Linux (Fedora Core 2) on a Thinkpad R40

Linux (Fedora Core 2) on a Thinkpad R40

ACPI vs APM

APM worked nicely for me under FC1, a lot of dmesg cruft about ACPI came up under FC2 and closing the lid did not make it sleep. There's probably a lot of more elegant ACPI enabling options, but I just turned off ACPI and turned on APM at boot by changing the line in grub.conf to read:
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.5-1.358 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb acpi=off apm=on
The laptop seems to access the disk more frequently than it ought to, some drive buffering seems less efficient than in FC1 with this configuration...

Xkb errors

I changed the line in XF86Config (or xorg.conf - the file used may change if you use the gui screen configurator) from:
Option "XkbRules" "xfree86"
to
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"

Synaptics mousepad doesn't double click

There are two ways of dealing with this:
Option 1: Add "psmouse.proto=imps" to the kernel line in grub.conf (suggested by Ben Steeves on fedora-list). This is quick and effective, but leaves the three buttons on top of the glidepad (the ones intended for use with the "nipple mouse" inactive. In the end I decided against this and went with option 2.

Option 2: Install the driver (which doesn't ship with fedora!). A fedora 2 RPM is available (I used synaptics-0.12.3-0.n0i.1.i686.rpm) Which I got via rpm.pbone.net/index.php3/stat/6/idpl/1193300/com The install file gieves instructions (from the perspective of a compilation), us lazy RPM installers should to this:

  1. Install the RPM
  2. edit XF86Config (or xorg.conf), in Section "ServerLayout"
    InputDevice "Mouse[1]" "CorePointer"
    # InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
  3. edit XF86Config (or xorg.conf), in Section "Module" add
    Load "synaptics"
  4. edit XF86Config (or xorg.conf), add:
    Section "InputDevice"
    Driver "synaptics"
    Identifier "Mouse[1]"
    Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
    Option "LeftEdge" "1900"
    Option "RightEdge" "5400"
    Option "TopEdge" "1900"
    Option "BottomEdge" "4000"
    Option "FingerLow" "25"
    Option "FingerHigh" "30"
    Option "MaxTapTime" "180"
    Option "MaxTapMove" "220"
    Option "VertScrollDelta" "100"
    Option "MinSpeed" "0.02"
    Option "MaxSpeed" "0.18"
    Option "AccelFactor" "0.0010"
    Option "SHMConfig" "on"
    # Option "Repeater" "/dev/ps2mouse"
    EndSection
(thanks to Norton Trevisan Roman of fedora-list)

WiFi

Ok, I don't really remember exactly, but getting the built-in WiFi to work involved something like:
  1. Deleted the wireless card configuration using the redhat-config-network gui.
  2. Decided to relocate from my WiFi network absent office to a WiFi present bar. Got comfy.
  3. Reboot: kudzu asks to delete the wireless card, did that. Then kudzu asks to configure newly discovered wireless card, did that. Boot process gripes about non-existant eth2.
  4. Open redhat-config-network gui and found: eth0 inactive (ethernet not plugged in, so that makes sense), eth1 (wireless) inactive, and eth2 (another ethernet card?!) inactive.
  5. Deleted eth2, make sure the wireless card was eth1, then selected "activate" on eth1.
WiFi works! Didn't have to install anything...

I hate spatial metaphor Nautilus!

use gconf-editor to activate the apps,nautilus,preferences:always_use_browser option.
This is so irritating!