Two questions on Thinkpad T41

[Bruce M Simpson]

On Thu, Jul 08, 2004 at 12:12:03AM +0200, Per olof Ljungmark wrote:
> 1) The CDRW is apparently a problem. Using 5.2.1 I can boot with it but 
> if I compile the kernel with atapicam it will crash on boot, similar to 
> -current where I cannot boot at all with the drive inserted. I assume 
> there is no way around this at the moment?

For what it's worth, I managed to test the other day with two separate T41
machines (one with help from a local FreeBSD user) on -CURRENT, and the
machine I was testing on did *not* demonstrate the CD-RW/DVD related crash.

This was based on a simple hard drive swap with my own T40 which doesn't
have any problems running -CURRENT:

empiric:~ % uname -a
FreeBSD empiric.dek.spc.org 5.2-CURRENT FreeBSD 5.2-CURRENT #1: Tue Jul  6 23:17:47 BST 2004     bms at kimchi.dek.spc.org:/usr/src/sys/i386/compile/EMPIRIC  i386

Further inspection revealed that the part numbers, and indeed firmware
revisions, of the modules were IDENTICAL...

The BIOS and ACPI embedded controller versions were also identical. At
the moment I have very little to go on and don't have kernel crash dumps
to work from.

> 2) Modem. The built-in one is a winmodem and as such cannot be used att 
> all. After digging around in the closet I found a MultiTech pccard modem 
>  that is not in the /etc/defaults/pccard.conf list. Should I proceed 
> anyway and try it?

I had a look at what it would take to support IBM's T4x series integrated
modems. The Linux driver is actually just a wrapper around the software
modem code which is linked using obfuscated ELF symbols. I haven't had
time to sit down and attempt to port, but I believe the porting process
should be very similar to that used for the Lucent ltmdm port.

Most 'standard' PCMCIA modems with their own microcontrollers should work.

> 3) What is the proper device name for a pccard moden inserted into slot1?

Quite often these are numbered as sio3 upwards in my experience, but this
isn't guaranteed.

The last time I used such a card, I had to rebuild sio as a module with
a patch from Warner which supplied a pccard attachment in addition to
the ISA one so that the card would probe and attach (exca, cardbus, and
pccard were also built as modules).

Regards,
BMS