Linux on a Thinkpad 600x

1. Wireless

   I had a heck of a time getting my SMC2632W pcmcia card to work. First, I didn't understand about the difference between the orinoco_cs/orinoco/hermes system and the prism2_cs system; and that it seems to have changed in going from the 2.4.x kernels to the 2.6.x kernels. And my SMC2632W card was old: firmare 0.7.2. And I really really wanted WEP encryption, since I live in the suburbs. Finally, here's the deal:
   • Go to the european SMC website and download the 0.8.3 firmware update for the SMC2632W. You'll need a Windows machine to burn the firmare into the pcmcia card. This is required if you want WEP.
   • Upgrade to the 2.6.x kernel; it solves lots of PCMCIA/yenta_socket/ds problems.
   • I ended up not using the wlan-ng tools at all. That means I do not use
     • wlanctrl-ng/wlancfg from linux-wlan-ng tools
     • prism2_cs module
     • /etc/pcmcia/prism2.conf and /etc/pcmcia/wlan-ng.conf
     Instead, I use
     • iwconfig from wireless-tools
     • hermes/orinoco/orinoco_cs modules
     • /etc/pcmcia/hermes.conf
   • To get wavemon to pick up a signal, you have to have the modules loaded and you have to have the network interface enabled:

     	cardctl insert or modprobe orinoco_cs
     	ifconfig eth[x] up
     

2. PCMCIA

   I have ocasionally had problems with some PCMCIA cards. I found this incantation somewhere on the net; I forget exactly where......

   Add these lines to /etc/pcmcia/config.opts

   include port 0x100-0x4ff
   include port 0x800-0x8ff
   include port 0xc00-0xcff
   include memory 0xc0000-0xfffff
   include memory 0xa0000000-0xa0ffffff
   include memory 0x60000000-0x60ffffff
   

3. Booting

   A long time ago, I changed from LILO to GRUB for booting. I guess the Grub was half installed, because I got to the state where I could boot most linux kernels that were less than 1megByte in size. And there other wierd things...

   I use Debian/testing/apt-get to keep my laptop up-to-date. I had a real hard time getting most of the 2.6.x kernels to boot. The only one that was stable was 2.6.3-1-386. All the others would stall, or give various error messages early in the boot, such as:

   • ran out of data
   • unable to mount 03:01
   • unable to mount 00:00
   It turns out that all this was due to an improperly installed GRUB. It took me almost a year to isolate it, though. Once GRUB is properly installed, I can boot any 2.6.x kernel, including the -686 ones. YAY!

back