11.04 doesn't work at all on my ThinkPad T500

[ranbo]

I have a Lenovo ThinkPad T500 (4GB RAM). I've tried upgrading to 11.04, but I first get a warning ("Third party sources disabled..."), then a fatal error: "Invalid package information. After your package was updated the essential package 'ubuntu-minimal' can not be found anymore. This indicates a serious error..." It says to report the bug, but I'm not sure where.

So I created both a 64-bit and 32-bit CD to boot off of. In both cases, it fails to boot, with the error:

udev-work[90]: '/sbin/modprobe -bv pci:....'
unexpected exit with status 0x0009.
...udevadm - timeout of 180 seconds reached.
The event queue contains: /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:2.0 (1039)

Any idea what's going on? I'd like to wipe my hard drive and start with a fresh upgrade to see if that fixes the problem on my laptop where suspend no longer works at all.

[dino99]

of course before upgrading its safer to deactivate all the third parties repo like ppa, ...
make some system cleaning with : sudo apt-get autoremove

can you boot in recovery mode the select "repair package" ?

if not, well you are ready for a fresh install (not the worst by the way)

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=10161428&postcount=2

[ranbo]

But I can't even do a fresh install! I try to boot off the CD and get the error that I listed. Does that mean I've got a hardware error?

[alanchambers]

I have the same problem booting 11.04 from a USB drive on my T500. Fortunately, I tried this before doing the upgrade via Update Manager.

I hope someone can help with this.

Alan

[CossRooper]

Hello all! I just registered just to help others with the t500.

It seems that the most recent kernel adopted by Ubuntu breaks the its ability to cope with the presence of the two video cards in our systems. No combination of boot codes for booting the LiveCD seems to fix it.

Until they roll out a fixed kernel, your best route to fix this is to disable Switchable Graphics in the BIOS in favor of either discrete or integrated graphics. You can access the BIOS by clicking the blue ThinkVantage button upon boot and selecting the F1 option when the blue menu appears. The Configuration menu you want is located in Config->Display. Change the field currently displaying Switchable Graphics to either Integrated(for better battery life) or Discrete (better performance). I've only tested Discrete and it's working great... lemme know if anyone tries integrated. I'd assume it would be the same.

On next boot, the CD's should boot just fine.

Hit that title up with [Solved] if it works!:D

Lenovo T500 now running xubuntu 11.04 (Unity blows :()

Edit: Oh. Crap. After a reboot, all I get is a blank black screen. Does anyone else have this problem?

Edit2: What the?!? It seems my BIOS reverted back to switchable graphics there for a minute. Everything works as stated above.

[alanchambers]

Until they roll out a fixed kernel, your best route to fix this is to disable Switchable Graphics in the BIOS in favor of either discrete or integrated graphics.


OK - it works for me - thank you!

Strangely, I remember having to do this on a W500 I had a couple of years ago, with an earlier version of Ubuntu, but my T500 has been fine up till now.

[ferdisalz]

Hello all! I just registered just to help others with the t500.

It seems that the most recent kernel adopted by Ubuntu breaks the its ability to cope with the presence of the two video cards in our systems. No combination of boot codes for booting the LiveCD seems to fix it.


Same problem over here.
Do you know where to find the official bug report (I assume there is one already)?
Hope they'll fix it very soon, it's really annoying on a dual-boot system.

[Kanehekili]

I'd like to thank CossRooper (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=1294747) for his hint, otherwise I could not have startet Natty on my T500 at all.
But I had more artefacts with the graphics. I have a M$ Win Xp installation on the Laptop (its my work laptop..) and unity seemed to alter some settings of the ATI Card-- so after using Natty M$ Win XP needed to reinstall the ATI driver...
That is not acceptable.
I'm using Lucid 10.04 for quite a while, but Natty does not seem to be ready for productive use.
There have been several boots, ,where the display did not show- or the screen flickered serveral times before anything worked.
So I quit Natty. I love Ubuntu, but Unity does not seem to be ready for it. I'm switching over to Kubuntu and will see whats happening there...