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Good news Linux install on the IBM ThinkPad i1400 2621 is now easy using Red Hat 6.1 and a few files off the Internet. Cristian Cespedes V. has installed with Red Hat 6.0 on his ~46U the differences are noted where relevant.
Skip the "bs" Jump to a List of steps and a list of what I know about my hard ware not all of i1400 2621 are the same mine is a 42U Cristian has a 46U it has a better screen and and ships with more memory. If you have a different version I would like to know and post what you had to do different. While I can still remember what was done, this is what it took to get my IBM ThinkPad setup and running Linux. With only 32MB of memory the hard part was at the beginning when the install (use text mode) would fall over do to a lack of memory; when disk druid tried to write out a swap partition to the disk. At first I was stumped, so I toted the laptop to the LinuxSig meeting for some help. Turns out all I needed to do was use fdisk to format the drive for ext2 and swap beforehand so that the RedHat text install doesn't choke, from lack of memory. After the basic install don't bother with Xwindows yet, my next step was to set up networking so I could grab files off my server. With the partition set up and ready, the RedHat 6.1 install went smoothly until time to set up xwindows. Don't even try with the files shipped on the disk, grab updated XFree86 files from the net. I tried all the set vga=788 in lilo, custom XFree86.config files, none of the tricks seemed to work. Knowing that XFree86.org has been releasing snap shots fairly often I started to look for newer rpm's to use (on this machine I wanted to stay with rpm only) I found what I was looking for at ftp.redhat.com/pub/rawhide/i386/RedHat/RPMS unless they have changed it (and they will) do not do not use 3.3.6-11 series files use the files I have listed below. (or newer ones). After you have the base system set up from the cdrom you will need to get those magic files off the net. So be ready to work from a command prompt for a while longer. Getting the Lucent Win Modem to work was a snap using the Lucent binary driver listed at linmodems.org. The Lucent modem works good, using a 50 ft phone extension cord (what's the point of a laptop if you can't check your email from the couch) it still appears to get about a 46k throughput. I have another Linux box that I use for a workstation/home server and I bought a NetGear FA410 PCMCIA card for the ThinkPad so for me all I had to do was find the files with my main box then transfer them over the local net. Setting up PCMCIA no big deal with linuxconf, use the PCMCIA how-to to figure witch kernel module to load; Caution there is way more tech info in that how-to than the average person needs or wants; I was lucky the module for my PCMCIA card was part of the Red Hat install, use eth0 instead of Dummy0 I swear somewhere one of the how-to's says to use that for PCMCIA it is even on the drop down list in linuxconf.No doubt documentation is not keeping up with software development. If you don't have that luxury and you have set your laptop up as a dual boot machine all you have to do is find the files while surfing with windows, boot back into Linux and install the files. Here is the instructions for accessing your windows partition. Sound works ok music cd's and mp3's play great, but the bells and whistles for gnome needs work, nothing is going to sound great through those tiny speakers. I found that turning the microphone off greatly improved sound quality Grab the files listed below dump them into a directory that has no other rpm's in it then change to root and run from that directory # rpm -Uvh *.rpm When it stops drawing hash marks and gives you a new prompt do # XF86Setup It will default to the right mouse setting, and a usable keyboard map. choose the ATI Rage Mobility P card,
Here is the list of files you need:
I will be up dating this page so check back, drop me a line if there is a mistake or you have a tip you think I should share
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