Installation details of a ThinkPad T61p with OpenSuSE-11.0/1/2/3.

The update from 11.2 to 11.3 has worked more or less with no problems.

The update from 11.1 to 11.2 has worked more or less with no problems. The only thing I have to adjust was my .Xmodmap-file. Due to some changes in keybindings of the new xserver and my own changes in the keyboard-layout within in the .Xmodmap-file some keybindings were wrong after the update. But this was fixed within some minutes. And for those who do not use an adapted .Xmodmap-file no problems should appear.

The update from 11.0 to 11.1 has worked pretty well with no problems at all!

The installation including the resizeing of the NTFS-Windows Vista partition went without any problem. Below you will find some details.

The ThinkPad is a really nice and professional laptop with an excellent display (1920x1600) and keyboard. Everything is pretty well, with one exception of some low but more or less permanent noise. It is not the main cpu-fan which can be heard when the processor works. One reason seems the hitachi hard disk with a permanent rushing. See below in section powersaving for some suggestions, but it does not really solve the problem.

Problems

• Noise of the hard disk

General Information

CPU

PCI Devices

Suspend

• suspend to RAM
  • I have to add in /etc/pm/sleep.d a file config with the content: S2RAM_OPTS="-f"
  • I have recognized that as well S2RAM_OPTS="-f -a 1" works as well as -a 3, but only without any further option it resumes within a few seconds. With other options the system needs up to 3min.

• suspend to disk: at the moment not tested, because since the initial installation and update I have not rebooted, only suspended

WLAN

• works out of the box
• When switching from cabel to WLAN you have to disable and enable in knetworkmanager the WLAN module in order to let knetworkmanger recognize the WLAN.

Bluetooth

• works out of the box
  • tested with my Nokia 6300 and KDE-bluetooth environment

FN-keys and special other keys

• sound key: mute, down and up
• F2 LockScreen
• F3 Battery
• F4 - suspend
• F5 - blueetooth switch does not work properly , use instead switch at the front side
• Pos1 - display backlight up
• Ende - display backlight down
• Bild - display light
• Num
• Multimedia button:
• Multimedia button: up and down
• ThinkVantage works and switched to krusader
• Spacebar magnify works but it is switched to screenshot

Kmilo

• You can use it in KDE and change the button commands after:
  • chmod ugo+rw /dev/nvram

Video

• works out of the box including 3D with the Nvidia-driver which can be added from the YaST-software repositories
• The best Nvidia driver so far is version 190.42

Sound and audio

• works from initial install, but reconfigured with alsaconf makes it louder. 

Fingerprint

• At least the configuration via YaST was successful. You have to add for each user the fingerprint plugin with YaST and afterwards you can login to a console either with your pwd or with the fingerprint. In order to use it with the screensaver of KDE you have to change the file: /etc/pam.d/common-auth to:
  • auth    sufficient      pam_unix2.so
    auth    sufficient      pam_thinkfinger.so

Afterwards you can lock the screen by type an empty pwd and the fingerprint. This tip is from here!

Touchpad and trackpoint

• works out of the box

Targus Wireless Presenter

• works out of the box without any adjustments Here are some hardware details:
  • idVendor=195d, idProduct=7777
  • Product: Powerful Receive
  • Manufacturer: Itron
  • /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb4/4-2/4-2:1.0/input/input56

Cardreader

• works out of the box

Powersavings

I am using some tips from here, in order to reduce the power consumption, but more for heat reduction and most important indirectly for noise reduction. It is not clear whether this is really useful. Anyway, I hope so. Some tips from the side are already activated in OpenSuSE, so I do not mention them here. Please feel free to discuss those issues in the forum.

• change the file access time, i do this not for /home, only for the root-partition
  • mount -o remount,noatime /
• More or less I do not need the pcmcia slot, therefore I disable it via adding in  /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist:
  • blacklist pcmcia
    blacklist yenta_socket
• reduce disk usage and kernel dirty page back writeback frequency from 500 to 1500 by
  • echo 5 > /proc/sys/vm/laptop_mode
  • echo 1500 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_writeback_centisecs
• SATA Link power managment, change from max_performance to  min_power via
  • echo min_power > /sys/class/scsi_host/host0/link_power_management_policy
  • echo min_power > /sys/class/scsi_host/host1/link_power_management_policy
• Usually I do not have a gigabit ethernet connection at work or home, for this reason I switch to 100Mbit per default:
  • ethtool -s eth0 wol d
  • ethtool -s eth0 autoneg off speed 100

• The hitachi-harddisk HTS722020K9SA00 can save power via the Automatic Acoustic Management (AAM) and Advanced Power Management (APM), which can be adjusted with the ftool from Hitachi. Per default the AAM was not enabled. You can see and adjust the details within linux with hdparm -I /dev/sda . After some adjustment within the ftool the harddisk noise becomes a bit softer.
• In /etc/X11/xorg.conf you can set the Section "Device"-options for power savings and for using frequency settings (but note, I was not able to get the NVidiaCore temprature permanently below 60°) via the PowerMizer tool from nvidia-settings via:
  
  • Option       "RegistryDwords" "PowerMizerLevel=0x3"
  • Option       "Coolbits" "1"