed exactly the opposite function for which it was intended; partition table had to be reconstructed. Just a cautionary tale. IMHO, I just see too many 'hints and tips' on the support site relating to special cases failing; 'fragile' is a good description.

[nothingface]

For what its worth dual booting failed for me on a T40. I had to restore with a complete wipe and drop in the end.

But..... For the record I swaped out the hdd and installed FC2 (with acpi=off) and everything works just fine, apart from the softmodem of course.

[jbjoret]

Is the ACPI Problem with the T41/T40 due to the Fedora Kernel or has anyone information about other Kernels ? It is quite a big difference whether you use APM or ACPI. With ACPI my battery last almost 100% longer than with APM, so it would be great to have this work.