INSTALLING LINUX ON A THINKPAD Z61M

Last updated 26 April 2009

Introduction

In May 2007 I acquired a Thinkpad Z61M. It came with Ubuntu Linux preinstalled. I'm grateful to Ubuntu for getting the machine up and running but I do prefer native Debian, partly for "political" reasons but also because it is difficult to upgrade Ubuntu. I had problems initially getting Debian to recognize my hardware, particularly sound and wireless, This was in May 2007; now (September 2007) things are working much better, either because I've now got more experience or because the Debian installation is better.

Debian method

  1. I used the Debian net installer CD because I have broadband connection. I just installed the base system and did the rest on line. I used Stable initially because I was worried about problems if I went straight to Testing or Unstable.

    Until the wireless connection is up and running you will need to use a wired connection. There is a socket for this on the side of the Z61M or you can use a PCMCIA card, which is what I did.

  2. Sound: I installed ALSA, ALSA-utils, and aumix and sound just worked (after a reboot).

  3. Graphics: I'm now using the radeonhd driver for graphics, not fglrx. This gives me the full resolution (1600x1050). To get 3D you need to install the firmware-linux package. This is also required for iPlayer to run fullscreeen.

  4. Wireless: I have got the new firmware-iwlwifi to work, though for some reason I find it is necessary to bring up wlan0 twice (something to do with DHCP I think). It works best from an X terminal. I do "ifup wlan0"; when this fails to connect, as it usually does, I kill this terminal, bring up another and do "ifdown wlan0" followed by "ifup wlan0". I've succeeded in automating all this with /etc/rc.local.

    You will also need to edit /etc/network/interfaces. There are configuration tools for this but I did it by hand. This configuration brings up the socket on the side of the Z61M so you don't need a PCMCIA card. This is my /etc/network/interfaces:


    # This file describes the network interfaces available on your system and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

    # The loopback network interface
    auto lo

    iface lo inet loopback


    # The primary network interface
    allow-hotplug eth1
    iface eth1 inet dhcp


    iface wlan0 inet dhcp
    wireless_essid ap

    auto eth3


  5. Notes:

    1. I don't like desktops (KDE, Gnome, or even Xfce), so I installed my favourite window manager, Icewm.

    2. Suspend to disk with s2disk works perfectly.

  6. Having got everything running I then, somewhat heart in mouth, did a dist-upgrade to Testing. Everything happened flawlessly. More recently (26 July 2008) I've migrated to Unstable (Sid) without problems.

Output of lscpi for this machine

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS/940GML and 945GT Express PCI Express Root Port (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 02)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interfa
ce: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller (rev 02) 00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) Serial ATA Storage Controller AHCI (rev 02) 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Mobility X1400
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5752M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 02)
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02)
15:00.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Cardbus Controller
15:00.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments PCIxx12 OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
15:00.2 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments 5-in-1 Multimedia Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/xD)
15:00.3 Generic system peripheral [0805]: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 SDA Standard Compliant SD Host Controller


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