Debian on the IBM ThinkPad 600

ibm logo This page is no longer being updated. I have switched to an Apple iBook G4 and Mac OS X for my primary laptop. I upgraded this IBM ThinkPad 600 Type 2645-41U to Debian Sarge on 2005-07-12. With a PCMCIA ethernet card, a net install is pretty smooth. Beware of the lm_sensors warning.

Mixed system

I run this laptop with a mix of “stable” (woody) and “testing” (sarge).

    /etc/apt/sources.list
    /etc/apt/apt.conf

Kernel

    apt-get -t testing install kernel-image-2.4.26-1-686
    apt-get -t testing install kernel-pcmcia-modules-2.4.26-1-686
    apt-get -t testing install kernel-headers-2.4.26-1-686

Trackpoint Utilities

    apt-get install libxaw7-dev  
    apt-get install xaw3dg-dev
    apt-get install libapm-dev

    download and compile trackpoint utils

Wifi

install these packages for wireless lan:

    linux-wlan-ng
    linux-wlan-ng-doc

edit /etc/default/pcmcia

   PCMCIA=yes
   #PCIC=i82365
   PCIC=yenta_socket
   PCIC_OPTS=
   CORE_OPTS=
   CARDMGR_OPTS=

edit /etc/pcmcia/wlan-ng.conf


   device "prism2_cs"
    class "wlan-ng" module "orinoco_cs"
#    class "wlan-ng" module "prism2_cs"

   card "NETGEAR MA401RA 11Mbps 802.11 WLAN Card"
   version "NETGEAR MA401RA Wireless PC", "Card", "ISL37300P", "Eval-RevA"
   bind "orinoco_cs"
#   bind "prism2_cs"

For some reason, I recall that the prism2 chipset's WEP implementation is broken.

To select a specific AP by ESSID. For an ESSID of foo, run this:

iwconfig eth0 essid foo

XFree86

I am running XFree86 Version 4.1 with this XF86Config file.

Network Time Protocol

For servers that are on all the time, ntp-simple is good, but for laptops, ntpdate is a bit lighter. run it whenever you want to sync your system clock.

    apt-get install ntpdate

    ntpdate time.apple.com

Power Management

APM suspend apm -s works fine inside X. Resume occurs when you press the Fn key

For More Information

For more information, I sugest visiting Linux on Laptops

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