Linux on a Thinkpad 760EL laptop

Linux on a Thinkpad 760EL Laptop

The Thinkpad 760EL was a state of the art machine in 1998. Sporting a huge (for the time) 12" TFT display, 32 meg of memory, a 2 gig hard drive, and a 20x CD ROM, this baby is still a handy gadget *. The Pentium-133 CPU does run things at a leisurely pace by current standards, and its size and weight are a bit hefty, but it's still a fine laptop. You can buy these machines used for about $600 - $900, depending on features, accessories, and how desperate the seller is.
* Some versions of the 760EL have a DSTN display, less RAM, and a 4x CD ROM.
I bought my 760EL in early 2000. Installing Linux on it went much smoother than I expected. My first attempt was with a Red Hat 6.1 (GPL version) CD, but the install froze right at the start. Mandrake 6.1 (GPL version) installed slick as a whistle, even getting the X server right with only minimal manual intervention.

The Linux Installation Procedure
Setting up a dual-boot machine (Win95 / Linux) complicates things a bit.

Boot up Win95.
From the My Machine / System menu, disable virtual memory (removes swap file.
Run scandisk in full mode to check for bad sectors.
Exit from Win95 to DOS.
Enable CD ROM drive by editing autoexec.bat and config.sys files. You will need to unrem one line in each.
While you're working on these file, make certain that disk caching ("SmartDrive")is disabled.
Reboot into DOS so the changes take effect.
Insert the CD with the Linux distribution, and cd to the dosutils directory.
Run fips to shrink down the DOS partition (read the fips docs first!)..
You will likely need to reboot to DOS once more, because fips usually freezes up after doing its job.
Now cd to the CD drive once more. Note that it may have changed to drive e: as a result of running fips.
Run ezstart, and try the zero floppy install.
Choose the Custom install and select packages totaling less than 700 meg, in order to leave yourself enough space on your 2-gig HD.
Cross your fingers, and hope the install goes smoothly (it should).

Post-installation

Hand-tuning the XF86Config file enables an 1024x768 virtual desktop (8-bit only) and 16-bit color. The display works in 16-bit color, although with slow scrolling and the colors a bit washed out. The video chipset is a Trident TG9660 with 1 meg of memory.
Note: Disable gpm, as it seems to cause problems for the X server.
Running sndconfig (as root) sets up the sound card. It's an ESS1688, (io=0x220 irq=5 dma=1 mpu_io=0x330).
Mandrake automatically enables xdm. To undo this, and enable a login from the console, then (as root) change the line id:5:initdefault: in /etc/inittab to id:3:initdefault: .
The included PCMCIA modem card detects as a "Megahertz XJ-CC4 228" on /dev/ttyS1 (com 2). This is not a Winmodem. Getting this modem to work under Linux involves "rounding up the usual suspects" - chmod 666 /dev/ttyS1, updating /etc/resolv.conf to show your ISP's IP address, and writing appropriate chat and ppp-on scripts. (Fortunately, the newer Linux kernels have PCMCIA support.)

Update

Upgrading to Mandrake 7.2 is a bit tricky. The main problem is that XFree86 4.0.1 seems to have a flawed Trident driver, and the svga driver has been eliminated from it (this may be remedied in 4.0.2, out early in 2001). This means using XFree86 3.3.6, and using a modified XF86Config file.
The other problem is getting the sound card to work. The old /etc/conf.modules file is no longer valid. Replace it with this /etc/modules.conf file. The last five lines in the file enable sound. Note that /etc/conf.modules has been deprecated and should no longer be present. Note also that if you have one or more PCMCIA cards, you need to change /etc/pcmcia/config.opts, as follows
# Resources we should not use, even if they appear to be available. # .... exclude irq 5 # Add above line to ensure PCMCIA card does not get set to # the IRQ that the sound card needs.

References

Mandrake Linux
The Linux Laptop Home Page
Linux Laptop HOWTO
Linux Thinkpad mailing list

Last updated 02/09/00