I just brought myself a Lenovo R61 (89185KM). These are some basic notes on how my install of Debian etch via an i386 net-install cd went. I had initially tried amd64 but still flakey flash, java etc.
Booted fine.
Partition table created fine. Leaving a windows partition.
ethernet card detected and working fine.
Apt working fine. I did have a hiccup at package installation but re-running it solved what ever the problem was. I only chose to load laptop support and base config at this time. I Will load up X desktop later.
Grub installed fine.
On the initial reboot, acpi support complained about no such file or directory for system-manufacturer, system-product-name, system-version and bios-version. Vbetool segfaulted.
The Proprietary Nvidia drivers installed nicely and gave me a basic X session. All good. This is with the x86-169-07.pkg2 drivers. A nice guide can be found here.
For a stable eth and for sound, you’ll need to either install kernel version 2.6.23 from source or pull it from sid although there are some patches floating around.
Note on sound. For sound to work correctly on boot, you’ll need to have the modem enabled in bios otherwise all hell breaks loose.. 😉