FreeBSD on ThinkPad W530

vermaden

vermaden

Hi,

CURRENT STATE:

After several weeks later I can write something more about this ...

I digged more with 10.0-BETA/RC and to my surprise I got:
- about 5 hours of bettery life (using Nvidia graphics only)
- working card reader (no steps required, sysutils/automount automounts it nicely)
- working 3g connection and wifi wireless
- screen brightness works as desired
- suspend/resume mostly works, sometimes after several switches between docking station it hangs, but Windows does the same, so 'on par' here
- Nvidia Optimus still does not work on FreeBSD, but I do not think I need it

Other things:
- ThinkPad W530 is fscked up by Lenovo, ALL external displays go through Nvidia card, so using integrated Intel card with docking station and external monitor is useless.
- New terminal graphical console modes are great, seems like Linux frambuffer, need some work but its a good direction.

In the end I moved back to FreeBSD only setup again (ZFS Madness way) with Windows only in VirtualBox now, feels like a fresh air ...

... and seams that business laptops are gone for good now, W520 seems one of the last ones, W530 is just another ACER/ASUS/...

OLD RANT:
I have just tried FreeBSD on a ThinkPad W530 and I must say that it's a very disappointing experience...

The FreeBSD 9.2-RC1 and PC-BSD 9.2-BETA2 does not even boot from the USB drive - instant kernel panic and reboot.

The FreeBSD 10.0-CURRENT was able to boot successfully and I could install FreeBSD onto the drive with 'ZFS Madnss' style.

After installation with extended battery charged to 100% I have about three hours of work... while having about ten hours on Windows (haven't tried Linux yet). I disabled discrete graphics (Nvidia) in the BIOS and also added set hw.pci.do_power_nodriver to 3, but that also did not solve the 'battery' problem. The powerd daemon was of course running and worked ok.

After compiling new x11/xorg (with WITH_NEW_XORG in /etc/make.conf) along with x11-wm/openbox I was able to get X11 working, but I can not go back to console as it's not implemented yet.

The screen is 100% bright all the time because the acpi_ibm module probably does not support this model yet (changing the dev.acpi_ibm.0.lcd_brightness is pointless, no effects).

Suspend and resume works very poorly, after resume the resolution is 640x480 with all colors broken, requires restarting X11 in 'blind mode' (not implemented console switching).

Of course as all of the above is not possible, using the Nvidia Optimus technology (graphics card switching) is probably also not possible, which is possible with Bumblebee on Linux, I hope that has any plans on merging that functionality into FreeBSD.

At least WiFi and LAN worked out of the box...

... or maybe I am doing it 'wrong'. Does someone have W530 there and uses FreeBSD with any more degree of success than I?

Here are created PRs:

http://freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=181281
stack trace after successfull 'umount /mnt' (SDHC card mounted as msdosfs)

http://freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=181282
3h of work on battery on FreeBSD while 10h on Windows

http://freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=181283
acpi_ibm module is useless on ThinkPad W530

http://freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=181285
x11/xorg does not start if Nvidia Optimus is enabled on
 
@lme,

Partially, just powerd and hw.pci.do_power_nodriver, I will have to try again with all of them.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I'm using FreeBSD on W530.

About brightness:

kldload acpi_video and set brigtness via sysctl hw.acpi.video.lcd0.brightness, available levels are "5 10 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 80 90 100". I wrote for me a small script which can increase or decrease brightness.

About video and sleep:

After I'm switching from Intel video to Nvidia (for now the x11/nvidia-driver works without any patching, in BIOS I choose "Discrete video") there are no problems for me - sleep/awaking working from X, switching to console (Ctrl+Alt+F1) is also working.

I can't say anything about battery life, because my laptop is AC-connected 99% of time, but it looks like it really has serious problems with it compared to Windows battery-life time.

P.S. I'm using FreeBSD-CURRENT now, but I've started with 9-STABLE and I don't remember at all if there were any problems.
 
@@xa

Thanks for the information, especially on the working brightness levels.

xa said:
After I'm switching from intel video to Nvidia (at now x11/nvidia-driver works without any patching, in BIOS i choose "Discrete video")
Click to expand...

This is probably one of the biggest issues for me, I need to have both enabled, so I can dual boot fast enough. I can accept the fact that Optimus will not work on FreeBSD for the next three years.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Are the battery life issues not caused by the fact that Optimus does not work?

I don't imagine the Nvidia card will have much power management on its chip (to save on manufacturing costs) when it expects to fall back to the Intel hardware anyway when not needed.

Edit: Ignore me, just reread the original post where it says you have tried Intel gfx already. Are you certain the Nvidia card is not still drawing power even when you are not using it? I might suggest installing the x11/nvidia-driver and disabling the Intel one to see if the "official" power management helps.
 
@kpedersen,

I have tried with only the Intel graphics card enabled and with both enabled and only Nvidia enabled, I did not see the difference between these 'modes' in battery life.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
As for the brightness problem, my laptop is not supported as well, but I'm able to dim my screen with XRandR.
Try e.g. xrandr --output LVDS1 --brightness 0.65. That sets brightness to 65%.
 
I hate to be a curmudgeon, but why do this to yourself and your W530? I also have a W530 - nice machine - why not leave it as is and run all this in a very well made VM?
 
RichardET said:
I hate to be a curmudgeon, but why do this to yourself and your W530? I also have a W530 - nice machine - why not leave it as is and run all this in a very well made VM?
Click to expand...

Why use FreeBSD at all, when you can just use Windows for everything?
 
Using Windows as a VM host can be very effective, particularly when the hardware has lots of proprietary features, or at least things that are poorly supported on FreeBSD.
 
wblock@ said:
Using Windows as a VM host can be very effective, particularly when the hardware has lots of proprietary features, or at least things that are poorly supported on FreeBSD.
Click to expand...

That's what I currently do, but only until FreeBSD is 'ready' for W530.
 
pkubaj said:
Why use FreeBSD at all, when you can just use Windows for everything?
Click to expand...
For everything? There are still places where I prefer paper.

And now I crawl back in my cubicle while you all sort out what I meant ;)

PS: I would prefer to run Linux as a VM host if it could drive the hardware sufficiently. But that's also just me.
 
vermaden said:
Hi,

I have just tried FreeBSD on a ThinkPad W530 and I must say that it's a very disappointing experience...
Click to expand...

My Thinkpad W530 works perfectly when I have the graphics settings in the BIOS set to Dedicated graphics. I'm using the latest nVidia driver.
 
vermaden said:
I have just tried FreeBSD on a ThinkPad W530 and I must say that it's a very disappointing experience...
Click to expand...

After several weeks later I can write something more about this ...

I digged more with 10.0-BETA/RC and to my surprise I got:
- about 5 hours of bettery life (using Nvidia graphics only)
- working card reader (no steps required, sysutils/automount automounts it nicely)
- working 3g connection and wifi wireless
- screen brightness works as desired
- suspend/resume mostly works, sometimes after several switches between docking station it hangs, but Windows does the same, so 'on par' here
- Nvidia Optimus still does not work on FreeBSD, but I do not think I need it

Other things:
- ThinkPad W530 is fscked up by Lenovo, ALL external displays go through Nvidia card, so using integrated Intel card with docking station and external monitor is useless.
- New terminal graphical console modes are great, seems like Linux frambuffer, need some work but its a good direction.

In the end I moved back to FreeBSD only setup again (ZFS Madness way) with Windows only in VirtualBox now, feels like a fresh air ...

... and seams that business laptops are gone for good now, W520 seems one of the last ones, W530 is just another ACER/ASUS/...
 
Nice laptop, do the volume keys work out of the box on FreeBSD?
IBM and Lenovo had and probably still have very good laptop and desktop keyboards.
How does it feel while typing on this laptop's keyboard? Are they heavy (my preference while programming)?
 
freesbies said:
do the volume keys work out of the box on FreeBSD?
Click to expand...
Nope. I use my own keyboard/mouse mappings.

Volume UP/DOWN are recognized by xev(1), so You can bind something to them, like volume up/down or something ;)

Volume MUTE is not recognized by xev(1).


freesbies said:
IBM and Lenovo had and probably still have very good laptop and desktop keyboards.
Click to expand...
ThinkPad W520 had classic business keyboard. W530 (and generally *30 from Lenovo) are not *real* ThinkPads anymore, they have very shitty keyboards.

freesbies said:
How does it feel while typing on this laptop's keyboard? Are they heavy (my preference while programming)?
Click to expand...
It feels like shit, get W520 which is REAL ThinkPad (or other *20 from Lenovo). I would get W520 instead of W530, but this is 'company' laptop, not my private one.
 
vermaden said:
vermaden said:
Other things:
- ThinkPad W530 is fscked up by Lenovo, ALL external displays go through Nvidia card, so using integrated Intel card with docking station and external monitor is useless.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
I thought this scheme was a part of the nVidia Optimus "standard"?
 
tingo said:
vermaden said:
vermaden said:
Other things:
- ThinkPad W530 is fscked up by Lenovo, ALL external displays go through Nvidia card, so using integrated Intel card with docking station and external monitor is useless.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
I thought this scheme was a part of the nVidia Optimus "standard"?
Click to expand...
Maybe, I do not know Optimus that much good.
 
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