Installing CentOS 5 on Lenovo ThinkPad R61i

Last updated: 2008-04-28

General Hardware Specifications of Lenovo ThinkPad R61i:

Hardware Components	Status under Linux	Notes
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T5250 @ 1.50GHz	Works	No special procedure required during installation.
15.4" WXGA Display	Works	No special procedure required during installation.
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator, integrated in GM965, no DVI pass-through	Works	No special procedure required during installation.
4GB (4GB max) PC2-5300 667MHz DDR2, Non-parity Memory	Works	No special procedure required during installation
120GB - Serial ATA-150 - 5400 RPM Hard Drive	Works	No special procedure required during installation
EIDE DVD/RW Drive	Works	No special procedure required during installation
Integrated Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM5787M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express	Works	No special procedure required during installation
Integrated Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection	Works	ipw3945 driver not included in CentOS 5 is needed.
Integrated 4-in-1 reader (MultiMediaCard, Mem Stick PRO, Secure Digital, xD-Picture Card)	Works	No special procedure required during installation
6-Cell Lithium Ion Battery	Works	No special procedure required during installation
Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller	Works	No special procedure required during installation
Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 (Firewire) Controller	Works	No special procedure required during installation
Integrated 56K V.90 (V.92-designed) modem, Conexant CX20548	Unkown	Never attempted to do anything with it

This laptop is operating under Kernel version 2.6.18-53.1.14.el5PAE.

Basic Installation of CentOS 5:

CentOS is an Enterprise-class Linux Distribution derived from Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
To download CentOS, go to http://www.centos.org/
Normal GUI-based installation procedure from a DVD works fine.
In order to get the wireless network controller to work, I installed the ipw3945 driver from Dag's repository (http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/).

Unresolved issues

Attempting to change display brightness using the Fn keys while running X Windows will cause the display to go black (Ctrl-Alt-Backspace successfully clears the problem by restarting the X Windows server). Changing brightness in text mode works fine.

More Specific Information

Output of lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 0c)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Contoller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 03)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02)
04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM5787M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 02)
15:00.0 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev ba)
15:00.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 04)
15:00.2 Class 0805: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 21)
15:00.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C843 MMC Host Controller (rev 11)
15:00.4 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 11)
15:00.5 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev 11)

Contact Information

Marko Jennings (m a r k o b i z @ b l u e g a r g o y l e . c o m)

Links:

CentOS Site: http://www.centos.org/
Dag's Repository: http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/

Overall, ThinkPad R61i performs really well under CentOS 5, definitely much better than under Vista Home Premium that it came with.

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