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Ubuntu on the Thinkpad 570e

Installation Howto

A while back, I reported some problems installing Xubuntu Dapper on an old IBM Thinkpad 570e.

I determined, after some work (a more detailed report on those problems should be forthcoming) that the default Dapper kernel was at fault. Therefore, I present the following HOWTO for installing Dapper on an IBM Thinkpad 570e:

In all of the following, I am assuming you have access to an Ultrabase docking station equipped with a CD-ROM drive. I am not aware of any other way of installing OSes on this model Thinkpad that does not involve the Ultrabase.

STEP ONE: Installing a base system (Breezy)

The default Dapper kernel can't deal with PCMCIA cards on the Thinkpad 570e. Luckily, Breezy's does--as do later versions of the Dapper kernel available from apt. Since the only network connectivity you even have a chance of getting with this model is via a PCMCIA adaptor, installing Dapper from CD and then upgrading is not an option.

So first, obtain a BREEZY (5.10) installation CD. Boot with this in the CD drive.

At the

boot:

prompt, type

server

Follow the prompts. When it's all over, you will reboot into your new--very minimal--breezy install.

Ensure that your pcmcia network adaptor is detected and configured.

STEP TWO: Upgrading to Dapper

The next step is to update to dapper, bypassing the broken kernel distributed on the CDs and grabbing a newer version.

For this, you must edit

/etc/apt/sources.list

Use the text editor of your choice. Mine is vim:

sudo vim /etc/apt/sources.list

comment out the line for the CD and change all references to "breezy" to "dapper"

when you're done, save and quit. now execute

sudo apt-get update

which will download the package lists for dapper. Then

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

will dist-upgrade you from Breezy to Dapper. Note that because we're in a 'server' install, with nothing but the base system, this will be pretty quick--well, not super-quick, but faster than dist-upgrading a 'full' ubuntu install.

Let the upgrade complete. Then, reboot. You're now Dapper!

STEP THREE: Bells & Whistles

Once we're satisfied that all our hardware is detected, it's a simple matter of getting the necessary packages.

Since this is an old laptop, the logical choice is Xubuntu:

sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop

will download, configure, and install all the packages that would otherwise be on the Xubuntu Dapper CD. You might also want to think about a very light install, as recommended by the LowMemorySystems wikipage

EPILOGUE: Hardware quirks and TODO

==== Display Depth === There is one notable and well-known hardware quirk when configuring X on these laptops. They only have enough video ram for 16-bit color depth, but Ubuntu sets them up for 24-bit color depth by default. Performance consequently suffers.

Edit

/etc/X11/xorg.conf

Scroll until you see the section marked "Screen" at the "DefaultDepth" line, change the value from 24 to 16. Save and quit, then kill and restart the X server. Things should run a bit better now.

==== TODO: =====

Enabling APM suspend/hibernate and Fn-keys, test IrDA.

Current Issues

Dapper

Stock Dapper install from CD does not support PCMCIA. Suspect this is a kernel issue, but has since been fixed in subsequent Dapper updates. For a clean Dapper install, follow directions in the howto, above.

Edgy

Not yet tested.

System Info

• Brand: Thinkpad
• Make : IBM/Lenovo
• Model: 570E
• Website:

## Put the output of the following command here:
## (cd /var/lib/acpi-support/ ; grep . -r *-*)

Hardware details

Notes

CategoryLaptop