SuSE Linux 10.1 on the IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad Z61m Laptop

Linux Installation

LAN

Gigabit ethernet card: No manual intervention needed, the tigon driver tg3 is used.

Wireless LAN

If the WLAN hardware is disabled (i.e. due to windows configuration or you removed the battery), press the right LED button in front of the notebook - yes, it's a button. Since this chipset is very new, no linux driver is available within the kernel sources. Two approaches to get the WLAN stuff working are possible:

* ipw3945 The linux kernel 2.6.14 and newer includes the ieee80211 subsystem, so the ipw3945 can be used without patching the kernel. The latest official stable version can be downloaded on the Intel site. For compiling the ipw3945 module I used the ieee82011 files which come with the kernel (make IEEE80211_INC=/lib/modules/`uname -r`/source/include/). The logical name of the WLAN interface is eth1. Here is the WLAN part of my /etc/modules.conf:

alias eth1 ipw3945
install ipw3945 /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install ipw3945 ; sleep 0.5; /sbin/ipw3945d --quiet
remove ipw3945  /sbin/ipw3945d --kill ; /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore-remove ipw3945

However, the WLAN was never started automatically. I added some lines to the file /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/network-functions:

--- network-functions.ORIG      2006-04-15 00:28:01.000000000 +0200
+++ network-functions   2006-04-17 00:00:58.000000000 +0200
@@ -201,6 +201,10 @@
     if [ -z "$alias" -o "$alias" = "off" -o "$alias" = "/bin/true" ]; then
         return 2
     fi
+    if [ x"$alias"y = xipw3945y ]; then
+       /sbin/ipw3945d --kill
+       /sbin/ipw3945d --quiet
+    fi
     modprobe $1 > /dev/null 2>&1 || {
       return 1
     }

to fix this.

Firewire

The notebook is shipped with an external Firewire DVD drive and it works like a charm. The firewire controller is accessable with the kernel module sbp2 and thus the DVD drive appears as SCSI device. For faster access try the option serialize_io=0 serialize_io=0 --->> thinkpad!

5in1 Card Reader

There is an experimental driver. The driver tifmxx is needed to get the cardreader working (still some problems during writing). Compile and install the driver.

mkdir tifm-<version> && cd tifm-<version>
tar xjf /path/to/tifm-<version>.tar.bz2
make && cp *.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/mmc/ && depmod -a
modprobe tifm_7xx1 && modprobe mmc_block && modprobe tifm_sd

Once you insert a SD card it should be accessable using /dev/mmcblk*.

Other Resources

• Unix Laptop Survey (IBM/Lenovo)
• TuxMobil - hardware section
• Linux Mobile Guide - Installing, Maintaining and Tuning of Linux on Mobile Computers

Credits

• Lutz Willek