JH (triviawiz425 at yahoo dot com)
This is a guide to running Debian Linux (Testing “Lenny” AMD64) with the Lenovo 3000 Y410 laptop.
This page is under construction.
| Name | Lenovo 3000 Y410 |
| Processor | Intel Core 2 Duo T5250@ 1.5GHz |
| Screen | 14.1” WXGA |
| RAM | 2GB |
| HDD | 160GB |
| Optical Drive | DVD+-RW,2Layer |
| Graphics | Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 |
| Network | Broadcom BCM5906M Fast Ethernet, Intel 3945ABG Wireless, Bluetooth |
| Other | 3 x USB2.0, 1 x Firewire (800/4-pin) |
| Device | Compatibility | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Processor | Yes | |
| Screen | Yes | |
| Optical Drive | Yes | |
| Graphics | Yes | Use the i810 module |
| Sound | Yes | Use the snd-hda-intel module with model=sony-assamd (note that the microphone and headphone jacks won't work) |
| Touchpad | yes | Dont forget to apt-get the synaptics driver for xorg (and GNOME or KDE) |
| Ethernet | Yes | |
| Wireless | Yes | Use the ipw3945 module in the apt repos |
| Bluetooth | Yes | |
| 56K Modem | Not Tested | |
| USB | Yes | ICH8 |
| Firewire | Not Tested | |
| Card Reader | Yes | |
| PCMCIA | Not Tested |
There are a few things that don't yet work well in Linux with this model, but for the most part, you'll find that these things won't seriously hinder your performance, and this is still a good laptop for running Linux on.
Discussion
I jus tried his laptop with Ubuntu 9.10 beta
It all works out of the box excepect the on board mic
Wifi/BT/Speakers all work out f the box (I needed to install the ristricted drivers for WIFI) bt without any dificulty
Try as I might I cant get the onboard mic to work, the workaround is to use a external mic pluged into the mic jack
Other than that its easy sailing
Check out the fix of setting the VREF from here - https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-driver/+bug/141445
Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron
Installed Ubuntu 8.04 64 bit, just about everything seems to work out of the box(once all updates are done and restricted extras are installed), absolutely no extra configuration was required.
Hibernate/Suspend, power saving modes and the special Fn keys as well as the touchpad scroll all work flawlessly.
The SD card reader and Ethernet work out of the box, and WiFi works with the restricted drivers(got a pop-up message on first boot.
Graphics and Desktop Effects worked, no tweaking or additional drivers required and the correct screen resolution was detected out of the box.
Sound works though the volume is slightly on the lower side(barely noticeable). The speakers get muted correctly when headphones are plugged in(an issue I had with Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon), and on the whole no issues encountered.
The only tweaking needed was the GUI theme : D.
Great job by the guys at Ubuntu. Cheers
Problem with sound and wireless
I've installed openSUSE 10.3, Ubuntu 7.10, Mandriva 2008.1, and tried to install Debian Etch. Debian couldn't detect the Broadcom Extreme ethernet card - even after I forced it to use the tg3 module (which is used by Ubuntu).
With openSUSE, Compiz won't run properly until I upgraded to kernel 2.6.22.17 and Xorg 7.3.
With Ubuntu, just can't get the desktop effect to work, even with the restricted drivers.
Mandriva 2008.1 works like a charm, well almost… with a problem common to all the distros I tried except MS Windows.
The common problems are two: Sound and Wireless.
It seems that the sound won't work. I managed to make it work with openSUSE by updating to ALSA xx16 (don't remember the xx part) and setting model to Auto. Still, the subwoofer doesn't work. If I set model to acer (i think), subwoofer works as a mono speaker, but front speaker won't work. In almost all model options tried, none is perfect but Auto is not so bad. And yet, once rebooted, I may or may not get the sound. Same in Ubuntu.
As for the wireless, lspci shows it is detected and properly too but can't be used because all the linux distro says that the hardware RF kill is on (which is not). I tried overiding the rf_kill value but that is for software kill switch and won't work - especially in Ubuntu with that kernel bug (still not solved as of today) where you can't even write to the rf_kill file… confusing. And in Mandriva, it works at first, or sometimes and I think I know why now.
Here's what I discovered that is the ONLY workaround available in all the linux I tried - I couldn't find it ANYWHERE on the Internet after searching like crazy for a whole week (sleepless… 20 hours a day on this).
For anyone having the same model, here's the workaround to get Wireless and Sound to work and it's actually easy. Actually, two ways but the second one is more reliable if your distro suspends properly.
Method 1: During boot up, at Grub (or in BIOS boot), press Ctrl-Alt-Del for warm reboot. If during the warm reboot the wireless light turns red, you have a chance that the RF kill switch is now off. If not, Ctrl-Alt-Del again. Still, it's just a chance. To increase your chance, try also to increase the sleep time between modprobe of the ipw driver and the loading of the ipw daemon (in /etc/modprobe.d/ipw3945 — there's the sleep 0.5 parameter, change to sleep 2 or more).
Method 2: This is more reliable if your distro suspends reliably. Simple actually and I have tested in Mandriva and Ubuntu. Just press Fn-F1 to go to sleep mode and then wake it up. Now, the Fn-F5 (Wifi) and Fn-F6 (Bluetooth) just works! At the same time, so is the sound! (not the subwoofer, though)
So now, here's my idea which I don't know how to do: make the same script that run on wake-up also run during boot. So, does anyone know how?
If only I've tried suspending it earlier, I would have more sleep. I never tried Fn-F1 (suspend) before as I read that it might have trouble waking up. Instead, it actually repairs the keyboard map for the Fn key.
Please, if anyone know how to put the wake-up script also into boot, then I think the bug can be fixed in ALL distro.
All in all, Mandriva 2008.1 works out of the box (even the webcam and desktop effects) - you just have to press Fn-F1 to enable wifi RF Kill key and sound (same in Ubuntu). openSUSE is still the best for it but I am yet to try the workaround there. I suspect it will work.
I will continue to investigate and maybe I'll post the findings at http://blog.syafril.com if I have the time. I'll put this up there too so anyone can contribute. FYI, mine is the Lenovo IdeaPad Y410 Model 7757 (IdeaPad and 3000 is the same - only marketing).