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Installing Ubuntu Feisty 7.04 on a ThinkPad X60s

Update 1/7/08: I upgraded from Feisty to Gutsy Gibbon. Read about it here.

Update 9/5/07: Sped up loading of GNOME menus and added instructions for getting the multimedia keys to work in Amarok.

Update 8/16/07: Sped up Feisty's boot time by delaying the start of the wireless interface. More sound disappearance issues.

Update 8/14/07: Ethernet connectivity fails sometimes after suspend-to-disk. See workaround. Also, instructions to install R and accompanying GUIs.

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. System specifications
  3. Summary after installing Ubuntu
  4. Ubuntu installation notes
    1. Windows recovery disks
    2. Core installation
    3. Problems
      1. Sound disappears after suspend-to-disk
      2. LCD brightness keys
      3. Hardware monitoring sensors
      4. Browser back/forward keys
      5. Ethernet fails to work after suspend-to-disk
      6. Slow boot due to wireless interface initialization
      7. Multimedia keys in Amarok
    4. Additional notes
      1. Java
      2. Windows fonts
      3. Password Gorilla
      4. R
      5. Speed up GNOME menus

Introduction

In July 2007, I installed Ubuntu on an X60s. Let me know if these notes are useful or if you have any suggestions.1 I assume these notes would also be compatible with an X60.

System specifications

  • Lenovo ThinkPad X60S Ultralight 1705-CTO
  • 2GB 667Mhz RAM
  • 100GB HDD 7200rpm
  • Ultrabase with DVD-RAM 8x
  • Intel WL3945ABG wireless
  • 8-cell battery
  • Original OS: Windows Vista Business Edition

Summary after installing Ubuntu

Component Status Out of the Box
Ethernet adaptor worked
Intel 3945ABG wireless worked
Modem not tested
Ultraybay DVD worked
USB worked
SD card reader not tested
PCMIA not tested
Trackpoint sensitivity adjustment worked
Sound suspend-to-disk kills it, see fix
Special keys
Volume control keys worked
Keyboard light key worked
Screen brightness keys (Fn+Home/End) broken, but workaround exists
Screen locking (Fn+F2) worked
Turn display dark (Fn+F3) worked
Suspend to RAM (Fn+F4) worked
Toggle wireless (Fn+F5) worked
Suspend to disk (Fn+F12) worked, except kills sound (see fix)
Multimedia keys needed fix for Amarok
Browser back/forward keys needed fix for firefox
External monitor switch not tested
Other functions
CPU speed stepping not tested
Open/close lid to suspend/resume worked
LCD brightness via powerschemes worked
Hardware sensor monitoring sensors applet needed HDD temp fix

Ubuntu installation notes

Windows recovery disks

Used the ThinkPad/Windows software to burn recovery DVDs: [Start | All Programs | ThinkVantage | Create Recovery Disks]. Followed the prompts, and made two disks, the first of which is just a CD, the second a DVD (presumably several CDs if you don't have a DVD burner). Confirmed that I could boot from recovery disks (press F12 before Windows begins loading to select an alternative boot device, like the DVD drive.)2

Core installation

Burned and booted Ubuntu Desktop Edition 7.04 Live CD. Decided to scrap Windows entirely, and used guided partitioning to format the whole drive, creating one / partition plus a 3G swap.3 Needed to activate proprietary driver for the Intel WL3945ABG wireless (simple, worked perfectly) to correct the system time. After installation, ran the gui update manager thing, then restarted. Also updated the ThinkPad BIOS to 2.11.

Problems

Sound disappears after suspend-to-disk

After suspending the machine to disk (Fn+F12), sound disappears. Sometimes restarting ALSA (sudo /etc/init.d/alsa-utils restart) or rebooting fixes this glitch, sometimes it doesn't. But suspending and then resuming from RAM (Fn+F4) always seems to resurrect the broken audio.

Reports claim that if the BIOS disables the modem (check with F12 during ThinkPad boot sequence), it also may disable the sound. My case, however, appears to be a symptom of an ACPI bug in the 2.6.20 kernel. Editing /etc/default/acpi-support so that HIBERNATE_MODE=platform, and then rebooting, worked for me.

Update: OK, so it turned out the above didn't fix the problem. Occasionally, after suspending to disk, or to RAM, the sound disappears. Sometimes a cold boot will fix this, sometimes not. I can't figure out the pattern. In any case, what seems to happen is that the ALSA mixer mutes the PCM (digital audio) volume. The ThinkPad volume keys in GNOME default to the Master volume, and not PCM. Run alsamixer, unmute PCM, and then increase its volume as desired (press ? for help). Alternatively, use the GNOME menus [System | Preferences | Sound] to have the keys alter the PCM mixer track instead of the Master.

LCD brightness keys

Instead of adjusting the LCD brightness, Fn+Home/End turn the screen black, although it remains possible to adjust the brightness through the GNOME power management software. Several reports about the brightness key bug suggest the conflict is with the ACPI video module, which you can prevent from running by adding the line blacklist video to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.

After rebooting, Fn+Home/End now do the deed but pause for a half-second before each adjustment. Also, these adjustments aren't reflected in the current brightness popup or in the GNOME power manager. The bug reports on Launchpad seem to indicate that this workaround doesn't fix the problem for all machines.

Hardware monitoring sensors

Installed GNOME sensors-applet, which works all right except for the disk temp, because it apparently grabs the wrong ACPI thermal output. Installed hddtemp, which seems to offer the correct temp to the sensors applet, but the current version of hddtemp contains a bug which outputs invalid characters, preventing the sensors-applet from saving configuration changes for the next session. The recent beta version hddtemp_0.3-beta15-36 fixes this bug; upgrade an earlier version following these instructions.

After an hour or so, disk and CPU temperatures run warm but not too hot, consistently just under 50°C.

Browser back/forward keys

To get the back/forward buttons next to the arrow keys to work in Firefox, follow these instructions.

Ethernet fails to work after suspend-to-disk

Sometimes I lose ethernet capabilities after suspending to disk. The wireless card recognizes nearby networks, but cannot connect, and the wired connection fails to work at all. This appears to be a bug related to dhcdbd. After it's restarted, network connectivity resumes, for now:
sudo /etc/dbus-1/event.d/dhcdbd restart

Slow boot due to wireless interface initialization

Feisty tries to connect to a network during the boot sequence. This may be all well and good on a wired connection, but when only wireless or no wireless options are present, the network configuration hangs, resulting in a boot time of well over one minute. There are lots of suggested fixes for this issue on the web, but what worked for me was following this bug report solution: first confirm that the issue involved the wireless card, using tail /var/log/dmesg after a slow boot (my wireless interface is device eth0, in contrast to eth1 in the bug post); then comment out the appropriate lines in /etc/network/interfaces (for eth0, again).

Multimedia keys in Amarok

Chris Brown wrote a clever script to enable the multimedia keys (FN-arrowkeys). In Amarok, select Tools -> Script Manager and install the GNOME Multimedia Keys script. Using the GNOME menu, go to System -> Preferences -> Keyboard Shortcuts and edit the appropriate keybindings to correspond to your multimedia keys. Tell the Amarok script manager to run the GNOME Multimedia Keys script, and off you go.

Additional notes

Java

Ensured that the 'universe' repository was enabled, installed the java plugin
sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin sun-java6-fonts
and confirmed that it works.

Windows fonts

Installed MS Core Fonts and restarted X Windows.4

Password Gorilla

John Schmitt turned me on to a nice password manager called Password Gorilla. For Linux, the manager is actually a tclkit script, especially useful if you want to run it off a thumbdrive. To install, download Password Gorilla and tclkit, and then ensure these files are executable, are in your $PATH, and have the appropriate permissions:

wget http://www.fpx.de/fp/Software/Gorilla/download/gorilla-1.4.kit
wget http://www.equi4.com/pub/tk/8.4.15/tclkit-linux-x86.gz
gunzip tclkit-linux-x86.gz
sudo mv gorilla-1.4.kit /usr/bin/gorilla
sudo mv tclkit-linux-86.gz /usr/bin/tclkit
cd /usr/bin
sudo chown root:root gorilla tclkit
sudo chmod ug+x gorilla tclkit

Now you can run Password Gorilla by the command sudo gorilla. For easy access, add a shortcut to gorilla to your system menu or something using the run command gksu gorilla.

R

R is open-source statistical software frequently used in the natural and social sciences. While it remains part of Ubuntu's universe repository, to install the latest R packages follow these instructions. Specifically, fetch and import the key

gpg --keyserver subkeys.pgp.net --recv-key E2A11821
gpg -a --export E2A11821 | sudo apt-key add -

and, if you're using Synaptic, add the CRAN repository using the APT line

deb http://my.favorite.cran.mirror/bin/linux/ubuntu feisty/

where my.favorite.cran.mirror comes from the CRAN mirror list. In addition to r-base, if you want to add, via the R console, packages not found in this repository, you'll need to install r-base-dev.

A couple options exist as GUIs for R. One is the KDE-based RKWard. The current rkward package in the Ubuntu repositories may not work (it crashed for me on startup), in which case you'll need to download the latest version and compile it yourself. This is pretty easy following these instructions.

An alternative GUI is the Java-based JGR , which you can install as a package within R.

Speed up GNOME menus

VnTutor has a nice tip to make your GNOME menus load faster.

  1. I incorporated or stole especially helpful background and tips from

  2. Even if Windows is intentionally removed, taking the time to make recovery disks (or just ordering them) is worthwhile: they may be helpful if things go awry when installing Linux, or during later upgrades; also, when selling the laptop in the future, it will likely be sold to Windows user, who will prefer a fresh, clean, pre-installed copy.
  3. If you're looking for dual-boot instructions, ThinkWiki may be a good place to start.
  4. From the Ubuntu desktop, CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE reloads GDM, logging you out and restarting X.
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