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Kubuntu 8.10 on a Thinkpad W500

Setting up Kubuntu Intrepid on my Lenovo Thinkpad W500

Overview

This page is still a work in progress and just reports on my personal experience setting up this Laptop.


The Hardware

I got a Lenovo Thinkpad W500 4058CTO with the following:

  • ATI Mobility FireGL V5700 with 512MB VRAM
  • Intel WiMAX/WiFi Link 5350 (AGN)
  • Bluetooth
  • Camera
  • Regular 160G 7.2k SATA drive
  • 3G RAM

lspci produced

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Memory Controller Hub (rev 07)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
00:03.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset MEI Controller (rev 07)
00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82567LM Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 03)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 93)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation ICH9M-E LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation ICH9M/M-E SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Device 423b
15:00.0 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev ba)
15:00.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 04)
15:00.2 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 21)
15:00.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C843 MMC Host Controller (rev ff)
15:00.4 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 11)
15:00.5 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev 11)

The Software

Distro: Kubuntu 8.10 desktop.

Kernel: Linux fatty 2.6.28.7-custom #1 SMP Mon Feb 23 23:01:14 PST 2009 i686 GNU/Linux


The Install

The normal install fails to bring up X11 and the safe graphics driver failed as well.

This post http://www.laptops-drivers.com/lenovo-laptop/thinkpad-w500fixing-graphics-problem-in-ubuntu-810.html suggests turning off graphics switching.

Reboot your Thinkpad and go to BIOS by pressing F1

Goto Config -> Display

Default Primary Video Device => PCI Express
Boot Display Device => ThinkPad LCD
Graphics Device => (change it) Discrete Graphics
OS Detection for Switchable Graphics => Disabled

After that install is fine although the splash screen is a bit garbled.


82567LM not working

My gigabit nic didn't come up. it gave me

ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready

Since i had no network connection at the time, i used a USB to ethernet adapter, i had laying around.

The wired interface exhibited this behavior when connected to my 100Mb switch. Connecting it to a gigabit switch with a cat 5e/6 cable fixed this. I don't know whether this was due to the switch or cable. Maybe it just insisted on gigabit, both cable and switch worked with my substitute ethernet adapter. I haven't retried this on a later kernel.


5350 AGN wireless not working

My Wireless did not come up on the Intrepid 2.6.27 kernel.

Following this https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeam/GitKernelBuild to build 2.6.29-rc4 got wireless working.

This evolution is left in here for Google to find, in case someone else falls into this hole.

On 2.6.29.rc4 suspend and hibernate works but wireless gone after resume.

2.6.29.rc5 fixed the wireless resume problem.

On both 2.6.29-rc4 and 5 the intel card was not coming up due to DMA problems. I forgot the details. The workaround that worked for me was toggling the Config -> Display settings in the BIOS as follows:

  1. reboot hit F1
Default Primary Video Device => PCI Express
Boot Display Device => ThinkPad LCD
Graphics Device => (change it) Discrete Graphics
OS Detection for Switchable Graphics => Disabled

boot up to the login manager

  1. reboot hit F1 again
Default Primary Video Device => Internal
Boot Display Device => ThinkPad LCD
Graphics Device => Internal Graphics
OS Detection for Switchable Graphics => Disabled

boot up see the garbled screen

  1. reboot hit F1
Default Primary Video Device => PCI Express
Boot Display Device => ThinkPad LCD
Graphics Device => Internal Graphics
OS Detection for Switchable Graphics => Disabled
  1. reboot and things should work.

I found that performing step 1,3,2,4 fixes the problem too.

ACPI brightness keys not working in 2.6.29-rc5 for the Intel driver, although they work fine with the radeon driver. Suspend and hibernation work with radeon as well.


The Current Kernel

Currently i'm running a jaunty kernel 2.6.28.7-custom. I got this by following https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeam/GitKernelBuild .

I used the link below for the kernel repo.

git clone git://kernel.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ubuntu-jaunty.git

I got the git urls from https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelGitGuide . This fixed the screen brightness ACPI keys. It also resolved the Intel issues i had above. Most of the other (lock, suspend, hibernate) ACPI keys still don't work, but the menu entries make up for that. Suspend and hibernation work.

I do still have occasional hard hangs. Not sure why.

Update: The hangs were due to the cisco vpn client. The problem went away after turning off the second CPU. I did this in the BIOS under Config - CPU.


Power Consumption

These are idle readings:

  • running radeon driver ate 37W battery life ~2h
  • running intel eats 16W battery life +4h, when running on a single core this seems a bit higher 19W

Various other issues

adept search doesn't include everything
sudo update-apt-xapian-index
dragon doesn't play movies
check out https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats and https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Medibuntu
dragon has no sound
sudo apt-get install phonon-backend-gstreamer
dragon doesn't handle URLs
sudo apt-get install kaffeine
bluetooth icon not coming up in KDE 4.1.3
upgraded to kde 4.1.4

What worked

  • Card reader
  • Bluetooth (after upgrade KDE)
  • Touchpad, trackpoint and mouse (although i'm still trying to get it to stop listening to taps)
  • volume up/down/mute keys
  • Keyboard LED
  • The cam works with Kopete
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