Thinkpad T500 anyone?

[Frans]

On Thu, 02 Oct 2008 16:16:53 +0200, Jan Torben Heuer wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I just got a T500 (didn't want it but, ok...).
> 
> Hardy doesn't support the hardware very well (no networking, bad
> graphics, ...). I found people running Debian Lenny, but they had to
> investigate some time. I would install Intrepid, but the e1000e driver
> isn't fixed in the alpha release, yet.
> 
> Any idea how long it could take until the next release of intrepid? Did
> someone manage the hardware to work with hardy or intrepid?
> 
> Jan

According to http://lkml.org/lkml/2008/10/1/368 the kernel developers, 
some of them intel employees, are busy working on the e1000e driver. IIUC 
they now work on a workaround to prevent damage to the ethernet 
controller's NVM. With that workaround at least the e1000e driver can be 
loaded without fear of damaging the controller.

BTW, Hardy has a e1000e module that should not be affected by the 'NVM 
corruption bug'. AFAIK that bug affects only newer kernels.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IntrepidIbex/TechnicalOverview says under 'known 
issues': "A problem that could result in corruption of the firmware on 
Intel GigE ethernet hardware has led to the disabling of the e1000e 
driver in the Linux kernel included in Ubuntu 8.10 Beta. Ethernet devices 
that use this driver cannot be used with Ubuntu 8.10 Beta; support for 
this hardware will be re-enabled in daily builds immediately after Beta 
and this issue will be resolved for the Ubuntu 8.10 final release. 
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/263555".

HTH,

    -Frans