Debian Squeeze on Lenovo Thinkpad X201i

Installation of Debian Squeeze (Testing; 25 Sept. 2010) on a new Lenovo Thinkpad X201i was mostly painless. A standard Squeeze installation was done with tasksel (base, desktop, laptop, ssh server) options selected.

Here are the results of running lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor DRAM Controller (rev 02)

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)

00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset HECI Controller (rev 06)

00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82577LM Gigabit Network Connection (rev 06)

00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset USB2 Enhanced Host Controller (rev 06)

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset High Definition Audio (rev 06)

00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev 06)

00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev 06)

00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 5 (rev 06)

00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset USB2 Enhanced Host Controller (rev 06)

00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev a6)

00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 5 Series Chipset LPC Interface Controller (rev 06)

00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset 6 port SATA AHCI Controller (rev 06)

00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset SMBus Controller (rev 06)

00:1f.6 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset Thermal Subsystem (rev 06)

02:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Advanced-N 6200 (rev 35)

ff:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QuickPath Architecture Generic Non-core Registers (rev 02)

ff:00.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QuickPath Architecture System Address Decoder (rev 02)

ff:02.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QPI Link 0 (rev 02)

ff:02.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QPI Physical 0 (rev 02)

ff:02.2 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor Reserved (rev 02)

ff:02.3 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor Reserved (rev 02)

There is a broad choice of wireless internet cards available for the X201 series. I tried to pick one (the Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6200) that thinkwiki said was supported by Linux when I ordered the computer.

Results of running uname -a:

Linux swallow 2.6.32-5-686 #1 SMP Sat Sep 18 02:14:45 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux (standard Debian kernel)

What works out of the box:

• X11 graphics at 1280x800 resolution.
• Wired ethernet (eth0). The kernel module e1000e is used.
• Sound.
• Sleep -- though sometimes wireless has to be restarted. Sleep works from the Fn-F4 key and from closing/opening the lid. Accessing it from the shutdown menu puts the machine to sleep, but the screen is black and the keyboard is unresponsive upon awakening. This sounds like a Gnome bug.
• Hibernate.
• Auxiliary VGA port -- Use the System -> Preferences -> Monitors tool on Gnome. You can set up the aux port to mirror the screen or give it different resolutions to accommodate projectors, etc. Without mirroring, sliding the mouse out the side of the screen puts you into the auxiliary display. Stuff can be dragged back and forth between the displays.

What takes some fiddling:

• Wireless ethernet (wlan0): The non-free firmware package firmware-iwlwifi has to be installed manually (apt-get install firmware-iwlwifi) to support the iwlagn kernel module. That's all!

What was not tried:

• Bluetooth.
• Modem.
• Camera (not installed).
• Fingerprint reader (not installed).

Dave Raymond, Physics Department, New Mexico Tech