All thinkpads have a Wifi card whitelist at the BIOS level that prevent installing certain WiFi cards. The restriction can be bypassed with a BIOS modification: Either installing Libreboot, Coreboot or editing the official Lenovo/IBM BIOS.

This X61s laptop was manufactured in March 2008 and has the subtype 7667-CG7. The X series laptops that have the s suffix feature lower voltage and slightly slower processor chips compared to models without the s suffix.

It has an Atheros WiFi adaptor which uses the ath5k fully free driver. All the other functions that I have been able to test work with the gNewSense 3.0 installation, including suspend to RAM, hibernate, brightness buttons, volume buttons.

Video is Intel integrated graphics; Compiz works fine, and the Stellarium star chart program which uses 3d graphics for its display reports around 20fps, so I assume 3d graphics is fully supported. I have not yet tested external monitor or data projector connections but I intend to as that is an important part of my use case.

I installed the 32 bit version because I had that installer to hand, the laptop is has Duo Core 2 processor and should run 64 bit. As the laptop has 3Gb of RAM, I use the plain i686 kernel rather than the PAE version.

A search using the lspci -vmmnn tool shows a duplicate SD card reader that is flagged as requiring a non-free driver, just as shown in the X61 entry. This is probably a mis-detection of the PCI card interface.

Not a driver or compatibility issue but the fan on this laptop will always be running at around 3800 rpm with any GNU/Linux or BSD operating system. I use the thinkfan script to set temperature thresholds for the fan under the control of the kernel.

Below is the output of the lspci -vmmnn command

Slot:	00:00.0
Class:	Host bridge [0600]
Vendor:	Intel Corporation [8086]
Device:	Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub [2a00]
SVendor:	Lenovo [17aa]
SDevice:	T61 [20b3]
Rev:	0c

Slot:	00:02.0
Class:	VGA compatible controller [0300]
Vendor:	Intel Corporation [8086]
Device:	Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller [2a02]
SVendor:	Lenovo [17aa]
SDevice:	T61 [20b5]
Rev:	0c

Slot:	00:02.1
Class:	Display controller [0380]
Vendor:	Intel Corporation [8086]
Device:	Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller [2a03]
SVendor:	Lenovo [17aa]
SDevice:	T61 [20b5]
Rev:	0c

Slot:	00:19.0
Class:	Ethernet controller [0200]
Vendor:	Intel Corporation [8086]
Device:	82566MM Gigabit Network Connection [1049]
SVendor:	Lenovo [17aa]
SDevice:	Device [20de]
Rev:	03

Slot:	00:1a.0
Class:	USB Controller [0c03]
Vendor:	Intel Corporation [8086]
Device:	82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 [2834]
SVendor:	Lenovo [17aa]
SDevice:	ThinkPad T61 [20aa]
Rev:	03

Slot:	00:1a.1
Class:	USB Controller [0c03]
Vendor:	Intel Corporation [8086]
Device:	82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 [2835]
SVendor:	Lenovo [17aa]
SDevice:	ThinkPad T60 [20aa]
Rev:	03

Slot:	00:1a.7
Class:	USB Controller [0c03]
Vendor:	Intel Corporation [8086]
Device:	82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 [283a]
SVendor:	Lenovo [17aa]
SDevice:	ThinkPad T61 [20ab]
Rev:	03
ProgIf:	20

Slot:	00:1b.0
Class:	Audio device [0403]
Vendor:	Intel Corporation [8086]
Device:	82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller [284b]
SVendor:	Lenovo [17aa]
SDevice:	ThinkPad T61 [20ac]
Rev:	03

Slot:	00:1c.0
Class:	PCI bridge [0604]
Vendor:	Intel Corporation [8086]
Device:	82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 [283f]
Rev:	03

Slot:	00:1c.1
Class:	PCI bridge [0604]
Vendor:	Intel Corporation [8086]
Device:	82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 [2841]
Rev:	03

Slot:	00:1d.0
Class:	USB Controller [0c03]
Vendor:	Intel Corporation [8086]
Device:	82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 [2830]
SVendor:	Lenovo [17aa]
SDevice:	ThinkPad T61 [20aa]
Rev:	03

Slot:	00:1d.1
Class:	USB Controller [0c03]
Vendor:	Intel Corporation [8086]
Device:	82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 [2831]
SVendor:	Lenovo [17aa]
SDevice:	ThinkPad T61 [20aa]
Rev:	03

Slot:	00:1d.7
Class:	USB Controller [0c03]
Vendor:	Intel Corporation [8086]
Device:	82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 [2836]
SVendor:	Lenovo [17aa]
SDevice:	ThinkPad T61 [20ab]
Rev:	03
ProgIf:	20

Slot:	00:1e.0
Class:	PCI bridge [0604]
Vendor:	Intel Corporation [8086]
Device:	82801 Mobile PCI Bridge [2448]
Rev:	f3
ProgIf:	01

Slot:	00:1f.0
Class:	ISA bridge [0601]
Vendor:	Intel Corporation [8086]
Device:	82801HBM (ICH8M-E) LPC Interface Controller [2811]
SVendor:	Lenovo [17aa]
SDevice:	T61 [20b6]
Rev:	03

Slot:	00:1f.1
Class:	IDE interface [0101]
Vendor:	Intel Corporation [8086]
Device:	82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller [2850]
SVendor:	Lenovo [17aa]
SDevice:	ThinkPad T61 [20a6]
Rev:	03
ProgIf:	8a

Slot:	00:1f.2
Class:	SATA controller [0106]
Vendor:	Intel Corporation [8086]
Device:	82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller [2829]
SVendor:	Lenovo [17aa]
SDevice:	ThinkPad T61 [20a7]
Rev:	03
ProgIf:	01

Slot:	00:1f.3
Class:	SMBus [0c05]
Vendor:	Intel Corporation [8086]
Device:	82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller [283e]
SVendor:	Lenovo [17aa]
SDevice:	ThinkPad T61 [20a9]
Rev:	03

Slot:	03:00.0
Class:	Ethernet controller [0200]
Vendor:	Atheros Communications Inc. [168c]
Device:	AR5212 802.11abg NIC [1014]
SVendor:	IBM [1014]
SDevice:	ThinkPad 11a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini Express Adapter (AR5BXB6) [058a]
Rev:	01

Slot:	05:00.0
Class:	CardBus bridge [0607]
Vendor:	Ricoh Co Ltd [1180]
Device:	RL5c476 II [0476]
SVendor:	Lenovo [17aa]
SDevice:	Device [20c6]
Rev:	ba

Slot:	05:00.1
Class:	FireWire (IEEE 1394) [0c00]
Vendor:	Ricoh Co Ltd [1180]
Device:	R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller [0832]
SVendor:	Lenovo [17aa]
SDevice:	Device [20c7]
Rev:	04
ProgIf:	10

Slot:	05:00.2
Class:	SD Host controller [0805]
Vendor:	Ricoh Co Ltd [1180]
Device:	R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter [0822]
SVendor:	Lenovo [17aa]
SDevice:	Device [20c8]
Rev:	21