How to install SLED 10 on the ThinkPad T60p

Valour · #1 10-17-2006, 01:37 PM

The Lenovo ThinkPad T60p (http://www.hardwareinreview.com/cms/content/view/49/) is the first ThinkPad to officially support GNU/Linux. Unfortunately that support is not quite as broad as some would like -- you're more or less forced to install and use SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 (SLED 10). The good news is, SLED 10 is a highly usable, stable, and configurable operating system. Officially you're supposed to buy a support contract from Novell if you need help installing the operating system on a ThinkPad T60p, but if you'd prefer to do it on your own, this guide will walk you through the process.

How to install SLED 10 on the ThinkPad T60p

abdominaizer · #2 11-11-2006, 07:56 PM

Hello, Jem! Thank you for this guide. I've read it and now I'm going to install SLED on my ThinkPad. But I have 2007-FBG model which is almost the same as 2007-9ZU model (different processors). And that's why I have some questions about this installation:

1) Were WAN disabled in bios before installation? (IBM suggests disabling it)
2) Which SATA mode you choose in bios: AHCI or Compatibility? (Which is better for SuSE?)
3) What kind of partition was pre-installed for suspend-to-disk function? I mean: which file system, disk_name, size and other parameters? (Lenovo tech support can't help me... And I'm going to make it by my own)

PS: Sorry for bad English, it's not my native.

Valour · #3 11-11-2006, 10:10 PM

I left the BIOS at its factory defaults, but Lenovo did customize it for me before they sent it for review, so it's possible they may have changed something.

SLED 10 should work fine in AHCI mode, but most other Linux distros will need that to be set to Compatibility.

Not sure about the suspend-to-disk partition because I never saw one -- I assumed that I deleted it by accident, but Lenovo had a warning about this partition somewhere. I didn't find out about it until it was too late. Maybe you don't even need one at all... if there are no partitions on the drive as it is, then don't worry about it. If there are two partitions, it will be the smaller one that does suspend-to-disk. If there is only one partition and it's the entire size of the drive, then delete it and put in your regular SUSE partitions and don't worry about it for now. You'll still be able to do suspend-to-RAM in SLED 10 even if suspend-to-disk doesn't work.

If it's just a matter of different CPUs, it shouldn't matter. Besides, Lenovo may have expanded its Linux support to include more models. What you really want to look out for are different video chips (that's the primary difference between the T60 and T60p) and other peripheral devices that may not have Linux drivers.

Overall I'm sure you'll be pleased with the way SLED 10 runs on the T60p. It's by far the best operating system for this machine right now.

abdominaizer · #4 11-12-2006, 10:08 AM

Thank you for your respond. As my notebook is not officially "Linux compatible" there is no any partitions except NTFS. And I haven't found any info about this "small partition for suspend-to-disk function" at Lenovo or in Google. Assuming all that, you are the only source of info about this partition.

I read about special partition in other Lenovo notebooks, like Lenovo 3000 C100 model. But there wasn't any particular info either.

Do you remember, did suspend-to-disk function work correctly? And where Lenovo had a warning about this partition?

Anyway, tomorrow I’m going to install SLED, and I hope that everything will be fine

Jondalar · #5 02-14-2007, 08:37 AM

Jem,

Excellent article, did you mean to suggest that all of the 4G memory would be available to the OS using your suggestions?

We have several T60 2007 66U models that we would like to get 4G on. The general consensus is that even Linux can only get at 3G with the T60.

thanks for clarifying,
fred

Valour · #6 02-14-2007, 01:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jondalar

Jem,

Excellent article, did you mean to suggest that all of the 4G memory would be available to the OS using your suggestions?

We have several T60 2007 66U models that we would like to get 4G on. The general consensus is that even Linux can only get at 3G with the T60.

thanks for clarifying,
fred

That is a limitation of 32-bit operating systems. If you need all 4GB, then you need 64-bit SLED 10. I use Mandriva 2007 for AMD64 on my 64-bit workstation with 4GB RAM, and it reports as 4125156k. There is actually a BIOS option to let the system know that you will be using a 64-bit OS on this machine. I can't remember if the T60/T60p has such an option, or if it is even necessary.

So yes, all 4GB would be available IF you use the 64-bit version of SUSE.