Running Slackware Linux on Thinkpad T61

Known Issues of Linux on ThinkPad T61

Author: Cowyn Li

If there are any solution to the following issues, please let me know, thanks.

Framebuffer

Currently, AFAIK, vesafb doesn't support 1680×1050 mode currently, neither does intelfb.

For more information about VESA, check <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VESA_BIOS>, or ask Google.

There's a vesa-tng uvesafb project, by which, someone said, can manage this mode and other ones. But I haven't tried yet.

Wlan Led

Currently, the Wlan led never lights on with iwl3945 driver in kernel 2.6.25. This bug is confirmed by some people.

There seems to be some solutions:

• <http://intellinuxwireless.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=1209>
• <http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/rchatre/iwlwifi-2.6.git; a=commit;h=ec2ce7fc7890b37d564a274513d8d99ed4edb9ac>

Use kernel 2.6.26 and above.

UDF v2.5

Currently, the UDF in Linux Kernel(2.6.25.4) couldn't mount blu-ray or PS3 disks with UDF v2.5, there is a patch solved this problem.

Newer kernel has fixed this problem. I don't know since which version though, maybe 2.6.26.

Hotkeys

Currently, the volume keys, brightness keys won't work out of the box.

SATA II Limit

Yeah, this is a hardware specific issue. T61 supports SATA II, but Lenovo limits the speed to 1.5Gbps. Here is the explaination quoted from Lenovo forum on SATA II issue:

  "For Santa Rosa-based systems, the Intel ICH8 supports a SATA bus speed of up to 3.0 Gb/s.
  Lenovo made a design decision to prioritize maintaining compatibility with Ultrabay disk
  drives, which are connected via a SATA-to-PATA conversion chip which could not handle a
  3.0 Gb/s SATA bus speed reliably. Therefore the system was standardized to 1.5 Gb/s.

  In testing rotating media drives, our measurements show data throughput difference
  between 1.5 Gb/s and 3.0 Gb/s bus speed is less than 5% since the drive mechanics are the
  limiting throughput factor, rather than the SATA bus itself.   

  For those customers who choose to purchase an after-market SSD drive capable of SATA bus
  speeds up to 3.0 Gb/s, the system will interface with them at 1.5 Gb/s. Lenovo's official
  position is that the Santa Rosa systems are working as designed.

  The Montevina based systems which began shipping last year have direct SATA interfaces
  for both drive bays and are enabled at a system level for SATA bus speeds of 3.0 Gb/s
  performance. Current Lenovo drives have firmware set to 1.5 Gb/s data rates.

  Exchanging these drives for after-market drives which support SATA bus of 3.0 Gb/s should
  provide for the higher data rate at the overall system level. Again, it should be noted
  that our performance measurements show less than 5% performance improvement between
  1.5 Gb/s and 3.0 Gb/s SATA bus speeds for rotating drives, since the drive mechanics are
  the limiting throughput factor, rather than the SATA bus itself.

  After-market SSDs which support SATA bus speed of 3.0 Gb/s will operate at that bus speed.
  Depending on the data transfer test method used, your actual data throughput from a
  3.0 Gb/s SATA bus speed should be 220-250 MB/s and about 90-120MB/s throughput when
  running on SATA bus of 1.5 Gb/s. This is due to the bus signaling used for the SATA bus,
  as well as overhead for error checking."
        

Back to Index of Running Slackware Linux on ThinkPad T61.