7.2 on Thinkpad w500?

[cipher]

I recently bought a Lenovo Thinkpad w500 (4062-3JG) and would like install fbsd 7.2 onit, but first I'm wondering if anyone in here has tried installing bsd on this machine?

[vivek]

Go to official FreeBSD Hardware list (HCL) and see if your laptop listed or not:
http://www.freebsd.org/releases/7.2R/hardware.html

Another option is try out FreeBSD live cd and see if everything works or not see a list of recommended Live CD's here - http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=468

[mudskipper]

I was also considering the W500, but haven't decided yet. As for the graphic card(s), you may want to look at this thread:
http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=3926

Conclusion was that the ATI card is supported except for 3D acceleration at this point. There were some issues with the Intel GPU (not FreeBSD-specific).

The gigabit ethernet controller is an Intel 82567LM. I didn't find much information on FreeBSD support, but this link (in German)
http://www.freebsd.de/archive/de-bsd-questions/de-bsd-questions.200901/0066.html
says it should work perfectly. I remember there was also a FreeBSD dmesg somewhere on this forum where the 82567 was detected.

The wireless controller is an Intel 5300ABGN. This would only work with the iwn driver that was recently ported over from OpenBSD. I read it works when you run CURRENT, though it can be made to work with 7-STABLE.

Please keep us informed on your progress!

[cipher]

I finally found some time to start the install. I used 7.2 and most stuff works out of the box except for the wireless, but I haven't tried the iwn driver yet.

I had some problems with the graphics since this machine as got two adapters (ati and Intel), but when I changed it to the intel card is work just fine.

[mudskipper]

Hi cipher, I also received my W500 in the meantime. I guess we're out of luck for wireless connectivity at this time. I installed 8-current to get this working but the development on the iwn driver doesn't seem to apply for the chipset revision in the W500 (at least my W500). pciconf -v lists

none3@pci0:3:0:0: class=0x028000 card=0x12118086 chip=0x42378086 rev=0x00 hdr=0x00

for the intel 5300. This post has more info about it.

I `solved' this for now with a cardbus wifi card. Except for some issues with X and the intel driver (closing/restarting X breaks 3D support) I'm very happy with my new machine.

[mudskipper]

edit: should have been pciconf -l

BTW, my xorg.conf for the intel card:


Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "X.org Configured"
Option "AIGLX" "true"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
Option "DontZap" "false"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "card0"
Option "DRI" "true"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "enable"
EndSection


note that both the ati card and the intel card got auto-detected by X, without further need to configure. The additional config above is for having 3D (compiz) working on the intel card.

For the sound (snd_hda) I had to add the following to /boot/device.hints:


hint.hdac.0.cad0.nid22.config="as=1"
hint.hdac.0.cad0.nid26.config="as=1 seq=1"
hint.hdac.0.cad0.nid24.config="as=2"
hint.hdac.0.cad0.nid29.config="as=2 seq=1"



NB: Do you have the cardreader working? I tried with an SD card, but no luck. I'd be interested to know what the status on FBSD 7.2 is.