Install and Configure Ubuntu Feisty Fawn (7.04) on a Thinkpad X41

This document is a work in progress and it is not meant to be a comprehensive guide.

I recently decided to dump Windows XP from my Thinkpad X41 Tablet PC and install Ubuntu Linux in its place. Windows XP is slowly creeping towards the end of its useful life, and I am quite uninterested in Windows Vista with all its new restrictions and annoyingly more-restrictive EULA, so I decided it was time to test the viability of Linux as a desktop OS for myself, since I already use it on my personal file server.

I am sharing this information because others might find it useful, but as I already stated, I will not try to be complete. I am mostly documenting things I need to know if I ever have to rebuild this computer the same way again. I won't make a serious effort to be use polished and concise language you hopefully find on the rest of this site. YMMV. Sorry to be blunt, but if you're a newbie you should probably try traditional channels before you ask me for help about anything you find here. If you're an expert, I might be able to help you if you ask a specific question.

Helpful documents

I've found these documents helpful:

• Ubuntu Linux 5.10 Breezy Badger on an IBM ThinkPad T42
• Installing Ubuntu Edgy on a Thinkpad X41 Tablet (Includes Thinkpad hardware, Java stuff, Beryl)
• Installing Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft) on a ThinkPad T60 (special keys, wifi, bluetooth modem, fingerprint reader, etc.)
• A Graphical Guide to Getting your God Damned Bluetooth Modem to Work Again in Linux (Ubuntu Edgy) (bluetooth dialup-networking)

Specific tips that I didn't create on my own are probably lifted, uncredited, from these sources or others like them.

Installing from Internet

I didn't have access to a reliable USB-attached CD drive (and this computer has no internal CD/DVD drive), and this was the only installation method I could get to work. Download netboot/boot.img.gz from an Ubuntu mirror extract it to a thumbdrive and boot from that. (Directly onto the storage device, not into a filesystem.)

Grub got installed wrong. If boot fails, boot from thumbdrive again and run grub-install and make sure /boot/grub/menu.1st on the target partition has options configured to boot from "(hd0,0)":

/boot/grub/menu.lst

# (partial listing)

title           Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.20-15-generic
root            (hd0,0)
kernel          /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-15-generic root=UUID=b46a36ce-dde8-4baf-a27a-7aada8c7bf6f ro quiet splash
initrd          /boot/initrd.img-2.6.20-15-generic
quiet
savedefault

title           Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.20-15-generic (recovery mode)
root            (hd0,0)
kernel          /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-15-generic root=UUID=b46a36ce-dde8-4baf-a27a-7aada8c7bf6f ro single
initrd          /boot/initrd.img-2.6.20-15-generic

title           Ubuntu, memtest86+
root            (hd0,0)
kernel          /boot/memtest86+.bin
quiet

Scroll button on keyboard

Add these lines:

/etc/X11/xorg.conf

  Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "Configured Mouse"
        Driver          "mouse"
        Option          "CorePointer"
        Option          "Device"                "/dev/input/mice"
        Option          "Protocol"              "ImPS/2"
        Option          "ZAxisMapping"          "4 5"
        Option          "Emulate3Buttons"       "true"
+       Option          "EmulateWheel"          "true"
+       Option          "EmulateWheelButton"    "2"
  EndSection

Problem: Stylus fails after resume

Create file /etc/acpi/resume.d/20-setserial.sh mode 755 owner root:root :

/etc/acpi/resume.d/20-setserial.sh

#!/bin/bash
/bin/setserial /dev/ttyS0 port 0x0200 irq 5 autoconfig

Password Gorilla

Password Gorilla is an excellent multi-platform password manager with basic merging capability that allows you to store an encrypted password list on all your different computers and occasionally try to sync them up.

Get Password Gorilla from http://www.fpx.de/fp/Software/Gorilla/#Download. chown it to root:root and put it in /usr/bin.

Get TclKit from http://www.equi4.com/tclkit/ (follow link to "download matrix") and get the appropriate binary. Extract and rename this to /usr/bin/tclkit, owned by root:root, and make it executable.

Make a Launcher in your desktop pointing to

tclkit /usr/bin/gorilla-[VERSION].kit

Bluetooth

Install packages bluez-gnome and gnome-bluetooth.

Todo

• Make system beep quieter!
• Get forward/back keys working. All the solutions people talk about online seem to require hacking Firefox to get them working in Firefox. Do they work in Opera without any hacking?

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