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RedHat Linux on an IBM ThinkPad T23 laptop
Adelux, Sébastien -Yeiazel- Munch
mailto:sebastien.munch@adelux.fr
v0.1, August 2002
This document describes some parts of the installation of a RedHat GNU/Linux distribution on an IBM ThinkPad T23 laptop. I've tried installing a RedHat 7.2, and finally got a RedHat 7.3 working as it should (not perfectily, because RedHat can't be perfect).
4. Introduction
This document is written and based on a test by Sébastien Munch from Adelux, having installed a Linux system on an IBM laptop.
4.1 Copyright
Copyright © 2002 Adelux.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license can be found at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html.
4.2 Errors, mistakes, etc.
If you find any error, mistake or bug in this document, or if you know something that would be good to be added, just send an email to the author, mailto:yeiazel@yeiazel.net.
4.3 The content of this document
This document doesn't describe an entire Linux installation, but only some difficult or specific aspects of the installation.
5. The installation
This part describes the different important installation steps about RedHat on a T23 latop. There are only two important difficulties : the ThinkPad are, in fact, good laptops for running GNU/Linux.
5.1 Video chip
The Graphic Chip in this laptop is a S3 SuperSavage. It is supported by XFree 4.2 (that's why I've upgraded RedHat 7.2 to RedHat 7.3). To have hardware acceleration with X4.1, you can download it here.
I've had some problems with the APM Suspend/Resume functions with the graphic driver and X4.1. With X4.2 and the "integrated" driver, APM works well.
5.2 Network and modem
There are two T23 versions: one with a 3Com network chip and a Lucent winmodem, the other with Intel network and winmodem. The 3Com/Lucent version works well with the standard drivers, and the laptop I had to install is based on the Intel chips.
The Intel Winmodem doesn't seem to work with the HSF driver. In fact, the chip is detected my the driver, and is reported to work on some computers, but the problem with this one seems to be because of ICQ sharing: many devices share the IRQ 11 on this laptop.
The network chip is an Intel EEPro100, just with a buggy sleep mode. All transfers stop, and the following error is displayed by the driver:
eepro100: wait_for_cmd_done timeout
The best way to make this work is to use the eepro100-diag program, that you can download on this site. Next, follow the instructions on the site. (This program can also be found in the nictools-pci package, at least on debian systems).
6. Appendix : relevant resources
Linux on an IBM T23 laptop: http://www.alex.org.uk/T23/
Linux on Sony Vaio PCG-FX240 (for the ethernet chip): http://www.pm.waw.pl/~jslupski/vaio/