Running FreeBSD on an IBM ThinkPad 600E Laptop

Copyright: You can redistribute this document as you wish, as long as you mention the author (me).
If you have something intelligent to add, do not hesitate to post it.

Author: Stefan Schindewolf <pendragon.uther_at_gmx.de>

Laptop: IBM Thinkpad 600E

Distribution: FreeBSD 4.7

Status

What works: X, Power Management, Sound, Serial
What does not work: IrDA

Steps

1) Do a standard installation as described in the FreeBSD Handbook

2) Recompile your kernel. Working config ACTUAL is attached. The follwing lines are important for the CS4232 soundcard.

device          snd
device          css0    at isa? port 0x530 irq 5 drq 1
device          mpu0    at isa? port 0x330 irq 0

The rest of the GENERIC Settings should work fine.

3) A working XF86Config is attached. Important is

	Driver      "neomagic"
	VideoRam	2048
	HorizSync   31.5 - 57.0
	Load        "dbe"

Edit /etc/ttys so that it contains:

ttyv6   "/usr/X11R6/bin/xdm -nodaemon"  xterm   off secure

4) The rc.conf should include:

apm_enable="YES"
apmd_enable="YES"
moused_enable="YES"
usbd_enable="YES"
pccard_enable="YES"
pccard_ifconfig="inet som.eip.add.res netmask som.ene.tma.sk_"
pccard_mem="DEFAULT"
pccardd_flags=" -i 10"

5) Tweak the system (favourite shell, desktop environment, etc.)

6) To get the serial port working, you will have to activate it from DOS.

• Download the PS2.EXE floppy image.
• Boot your laptop.
• Activate the serial port.
• Reboot.
• Burn the floppy (cowards just do dd if=/dev/null of=/dev/fd0)

7) Congrats, you are now a bsd ... brother ;-)

Other Resources

• Unix Laptop Survey
• TuxMobil - hardware section
• Linux Mobile Guide - Installing, Maintaining and Tuning of Linux on Mobile Computers