Installation of lenny on Lenovo W500

[Miah Gregory <mace@darksilence.net>]

Hi folks,

I've been trying to perform a clean install of lenny on a Lenovo W500
laptop, but have met with various issues, some of which are more
problematic than others:

Using the "lenny beta2 release" netinst cd image, and expert GUI mode, I
managed to get as far as detecting network card, at which point I
couldn't proceed as neither the wired or wireless cards were detected.

I then tried a daily snapshot of the pxeboot installer (to save burning
another CD), and this managed to successfully complete the whole
installation process using the wired network card.

Support for the various control buttons seems to now work, a definite
improvement over etch (eg. brightness), and interaction of the dock
appears improved, although when undocking, the network card does not
disconnect?

However the two main devices that are still not fully functional
following this install are the intel wireless network card, and the ATI
GPU, unless you run X in VESA mode, which seems by default at least to
give a logical screen that is slightly too wide and thus scrolls.

I then tried both the open source ati driver and the closed source one,
and neither seemed happy with driving it, with the open source driver
not recognising the card, and the closed source version functioning but
extremely slowly.

Please let me know if you'd like any further information, or would like
me to test anything - the machine can be blown away as often as is
required.

Thanks.

-- 
Miah Gregory