Slackware64 Linux Installation on the Thinkpad T500
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Revision 0.4
Copyright © 2009,2010 by Zack Smith.
All rights reserved.

0. Summary

Almost everything appears to work fine out of the box. In fact, this is the most uneventual Linux installation that I have yet encountered.

But there is one huge exceptional situation: The Ricoh SD driver is such utter crap that it literally trashes the contents of whatever SD cards you put into the SD card slot, even if you never manually mount them.

1. System Profile

My Thinkpad T500 is a 2242-8QU and has the following hardware:

1.1 What works

Item Description Status
CPU Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 2.4 GHz Works
Memory Came with 2 GB DDR3. Upgraded to 4 GB. Works
Hard drive 250 GB Works
SATA controller Intel ICH8 SATA controller Works
Optical drive DVD-RW Works
Display & Video Chip 15.4 inch 1280x800 with Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Works
Sound Intel ICH8 High Definition Audio Controller Works fine
Wireless Networking Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 5100 ABG Works fine with unencrypted Wifi
Touchpad Synaptics Touchpad Works fine
USB 2.0 Intel ICH8 chipset Works fine
SD/MMC/Stick slot Ricoh R5C822 / R5C843/ R5C592 Trashes contents
of SD cards!
Ethernet Intel Corporation 82567LF Gigabit Not tested.
Firewire Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller Not tested.
Card34/54 slots Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II Not tested.

1.2 Lspci output 



00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Memory Controller Hub (rev 07)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
00:03.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset MEI Controller (rev 07)
00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82567LF Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 03)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 93)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation ICH9M LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation ICH9M/M-E SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 5100 AGN [Shiloh] Network Connection
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 SD Host controller: 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 ff)
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)

2. Installation

This information is provided as-is. Proceed at your own risk.

2.1 Downloading Slackware64

You can buy the Slackware DVD (it helps keep Slackware going), or you can download it. If you download, it can easily require 8 to 12 hours depending on your connection speed and the server load. So you should plan to do it overnight.

To burn a DVD from an ISO file under MS Windows, use DVD Decryptor, available from the download area of the venerable Doom9 site.

2.2 Linux + Windows 7

My laptop came with both Windows XP and Windows 7 discs, possibly by mistake.

At any rate, I suggest that you do not use Windows 7 or Vista, at least not while connected to the Internet. There was some evidence that Vista communicates with servers at Halliburton, Department of Defense, and possibly Department of Homeland Security.

I'd assume that Windows 7 continues that tradition of spying on consumers. This evidence of this first appeared on Whitedust.net, which shortly after was shut down suspiciously. Then a copy appeared at Abandonia, but not before long that article was deleted as well. Best to be safe.

Who knows, maybe it was all bogus. But then again, these days spying without a warrant is legal until proven otherwise.

Source:

Infopackets article.

If you really need to use a Windows application, try running it in WINE under Linux, or create a dual-boot with Windows XP.

Be sure that before you abandon Windows, you upgrade any firmware (BIOS or DVD drive).

2.3 Linux alone

There's nothing preventing you from, upon buying this laptop, downloading the Slackware 12 DVD mentioned above along with the additional needed files and then completely replacing Windows -- except of course the need to upgrade the BIOS or optical drive's firmware. You may find that Linux lacks a few things you may want, like some video game, but otherwise Slackware64 v13 is surprisingly complete. Even the fonts are very nice.

Pre-Windows Abandonment Checklist

1. Back up your Windows TrueType fonts before abandoning Windows.
2. Back up the C:\Windows folder for possible use with WINE e.g. write.exe may help.
3. Install Microsoft Word Viewer, Excel Viewer, and Powerpoint Viewer (they're free) and back up all files associated with those.
4. Update your BIOS.
5. If appropriate update the firmware on the optical drive.

3. Drivers & performance

3.1. Boot up times

The times to boot from kernel start (after LILO loads it) until login prompt are as follows:
Runlevel 3
Until console login prompt is 34 seconds.
Runlevel 4
Until KDE login prompt is 40 seconds.

3.2. Processor

The Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 is a more than sufficient for most purposes, since it runs at 2.4 GHz and 3 MB of L2 cache. Linux rates it at about 3990 bogomips.

The BYTE Magazine Dhrystone benchmark, available at anime.net says the P8600 running 64-bit Linux scores quite well. Its performance index is 574 when compiling with gcc 4.3.3.

3.3. Memory Bandwidth

To determine memory performance, I wrote a utility called "bandwidth", which is here.

The Core 2 Duo P8600 has very high memory bandwidth when running a 64-bit OS, but less so when running 32-bit. It can read from its L1 cache at about 32 GB per second, and both read and write the DDR3-8500 main memory at 5.3 GB/sec.

3.4. Video

3.4.1. X Windows

In Slackware64 13.0, you can use X Windows as-is. There is no need to modify the X configuration file.

3.4.2. Framebuffer

You can boot up in VESA 1024x768 mode, which is always stretched to fit the 1280x800 screen. The BIOS does not permit you to turn off stretching.

3.4.3 Video playback

Overall playback is very good using mplayer under X Windows, which is not included with Slackware.

3.5. Sound

The Intel high-definition audio chip works fine without any modifications for root. To let other users access audio, add each user to the "audio" group.

Luckily on this laptop, when you plug in headphones the speakers turn off. In the past I had owned laptops where this was not the case.

I have not tested sound recording at the command-line, but the following command should record 10 seconds of WAV data: 


arecord -d 10 foo.wav

3.6. ACPI & power usage

I have not tested average power usage but this is the meter that I will use to do so, called the Kill-a-Watt meter:

3.7. USB

Three ports total. They work fine.

3.8. Card34/Card54 slot

Not tested.

3.9 Networking

3.9.1 Ethernet

Not tested.

3.9.2 Wireless

The Intel wireless chip works fine using the supplied kernel, drivers, and Intel firmware.

FYI, the process for using Wifi is:

  1. iwlist wlan0 scan
  2. iwconfig wlan0 essid NetworkName key Password
  3. dhcpcd wlan0

However in my case the scan was not listing available networks. I just knew what they were already.

I have only tried using wireless without encryption.

3.10 SATA DVD writer

This machine came with a DVD writer on a SATA port.

K3B is the preferred DVD burning tool. It's included and it works fine.

Note, the included DVD burner seems to be unable to write to older 3X DVD-RAM discs.

3.11 SATA hard drive

There is no need to switch the system to IDE emulation. Linux works fine with the SATA drives.

3.11.1. Driver

It works fine. The Linux command hdparm indicates (hdparm -I /dev/sda) that it's using udma5.

3.11.2. Performance

Performance is as follows: 

# hdparm -t /dev/sda
/dev/sda:
 Timing buffered disk reads:  230 MB in  3.02 seconds =  76.21 MB/sec
bash-3.1# hdparm -T /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
 Timing cached reads:   3578 MB in  2.00 seconds = 1791.11 MB/sec

3.12 SD/MMC

I absolutely do not suggest using the SD slot under Linux. The Ricoh driver has wiped out sections of SD cards that I inserted. Note that I never manually mounted the cards.

3.13. Synaptics trackpad

It works fine.

4. Software

4.1. KDE & Xfce

I got tired of the fact that KDE crashes periodically so I switched to Xfce. It is better in my opinion and you can still use KDE applications.

4.2. Applications

If you're installing Slackware, you're probably already technically adept. Still, you may not know about all your options. Here is a table of equivalent applications between Vista & Slackware 12. (I'm not very familiar with KDE so I mostly leave its apps out.)
Type Windows Slackware X-Windows Slackware framebuffer Slackware command-line
Word processing MS Office / OpenOffice KOffice - TeX
Web browser Firefox/IE/Safari Firefox/SeaMonkey/Konqueror - Lynx & links
Email reader Thunderbird/Outlook Thunderbird - Pine
DVD burning Windows/Nero K3B - mkisofs+growisofs
Audio player WMP/Winamp/Real gxine/Audacious/noatun/mplayer fbxine aplay/amp/mpg123/mpg321
Video player WinDVD/ZoomPlayer/Quicktime/WMP/Winamp/Real mplayer/gxine/Amarok fbxine mplayer -vo aa:width=100:height=66
Video editor MovieMaker/VirtualDub AviDeMux - N/A
Photo editor PhotoGallery/Photoshop/GIMP GIMP - N/A
CD ripper WMP/CDex/FreeRip/iTunes kaudiocreator - -
DVD backup utility DVDDecryptor/FairUse ? - -
DVD authoring DVDFlick ? - -
Drawing program MSPaint Inkscape/Xfig - -
Simple document editor Wordpad - - -
Text editor Notepad/gvim gvim - vim
Keyboard macro utility AutoHotkey ? - -

5. Kernel

The supplied kernel worked fine and I have not gotten around to compiling my own kernel.

However you should always compile your own kernels no matter which distro you use. The reason is simple. While Slackware as a company is theoretically more ethical than the big Linux-focused corporations, the US government could always insert some spyware into a precompiled kernel and then require that Patrick not tell anyone it's there. To circumvent such meddling, compile and install your own kernel and be sure to turn off the NSA security features.

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