OpenBSD on an IBM ThinkPad T42p

In late 2006, I purchased a used IBM (now Lenovo) ThinkPad T42p laptop. It is model number 2373HTU. This was purchased as my primary workstation laptop to run OpenBSD and it does so very well. The ThinkPad replaces an Apple PowerBook G4 15 inch laptop running Mac OS X and a Compaq PIII E500 Armada laptop running OpenBSD.

        

Here is a full dmesg.

Here is my xorg.conf. It has some tweaks such as putting the Control key in the proper place, some extra fonts, and using the VESA driver. However, X11 runs fine with no special xorg.conf at 1600x1200.

Hardware

• Intel Pentium M 745 processor, 1.8GHz
• 2GB of RAM
• ATI FireGL T2, 128MB RAM
• 15 inch, UXGA LCD screen with max resolution of 1600x1200
• IBM 11ABG WL LAN AR5212 MiniPCI 802.11a/b/g wireless card (ath)
• Intel Pro/1000MT Gigabit Ethernet (em)

Processor

Here is an example of the CPU running in low performance mode (to save battery).

urban:~ > sysctl hw.cpuspeed
hw.cpuspeed=600
urban:~ > sysctl hw.setperf
hw.setperf=0

Video

vga1 at pci1 dev 0 function 0 vendor "ATI", unknown product 0x4e54 rev 0x80

Network

em0 at pci2 dev 1 function 0 "Intel PRO/1000MT (82540EP)" rev 0x03: irq 11, address 00:11:25:2b:a2:5f

The IBM 11ABG WL LAN 802.11a/b/g wireless interface is a Mini PCI card with an Atheros AR5212 chipset and is supported under the ath(4) driver.

ath0 at pci2 dev 2 function 0 "Atheros AR5212 (IBM MiniPCI)" rev 0x01: irq 11
ath0: AR5213 5.6 phy 4.1 rf5111 1.7 rf2111 2.3, WOR1W, address 00:05:4e:51:0c:e8

Modem

"Intel 82801DB Modem" rev 0x01 at pci0 dev 31 function 6 not configured

Bluetooth

ugen0 at uhub2 port 1
ugen0: Actiontec Electronics product 0x2441, rev 1.10/5.46, addr 2

PCMCIA

Keyboard

The Function (Fn) modifier keystrokes such as Fn+F3 (screen off/on), Fn+Home/End (screen brightness), Fn+PgUp (ThinkLight), Fn+F4 (sleep / suspend to RAM), and Fn+F12 (suspend to disk / hibernate) all work. OSD feedback under X11 is provided with the "tpb" package. The BACK/FORWARD buttons near the cursor key cluster are programmable with the "tpb" package or xmodmap(1).

There is a problem with the suspend functions under X11 with the radeon and ati drivers. See the APM section below for details.

TrackPad and TrackPoint

APM

apmd(8) and apm(8) work to automatically or manually control the SpeedStep technology in the Pentium M CPU.

Suspend to RAM (sleep) with zzz, apm -z, or Fn+F4 and suspend to disk (hibernate) with Fn+F12 work fine in console mode. However these do not work in X11 if the Xorg config is using the radeon or ati driver. It works fine with the vesa driver and for me, this is an acceptable workaround.

Suspend to disk (hibernation) requires that a partition be created of type 16 (OS/2 hidden) in order to have a place to suspend to. Use the "tphdisk" package and follow the instructions included with that package to create a suspend file on the partition.

Here is the layout of my partitions:

urban:~ > sudo fdisk /dev/rwd0c
Disk: /dev/rwd0c        geometry: 7752/240/63 [117210240 Sectors]
Offset: 0       Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending       LBA Info:
 #: id    C   H  S -    C   H  S [       start:      size   ]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 0: 16    0   1  1 -  554 239 63 [          63:     8391537 ] OS/2 hidden 
 1: 12 7157   0  1 - 7751 239 63 [   108213840:     8996400 ] Compaq Diag.
*2: A6  555   0  1 - 7156 239 63 [     8391600:    99822240 ] OpenBSD     
 3: 00    0   0  0 -    0   0  0 [           0:           0 ] unused      

ThinkLight