Debian GNU/Linux on an IBM Thinkpad T23

Introduction

Debian runs quite well on this system, and the installation should be pretty simple if you use the configuration provided here.

This page assumes you have some experience with installing and using Debian, recompiling the kernel, and so on.

What Works

Basic functionality

• Kernel 2.4.22
• Ethernet (e100 driver)
• Advanced Power Management (suspend/resume by using Fn-F4, or by closing the display)
• Sound (Intel ICH i8xx driver)
• X Windows (S3 SuperSavage driver) with KDE
• Dual boot with Windows 2000

Extra functionality

• USB devices
• Internal modem
• Screen resolution switching
• Ultrabay hot-swapable HD

What Doesn't Work

• OpenGL (the SuperSavage driver doesn't support it)
• playing DVDs (too slow, because of limitations of the SuperSavage driver)

Hardware

• Pentium III 1133MHz
• 40 GB HD
• 512 MB RAM
• 1400x1050 LCD display
• DVD-ROM drive

Partitions and Dual Boot

The machine came with Windows 2000 installed. I used Partition Magic to reduce the size of the main Windows partition, and create an extended partition in the remaining space, containing three logical partitions for Linux. The result, as printed by fdisk:

Disk /dev/hda: 48.0 GB, 48004669440 bytes
240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 6201 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *         1       555   4195768+   b  Win95 FAT32
/dev/hda2          6037      6201   1247400   1c  Hidden Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hda3           556      6036  41436360    f  Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5           556      3946  25635928+  83  Linux
/dev/hda6          3947      5983  15399688+  83  Linux
/dev/hda7          5984      6036    400648+  82  Linux swap

For the filesystems, see /etc/fstab.

Basic OS Install

I installed Debian Woody from the CD-ROMs. At the boot: prompt, I typed bf24 to install kernel 2.4. When prompted for filesystem types, I chose ext3.

The Ethernet card is an EtherExpressPro/100. The e100 driver from Intel works quite well; I've had problems with the other driver (eepro100) timing out and losing the network connection.

Kernel Recompilation

The attached config-2.4.22 is the result of a lot of experimentation, and hunting down obscure information on the web. In particular, Advanced Power Management (APM) didn't work properly (I got hda: lost interrupt errors on resume) until I included:

CONFIG_APM_ALLOW_INTS=y
CONFIG_IDEDISK_MULTI_MODE=y
# CONFIG_IDEPCI_SHARE_IRQ is not set

APM also doesn't seem to work when built as a module (nothing happened when I tried to suspend); it needs to be compiled into the kernel.

I originally tried using ALSA for sound support, but found it much simpler to use the kernel's Intel ICH i8xx driver, which works perfectly:

CONFIG_SOUND_ICH=y

To compile the kernel, I downloaded the kernel source from a kernel.org mirror, unpacked the archive, saved my config-2.4.22 as .config in the kernel source directory, and used Debian's kernel-package utility to build and install the kernel (without using initrd). I then modified /etc/lilo.conf accordingly.

Kernel 2.4.21 (and probably later kernels as well) causes Woody's ps to emit errors:

$ ps
{ide_set_xfer_rate} {GPLONLY_ide_set_xfer_rate}
Warning: /boot/System.map-2.4.21 does not match kernel data.

This seems to be because of an incompatibility with the Debian Woody procps package; you need to compile and install the latest procps from source, or use the Debian procps package from Sarge.

Upgrade to Debian Sarge

Once a minimal OS was running, I upgraded it to Debian Sarge. I created /etc/apt/apt.conf to make testing the default release (with the ability to get packages from unstable when needed), added deb sources for testing to my /etc/apt/sources.list (which you'll want to modify to use the mirrors closest to you), then did apt-get update and apt-get upgrade.

X Windows

I used the XFree86 4.2 packages from Debian Sarge (they include the S3 SuperSavage driver needed for this machine), and the attached /etc/X11/XF86Config-4. Aside from the lack of OpenGL and the inability to play DVDs, X works perfectly.

KDE

I've had good results using the KDE 3.1 packages in Debian Sid.

The only problems I've found involve artsd, the KDE sound daemon, but these were easily resolved. After an APM suspend and resume, artsd no longer produced any sound. I fixed this by putting a script in /etc/apm/event.d to kill artsd on suspend, and restart it on resume. This works fine. Also, I found that artsd prevented RealPlayer from playing sound; I fixed this by configuring artsd to automatically let go of the sound device when it hasn't used it for 5 seconds. To configure all this, just install /etc/apm/event.d/artsd, /usr/local/bin/stoparts and /usr/local/bin/startarts. Make them all executable, and change the username ben in /etc/apm/event.d/artsd to your own username.

Extra functionality

Described in LinuxOnThinkpadT23extra.
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