IBM ThinkPad G40?

[Sunnz]

Does anyone know how IBM ThinkPads works with *BSDs in general?

I am thinking of picking up a second hand of these one: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si...232#networking

Hmm... I really have used Free and OpenBSDs so far, but I do want to try out NetBSD and DragonFly BSD as well if I do get this laptop.

My main concern is that if its network port will work or not... I don't plan to use its wireless, just CAT5 to my main machine... I really only want this for experimental stuff, but would like it to at least with the Internet.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

[ocicat]

Originally Posted by Sunnz

Does anyone know how IBM ThinkPads works with *BSDs in general?

Many OpenBSD developers use Thinkpads.

[BSDfan666]

From that page, Audio should be fine.. OpenBSD supports the AD1981A AC 97' codec, the rest of the page lacks any *detailed* information about the system.

Digging around leads me to believe it might use a BroadCom chipset for the wired Ethernet.... but that's all I can find.

Unless someone owns that exact system, (possibly a different revision/model), you won't find a definitive answer... the only "absolute" way of knowing if it's supported is to boot OpenBSD and see if everything is detected.

That's my advice..

[peenworm]

Intel's been pretty pissy with their drivers (unable to distinguish 'releasing specs for open source' and 'just writing a linux driver') so the wifi might give you a problem depending on the chip. Given the "supports a maximum of 1GB" I'm guessing this is old enough to not use the 4965agn chipset, so there's a chance it's still using the iwi driver which has come along pretty well in FreeBSD 7.

If the latest X is freaking out on the video card (also intel), you might want to uninstall the xf86-video-i810 (in ports) and install xf86-video-intel.

Or it could all be completely fine right out of the box. When the specs in the link are just generically "intel" it's a guess as to what specific chipsets are up on it. This looks like a laptop that FreeBSD will take to nicely though.

[Bender]

I got myself an old T42 and have it smoothly running with FBSD 7 out of the box.
My ethernet uses the em driver which is supported by the Kernel. Wireless with WPA wasn't a ploblem as well. The wireless intel chipsets are supported by the kernel, just load the modules.

[kazcor]

FreeBSD 6.3 runs fine on my T41, although suspend/resume are broken with the current xorg drivers - regardless of whether DRM/DRI is enabled or not. According to some other people this is fixed for FreeBSD 7.0, but a short look on it some month ago was disappointing since my Atheros 5212 (replacement for the standard intel wifi) refused to work.

[Sunnz]

Originally Posted by BSDfan666

the rest of the page lacks any *detailed* information about the system.

Yea I know I was trying to google and search their web page... it is pretty frustrating.

Digging around leads me to believe it might use a BroadCom chipset for the wired Ethernet.... but that's all I can find.

Unless someone owns that exact system, (possibly a different revision/model), you won't find a definitive answer... the only "absolute" way of knowing if it's supported is to boot OpenBSD and see if everything is detected.

That's my advice..

I might just to on misc and ask if anyone has the exact system then.

EDIT:

After some Googling, it seem somebody who had exactly the same laptop posted its detail, it had Broadcom BCM5901 100Mbps NIC... as for graphics it has Intel 82852/855GM graphics chipset.

So I guess NIC is BCM590x which is supported by the bge(4) driver as far as OpenBSD goes?

[davidgurvich]

From the thinkwiki site, all the components of the G40 are well supported including the wireless. Wireless uses either a prism chipset or atheros, depending on the card.

[Sunnz]

Oh, didn't know that there is a thinkwiki site, thanks for the heads up.

Anyway somebody at misc do have exact the same model whom send me a copy of their dmesg, which helps a lot more:

OpenBSD 4.3 (GENERIC) #698: Wed Mar 12 11:07:05 MDT 2008
    deraadt@i386.openbsd.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/GENERIC
cpu0: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz ("GenuineIntel" 686-class) 2.40 GHz
cpu0: FPU,V86,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,CFLUSH,DS,ACPI,MMX,FXSR,SSE,SSE2,SS,HTT,TM,SBF,CNXT-ID
real mem  = 1063809024 (1014MB)
avail mem = 1020592128 (973MB)
mainbus0 at root
bios0 at mainbus0: AT/286+ BIOS, date 06/19/03, BIOS32 rev. 0 @ 0xfd7e0, SMBIOS rev. 2.33 @ 0xe0010 (47 entries)
bios0: vendor IBM version "1TET79WW (1.03b)" date 06/19/2003
bios0: IBM 238432U
apm0 at bios0: Power Management spec V1.2
apm0: battery life expectancy 1%
apm0: AC off, no battery
acpi at bios0 function 0x0 not configured
pcibios0 at bios0: rev 2.1 @ 0xfd770/0x890
pcibios0: PCI BIOS has 9 Interrupt Routing table entries
pcibios0: PCI Interrupt Router at 000:31:0 ("Intel 82801DBM LPC" rev 0x00)
pcibios0: PCI bus #3 is the last bus
bios0: ROM list: 0xc0000/0xc600 0xcc800/0x1800 0xdc000/0x4000! 0xe0000/0x10000
cpu0 at mainbus0
pci0 at mainbus0 bus 0: configuration mode 1 (no bios)
pchb0 at pci0 dev 0 function 0 "Intel 82855GM Host" rev 0x01
agp0 at pchb0: aperture at 0xe0000000, size 0x8000000
"Intel 82855GM Memory" rev 0x01 at pci0 dev 0 function 1 not configured
"Intel 82855GM Config" rev 0x01 at pci0 dev 0 function 3 not configured
vga1 at pci0 dev 2 function 0 "Intel 82855GM Video" rev 0x01
wsdisplay0 at vga1 mux 1: console (80x25, vt100 emulation)
wsdisplay0: screen 1-5 added (80x25, vt100 emulation)
"Intel 82855GM Video" rev 0x01 at pci0 dev 2 function 1 not configured
uhci0 at pci0 dev 29 function 0 "Intel 82801DB USB" rev 0x01: irq 11
uhci1 at pci0 dev 29 function 1 "Intel 82801DB USB" rev 0x01: irq 11
uhci2 at pci0 dev 29 function 2 "Intel 82801DB USB" rev 0x01: irq 11
ehci0 at pci0 dev 29 function 7 "Intel 82801DB USB" rev 0x01: irq 11
usb0 at ehci0: USB revision 2.0
uhub0 at usb0 "Intel EHCI root hub" rev 2.00/1.00 addr 1
ppb0 at pci0 dev 30 function 0 "Intel 82801BAM Hub-to-PCI" rev 0x81
pci1 at ppb0 bus 2
bge0 at pci1 dev 0 function 0 "Broadcom BCM5901" rev 0x01, BCM5705 A1 (0x3001): irq 11, address 00:06:1b:c2:92:67
brgphy0 at bge0 phy 1: BCM5705 10/100/1000baseT PHY, rev. 1
cbb0 at pci1 dev 1 function 0 "TI PCI1410 CardBus" rev 0x02: irq 11
cardslot0 at cbb0 slot 0 flags 0
cardbus0 at cardslot0: bus 3 device 0 cacheline 0x8, lattimer 0x20
pcmcia0 at cardslot0
ichpcib0 at pci0 dev 31 function 0 "Intel 82801DBM LPC" rev 0x01: 24-bit timer at 3579545Hz
pciide0 at pci0 dev 31 function 1 "Intel 82801DBM IDE" rev 0x01: DMA, channel 0 configured to compatibility, channel 1 configured to compatibility
wd0 at pciide0 channel 0 drive 0: <IC25N040ATMR04-0>
wd0: 16-sector PIO, LBA, 35312MB, 72319989 sectors
wd0(pciide0:0:0): using PIO mode 4, Ultra-DMA mode 5
atapiscsi0 at pciide0 channel 1 drive 0
scsibus0 at atapiscsi0: 2 targets
cd0 at scsibus0 targ 0 lun 0: <TEAC, DW-224E, B.0A> SCSI0 5/cdrom removable
cd0(pciide0:1:0): using PIO mode 4, Ultra-DMA mode 2
ichiic0 at pci0 dev 31 function 3 "Intel 82801DB SMBus" rev 0x01: irq 11
iic0 at ichiic0
spdmem0 at iic0 addr 0x50: 512MB DDR SDRAM non-parity PC2100CL2.5
spdmem1 at iic0 addr 0x51: 512MB DDR SDRAM non-parity PC2100CL2.5
auich0 at pci0 dev 31 function 5 "Intel 82801DB AC97" rev 0x01: irq 11, ICH4 AC97
ac97: codec id 0x41445374 (Analog Devices AD1981B)
ac97: codec features headphone, 20 bit DAC, No 3D Stereo
audio0 at auich0
"Intel 82801DB Modem" rev 0x01 at pci0 dev 31 function 6 not configured
usb1 at uhci0: USB revision 1.0
uhub1 at usb1 "Intel UHCI root hub" rev 1.00/1.00 addr 1
usb2 at uhci1: USB revision 1.0
uhub2 at usb2 "Intel UHCI root hub" rev 1.00/1.00 addr 1
usb3 at uhci2: USB revision 1.0
uhub3 at usb3 "Intel UHCI root hub" rev 1.00/1.00 addr 1
isa0 at ichpcib0
isadma0 at isa0
pckbc0 at isa0 port 0x60/5
pckbd0 at pckbc0 (kbd slot)
pckbc0: using irq 1 for kbd slot
wskbd0 at pckbd0: console keyboard, using wsdisplay0
pms0 at pckbc0 (aux slot)
pckbc0: using irq 12 for aux slot
wsmouse0 at pms0 mux 0
pcppi0 at isa0 port 0x61
midi0 at pcppi0: <PC speaker>
spkr0 at pcppi0
lpt2 at isa0 port 0x3bc/4: polled
npx0 at isa0 port 0xf0/16: reported by CPUID; using exception 16
fdc0 at isa0 port 0x3f0/6 irq 6 drq 2
fd0 at fdc0 drive 0: 1.44MB 80 cyl, 2 head, 18 sec
biomask effd netmask effd ttymask ffff
mtrr: Pentium Pro MTRR support
wi0 at pcmcia0 function 0 "Lucent Technologies, WaveLAN/IEEE, Version 01.01" port 0xa000/64
wi0: Firmware 8.72 variant 1, address 00:02:2d:27:30:07
umass0 at uhub0 port 3 configuration 1 interface 0 " USB DISK 2.0" rev 2.00/1.10 addr 2
umass0: using SCSI over Bulk-Only
scsibus1 at umass0: 2 targets
sd0 at scsibus1 targ 1 lun 0: <, USB DISK 2.0, PMAP> SCSI0 0/direct removable
sd0: 3936MB, 501 cyl, 255 head, 63 sec, 512 bytes/sec, 8060928 sec total
uhidev0 at uhub1 port 2 configuration 1 interface 0 "Logitech Optical USB Mouse" rev 2.00/3.40 addr 2
uhidev0: iclass 3/1
ums0 at uhidev0: 3 buttons and Z dir.
wsmouse1 at ums0 mux 0
softraid0 at root
root on wd0a swap on wd0b dump on wd0b