Revision as of 19:11, 26 December 2007

General Info

The article is for linux operation system only.

This is a Thinkpad R31 2656-65G with

PIII M(obile) Intel Prozessor
1024MB Ram (max)
(not very powerful) Intel i830 Grafics prozessor
100 Mbs Network
USB 1.1
No wlan
Trackpoint, no tochpad
Bios Version 3.110 1FETF1WW (2004-11-16, Embedded Controller Version 02.29.12)

Unfortunatly, a very few time after buying this laptop, a lot of better versions of the R-series thinkpads arrived. I noticed, that the USB 1.1 and sloppy Intel Graphics Chip where no good choice. But this was my very first modern laptop.

Within the next years with excessive use during my studies in computer science I had a lot of trouble getting the direct rendering and stable USB support running.

Nevertheless this is a thinkpad in best traditions, easy to use, comfortable and with excellent support. The latter I had to use 2 times replacing my motherboard.

dmidecode

dmidecode get's the following

BIOS Information
       Vendor: IBM
       Version: 1FETF1WW (3.110)
       Release Date: 11/16/2004
       Address: 0xF0000
       Runtime Size: 64 kB
       ROM Size: 512 kB
       Characteristics:
               ISA is supported
               PCI is supported
               PC Card (PCMCIA) is supported
               PNP is supported
               APM is supported
               BIOS is upgradeable
               BIOS shadowing is allowed
               Boot from CD is supported
               Selectable boot is supported
               EDD is supported
               Japanese floppy for NEC 9800 1.2 MB is supported (int 13h)
               Japanese floppy for Toshiba 1.2 MB is supported (int 13h)
               3.5"/720 KB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
               3.5"/2.88 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
               Print screen service is supported (int 5h)
               8042 keyboard services are supported (int 9h)
               Serial services are supported (int 14h)
               Printer services are supported (int 17h)
               CGA/mono video services are supported (int 10h)
               ACPI is supported
               AGP is supported
               Smart battery is supported

and

Processor Information
       Socket Designation: U11
       Type: Central Processor
       Family: Pentium III
       Manufacturer: Intel
       [...]
       Signature: Type 0, Family 6, Model 11, Stepping 1
       Version: Pentium(R) III-M         
       Voltage: 1.6 V
       External Clock: 133 MHz
       Max Speed: 1133 MHz
       Current Speed: 1133 MHz

lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82830 830 Chipset Host Bridge (rev 04)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82830 CGC [Chipset Graphics Controller] (rev 04)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation 82830 CGC [Chipset Graphics Controller]
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM USB Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM USB Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM USB Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 42)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801CAM ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801CAM IDE U100 Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM SMBus Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 02)
01:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82801CAM (ICH3) PRO/100 VE (LOM) Ethernet Controller (rev 42)
01:09.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1410 PC card Cardbus Controller (rev 02)
02:00.0 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (rev 43)
02:00.1 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (rev 43)
02:00.2 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB 2.0 (rev 04)

Bios

Settings

Floppy, Serial Port, Parallel Port and Infrared Port are disabled
The PCI Settings are all set to auto (do not set the IRQs manually)

Custom ACPI table for linux The bios acpi is buggy. I use the latest Version 3.110 1FETF1WW of 2004-11-16 and fixed it.

Use this DSDT.zip (contains the fixed DSDT.aml for the above BIOS), unzip it and put it into the /etc/initramfs-tools directory. Afterwards you have to recreate your initramfs.

Later in this section you have create initramfs too because of the removal of usplash so to safe time you can skip this for now.

sudo unzip /wherever/DSDT.zip -d /etc/initramfs-tools
sudo update-initramfs -c -k all

After reboot your dmesg should show something like

root@ibmr31:~# dmesg | grep DSDT
[  885.444768] ACPI: Looking for DSDT in initramfs... successfully read 20423 bytes from /DSDT.aml.
[  885.444823] ACPI: Table DSDT replaced by host OS

Now you are shure, your new DSDT was loaded.

Kernel boot parameter

There are some problems running this laptop with a modern 2.6.x linux kernels. Do not set the IRQs in the bios's PCI section manually or your xserver will fail with DRI.

The problems resulting in misbehaviour of your ethernet or usb are all related to a wrong ACPI table of your bios. This is a known bug for many bios's.

Please see

Debug: How to Isolate Linux ACPI Issues

for additional informations about ACPI and the linux kernel.

i386 Version of ubuntu kernel

I am using the actual ubuntu 386 kernel 2.6.14-2-386.

apt-get install linux-image-386 linux-restricted-modules-386

(20:08, 25 December 2007 (CET))

But the generic version seams to run also with the applied changes in this section.

Trackpoint

The trackpoint does erratic mouse movements out of the sudden

Solution: add i8042.nomux=1 as kernel parameter

Failure on IRQ - unusable USB/Ethernet

An IRQ problem leaves the usb and ethernet bus unusable (kernel-oops). The dmesg message is

dmesg | grep nobody
# irq 11: nobody cared (try booting with the "irqpoll" option)

Temporary solution: add irqpoll as kernel parameter (this works for my thinkpad submodel - it might not work for you)
adding noirqdebug will remove the debug messages

This leads into the following /boot/grub/menu.lst additions

## ## Start Default Options ##
## default kernel options
# [...]
# kopt= [...] ro irqpoll i8042.nomux=1

If you are using an pcmcia usb 2.0 card doing the following might restore the ethernet or usb port in case of a failure

modprobe -r ehci-hcd && modprobe ehci-hcd

Unfortunately the problems appeared for all linux 2.6 kernels by now. It also affects a lot of other thinkpad users. See Bug 8853 irq NN: nobody cared on ThinkPad X61T,T61.

Usplash

Direct rendering is broken, if you use usplash.

Uninstall usplash

Ubuntu Gutsy

/etc/network/interfaces

With support for tuntap, used by virtualbox.

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet manual

# The primary network interface
auto tap0
iface tap0 inet manual
 tunctl_user a_username
 uml_proxy_arp ibmr31
 uml_proxy_ether eth0

# - install more if necessary
# - don't forget to add them to br0
# auto tap1
# iface tap1 inet manual
#  tunctl_user a_username
#  uml_proxy_arp this_server
#  uml_proxy_ether eth0
   
# bridge
auto br0
iface br0 inet dhcp
 address 192.168.0.11
 netmask 255.255.255.0
 gateway 192.168.0.254
 bridge_ports eth0 tap0
 bridge_maxwait 0

Xorg / Video

GLX and DRI works, but it is a little buggy and not very performant. I don't recommend using compiz. Also it uses a few percent (2) of additional cpu power and causes some artifacts in some OpenGL applications, like e.g. celestia or stellarium.

Additionally you HAVE TO boot into save graphics mode and fix the xserver like described as followed.

Troubleshooting

I had some real trouble getting X11 with direct rendering to work after a system upgrade occured. X11 hung and the whole system froze. I assume that the main reason for this is the buggy ACPI implementation found in this - and many other - machines.

Then booted in safe mode and use the following option in your xorg.conf

Section "Device"
     Option    "noaccel"   "true"

for starting the xserver. Change it back, when X was up and restart X.

Heres what I did:

1. I removed usplash and run update-initramfs for ALL (!) kernel flavours on the machine.

apt-get remove usplash usplash-theme-ubuntu
update-initramfs -c -k all

2. I removed the xserver-xorg-video-intel driver package. It hinders the xserver to work properly with this chipset. Reinstall xorg-video-i810.

apt-get remove xserver-xorg-video-intel
apt-get install --reinstall xserver-xorg-video-i810

3. I rebooted the machine

Now the Xserver should work with direct rendering.

modules

root@ibmr31:~# lsmod | grep agp
intel_agp              25620  1 
agpgart                35016  3 drm,intel_agp

X11

Trackpoint

The trackpoint can be configured specially for scrolling in conjunction with the middle mouse button. See the xorg.conf in one of the following sections.

Section "InputDevice"
[...]
      Option          "ZAxisMapping"          "4 5"
      Option          "YAxisMapping"          "4 5"
      Option          "XAxisMapping"          "6 7"
      Option          "EmulateWheel"          "true"
      Option          "EmulateWheelButton"    "2"

Please read the following article for more informations about using the trackpoint: Thinkwiki - Configure the TrackPoint

xorg.conf

# /etc/X11/xorg.conf (xorg X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf(5) manual page.
# (Type "man xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following command:
#   sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Section "Files"
       FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc"
       # FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic"
       FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/:unscaled"
       FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/:unscaled"
       FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1"
       FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi"
       FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi"
       FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/encodings"
       # path to defoma fonts
       FontPath        "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
EndSection

Section "Module"
       Load    "i2c"
       Load    "bitmap"
       Load    "ddc"
       Load    "extmod"
       Load    "freetype"
       Load    "glx"
       Load    "int10"
       Load    "vbe"
       Load    "dri"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
       Identifier      "Generic Keyboard"
       Driver          "kbd"
       Option          "CoreKeyboard"
       Option          "XkbRules"      "xorg"
       Option          "XkbModel"      "pc105"
       Option          "XkbLayout"     "de"
       Option          "XkbOptions"    "lv3:ralt_switch"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
       Identifier      "Configured Mouse"
       Driver          "mouse"
       Option          "CorePointer"
       Option          "Device"                "/dev/input/mice"
       Option          "Protocol"              "ImPS/2"
       Option          "ZAxisMapping"          "4 5"
       Option          "YAxisMapping"          "4 5"
       Option          "XAxisMapping"          "6 7"
       Option          "EmulateWheel"          "true"
       Option          "EmulateWheelButton"    "2"
EndSection

Section "Device"
       Identifier      "Intel Corporation 82830 CGC [Chipset Graphics Controller]"
       Driver          "i810"
       BusID           "PCI:0:2:0"
       #  
       # Enable the next, if X hangs and the system freezes
       # Option         "noaccel"   "true" 
       #
       # Often seen in howto's but
       # automatically used by driver
       # VideoRam       65536
       # Option         "DRI" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
       Identifier      "Standardbildschirm"
       Option          "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
       Identifier      "Default Screen"
       Device          "Intel Corporation 82830 CGC [Chipset Graphics Controller]"
       Monitor         "Standardbildschirm"
       # Use 16 as default depth because of performance issues
       DefaultDepth    16
       SubSection "Display"
               Depth           1
               Modes           "1024x768" "1024x600" "800x600" "768x576" "640x480"
       EndSubSection
       SubSection "Display"
               Depth           4
               Modes           "1024x768" "1024x600" "800x600" "768x576" "640x480"
       EndSubSection
       SubSection "Display"
               Depth           8
               Modes           "1024x768" "1024x600" "800x600" "768x576" "640x480"
       EndSubSection
       SubSection "Display"
               Depth           15
               Modes           "1024x768" "1024x600" "800x600" "768x576" "640x480"
       EndSubSection
       SubSection "Display"
               Depth           16
               Modes           "1024x768" "1024x600" "800x600" "768x576" "640x480"
       EndSubSection
       SubSection "Display"
               Depth           24
               Modes           "1024x768""1024x600" "800x600" "768x576" "640x480"
       EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
       Identifier      "Default Layout"
       Screen          "Default Screen"
       InputDevice     "Generic Keyboard"
       InputDevice     "Configured Mouse"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
       Mode    0666
EndSection

Additional informations for ACPI issues

As I mentioned above see

Debug: How to Isolate Linux ACPI Issues