# Lenovo Thinkpad Sl510: Experiences and recommendations

## Nacon

Hello,

I'm going to get a "Lenovo Thinkpad SL510 (NSL7MGE)", but I'm very sceptical about its fully compatibility with Linux (especially Gentoo here), because after searching the web it looks like the SL-series aren't really that Linux friendly, due to their IdeaPad platform.

Even though I'm aware of this, the SL501 NSL7MGE is still one of the best, due to its exellent cost/performance ratio, compared to similar products:

 Technical details here (german site)

So, I'm interested in your experiences with the SL-series, especially what problems are occuring.

Furthermore I'm thinking about the basic setup for such a beautiful machine (basically used for business-like tasks and presentations, but also for browsing the web and watching videos).

What comes to my mind are the following aspects:

 - Encryption (only the home dir?)

 - Filesystem (using ext-4 currently; but is it recommended to store for example large videos on a seperate partition with a different filesystem for performance reasons?)

 - Window manager (I'm not really a fan of KDE or Gnome on laptops)

The fact that the Thinkpad SL510 isn't available for me until the first of April will give me some time to, hopefully, get some recommendations and impressions from you.

Thanks in advance.

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## zlomek

Hello, I have Thinkpad t61p and everythink works.

```
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 0c)

00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 PCI Express Root Port (rev 0c)

00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82566MM Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03)

00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)

00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)

00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)

00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)

00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)

00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)

00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 03)

00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 03)

00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)

00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)

00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)

00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)

00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f3)

00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HBM (ICH8M-E) LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)

00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 03)

00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)

00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Quadro FX 570M (rev a1)

03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 4965 AG or AGN [Kedron] Network Connection (rev 61)

15:00.0 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev ba)

15:00.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 04)

15:00.2 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 21)

15:00.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C843 MMC Host Controller (rev ff)

15:00.4 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 11)

15:00.5 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev 11)

```

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## d2_racing

I have a T60 and a T61 and everything is working  :Razz: 

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## Nacon

Yeah, but I was rather looking for someone with a SL-series Thinkpad, because of the different properties (kind of IdeaPad).

Quoting from thinkwiki.org:

 *Quote:*   

> The SL500 has IdeaPad firmware, as such some of the ThinkPad specific drivers and features are not supported.

 

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## d2_racing

Are you sure that's a good idea ? : http://old.nabble.com/FYI:-The-ThinkPad-SL500-has-IdeaPad-firmware-ACPI-EC-td19975376.html

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## Nacon

That's exactly the question: Is it worth the trouble?

But according to the latest developements, the basics should work fine:

 *http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Lenovo_Thinkpad_SL500#lenovo-sl-laptop_Kernel_Module wrote:*   

> lenovo-sl-laptop Kernel Module
> 
> This modules is no longer required in 2.6.32 for most hotkey support; the mainline asus-laptop module has been patched to support these models.
> 
> 

 

And the git comment:

 *http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=14f8af311e7d3e4198cbaade84a34f86505dcb37 wrote:*   

> This patch will enable the following hotkey:
> 
>  - Volumn Up
> 
>  - Volumn Down
> ...

 

So there is at least a kind of replacement for the thinkpad-acpi.

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## d2_racing

 *Nacon wrote:*   

> That's exactly the question: Is it worth the trouble?

 

Yeah, the T serie is 100% compatible with Linux, maybe the best is to use that serie  :Razz: Last edited by d2_racing on Mon Mar 22, 2010 1:51 am; edited 1 time in total

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## NeddySeagoon

Moved from Gentoo Chat to Kernel & Hardware.

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## marduk

I bought this laptop less than a week ago.  Not nowing much about it but being happy with my previous ThinkPad... kind of an impulse buy.

It' definately different than my R61.

When I first installed Gentoo on it I was rather dissppointed.  The multimedia keys did not work. The laptop brightness did not work. I could not get on to my wireless AP (kept timing out).  There were so many not-working things.

OTOH the display is much nicer than my R61.

Well, I took the lappy to work the next day and was able to get on my work's AP just fine.  And I found I was able to get on other APs.  I did a little searching and found someone else was having problems with this laptop and the Netgear WNR2000.  So maybe a problem with the AP.  Also he couldn't get the wired connection to work with the AP too.  I was surprised that neither could I.  I haven't tied wiring it to another connection.

Right now I'm using wirelss at home by having my R61 host it's on wireless network, then I'm connecting to it with my SL510, and being NATed over the wire to my home network.  It's ghetto but it works for now.

The display is nice.  I use compiz but have to turn the blur plugin off because it's too slow.  The blur plugin works fine on my other intel-based video cards (3 at home and 1 at work).  HD video seems to play fine.

I got the 7200 rpm drive.  It runs hot.  But hibernate/resume are freaking fast!  Damn near instant startup.

The other day I upgraded kernels (2.6.34-rc3) and desktop (GNOME 2.30).  Now the multimedia keys and screen brightness keys work  :Smile: .  The ThinkVantage key does not work (used to give "RETURN" but now gives nothing).   No big deal though because I dont' use that key, but it does work with the R61.  Suspend/Hibernate work.  The webcam works.  Presumably bluetooth works but I haven't attached anything to it yet.  eSATA works.  HDMI works (video & audio). 

To me it's definately "cheaper" in terms of quality than the R and T seriies.  But it comes with consumer quirks like webcam, HDMI and eSATA.  

My biggest dissapointments are that it does not work with my wireless AP and video performance with the compiz blur plugin.  Unless these are dealbreakers for you, generaly stuff works (or is starting to work) so you might want to try it.

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## d2_racing

Can you confirm the exact model that you bought ?

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## marduk

 *d2_racing wrote:*   

> Can you confirm the exact model that you bought ?

 

Lenovo ThinkPad SL510 2847-CTO

Intel P7570 w/ 3MB L2

4 GB  RAM

Intel Mobile 4 Graphics

Intel HD Audio

Intel WiFi Link 100 (iwlagn)

Realtech Ethernet (r8169)

Broadcom Bluetooth

Ricoh webcam (uvcvideo)

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## marduk

BTW,

I have confirmed that the ethernet works but, for some reason, doesn't work with my Netgear WNR2000.  Very strange that both wired and wireless doesn't work with that wireless router but works elsewhere...

-a

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## d2_racing

I'm gonna note that one for sure.

At work we use a lot of Thinkpad, but we bought only the T serie.

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## marduk

 *d2_racing wrote:*   

> I'm gonna note that one for sure.
> 
> At work we use a lot of Thinkpad, but we bought only the T serie.

 

Yeah the T series (and it's little brother the R series) are quite nice.  We used them at my last job too. Linux loves them.

Update: compiz/blur is now pretty darn fast, dare I say faster than my R61 since I updated mesa.  Don't use mesa 7.8* on intel yet (if you use compiz) as there is an open bug regarding screen refreshes.

So this machine is becoming increasingly more friendly to me.  The only thing I'm missing now is that it absolutely will not work with my Netgear WNR2000 AP, though I'm considering just getting a new AP.

Also, newly discovered.. it appears that the ALSA drivers don't have the option of disabling the speakers when headphones are plugged in.  It will play out of both outputs unless you manually mute the speakers.  I'm sure this is something that will eventually get fixed.

The built-in webcam is nice.  Support higher resolutions than I originally thought.  My ownly complaint is that it's quality is not good in low-light situations compared to my external Logitech.  But it's a much cheaper webcam with a much smaller lens so no surprises there.

There is a "microphone mute" button that I haven't tried yet.

I've gotten used to the keyboard but I wish the previous/next-page buttons were seperate buttons like on the R61.  Some of the Fn keys don't appear to work yet, but I don't really use them anyway.  The main ones I use are screen brightness and print screen and they work. The multimedia keys work.

Still haven't played with BT yet (maybe this weekend).

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## Nacon

I totally missed to post in this thread!

Basically I have to agree with you marduk: it's a nice machine, working better with linux than I thought.

So, my experiences are basically similar to yours.

I'm currently running the zen-sources on it, including the lenovo-sl-laptop driver, BFS and other goodies.

 *http://zen-kernel.org/included-code wrote:*   

> Works: hotkeys, bluetooth, the Lenovo Care LED, the fan
> 
> Experimental: backlight brightness, WWAN
> 
> 

 

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