Welcome to the realm of gnutux
Product Details
| Processor |
Intel
Pentium M 1.2 GHz |
|
|
| Installed Memory |
1 GB
(DDR SDRAM) |
|
|
| Display |
10.6
in. WXGA TFT Active Matrix |
|
|
| Operating System |
EvilOS
XP Professional |
|
|
| Mobile Technology |
Intel
Centrino Mobile Technology |
| Processor Type |
Pentium M |
|
|
| Processor Manufacturer |
Intel
|
|
|
| Processor Speed |
1.2
GHz |
| Chipset |
Intel
855GME |
|
|
| Bus Speed |
400
MHz |
| Installed RAM |
1 GB |
|
|
| RAM Technology |
DDR
SDRAM |
|
|
| Max Supported RAM |
2048
MB |
|
|
| Installed Cache Memory |
2048
KB |
| Hard Drive Capacity |
80 GB |
|
|
| Hard Drive Rotation Speed |
5400
RPM |
|
|
| Storage Controller Type |
IDE |
| CD / DVD Type |
Dual
Layer DVD±RW |
| Display Tech |
WXGA
TFT Active Matrix |
|
|
| Display Size |
10.6
in. |
|
|
| Display Max. Resolution |
1280
x 768 |
| Graphic Processor |
Intel
855GME |
|
|
| External Video Resolution |
1600
x 1200 |
| Audio Output Type |
Headphones • Sound card • Speaker(s) • SPDIF
out |
|
|
| Audio Input Type |
Microphone • SPDIF in |
| Expandability |
1 x
Type I/II PC Card Slot, 1 x SD Card Slot, 1 x CF Card Slot, 1 x
Memory Stick Card Slot, 1 x MMC Card Slot |
|
|
| Expansion Ports |
2 x
USB 2.0, 1 x IEEE 1394a (FireWire), VGA out, RJ-11 (modem), RJ-45
(NIC), S-Video out |
|
|
| Input Method |
Keyboard • Scroll Button • Touchpad |
| Networking Type |
Integrated 10/100 • Integrated Wireless LAN |
|
|
| Data Link Protocol |
Ethernet • Fast Ethernet • IEEE 802.11b •
IEEE 802.11g |
| Modem Type |
Fax /
Modem |
|
|
| Analog Modulation Protocol |
ITU
V.90 |
| Battery Run Time |
6.8
Hour(s). |
|
|
| Battery Technology |
Lithium ion |
| Exterior Color |
Grey |
In
general
Working just perfect!!
All I have tested -but external screen with accurated
resolution (see ahead)- is working just as a charm
This is what you simply
would call the ideal laptop to install GNU/Linux on it
Which
distro?
Up
to you. I started with gentoo and switched to ubuntu because I had
not much time left to
hack and the power management was giving
some trouble (feasible, though), so I went to Ubuntu
dapper (most things
just working out of the box) and hacked here and there. Still, if you
have
the time, I'd
recommend in any case the gentoo install... you'll
learn a lot!
Wi-fi, speedstep, usb,
hotkeys (also in usb perif.), microphone
Nothing
to say here. Just working out of the box with ubuntu dapper
A hint for n00bs,
If you have a
mac address filter on your router, be sure to
upload the address of
both devices, eth0 and wlan to it!
You can find the
number like this:
ifconfig -a
The mac address is the number looking like this (in red)
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:13:3D:6F:65:1H
inet addr:192.168.2.100 Bcast:172.126.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::203:dff:fe1b:8017/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:181175 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:93962 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:268155966 (255.7 MiB) TX bytes:5972294 (5.6 MiB)
Interrupt:9 Base address:0xc800
eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0T:19:5N:62:4Y
BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
Interrupt:11 Memory:ffdfd000-ffdfdfff
A small shell script to do automatically all this stuff
(I'll
keep improving this, so come back in the future)
Since
I don't feel like going through the whole thing each time I have to
look for a connection, I thought it'd a good thing to have a shell
script
doing this for me... which I call "Sense_fils.sh" (Catalan for
"wireless")
Well, here you have it. I assume your wlan interface is eth1 and
your
shell is zsh. Run it as sudo or add sudo to each line
#!/usr/bin/env zsh
# Script "Sense_fils.sh". Stops firestarter, if running, also all possible dhcpcd
# connections and scans for possible networks, giving you the possibility of choising
# one of them and connect to it via wpa (ascii)
# Copyright Pau Amaro-Seoane and released under GPLv2:
# http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl.txt
# Check whether script talks to a person... errr... terminal
tty -s && stdin_is_human=1
tty -s <&1 && stdout_is_human=1
firestarter -p
killall dhcpcd
killall dhcpcd-bin
killall dhclient3
ifconfig eth0 down
ifconfig eth1 up
# list of available wireless connections (aka beams)
beams=( $(iwlist eth1 scan | grep ESSID | cut -d":" -f 2 | sed 's/\"//g') )
n_beams=$#beams
# chose a "beam"
if [[ -n $stdin_is_human ]] && [[ -n $stdout_is_human ]]; then
echo "Master, I've found the following beams to suit you:"
for (( i=1; i<=n_beams; i++ )); do
echo \ \ \[$i\] $beams[$i]
done
echo -n " Which beam do you want (1-$n_beams) ?"
read ibeam
echo ""
mybeam=$beams[$ibeam]
echo " You selected \"$mybeam\"... Very good choice! (what are you doing tonight?)"
echo -n " And... what about your password: "
stty -echo # prevent password to be echoed
read password
stty echo
echo ""
else
ibeam=1
ybeam=$beams[$ibeam]
password=""
fi
iwconfig eth1 essid "$mybeam" key s:$password
dhcpcd eth1
echo "Congratulations Master. You are connected to \"$mybeam\". My pleasure"
Sleep,
hibernate
Dapper only gave me two problems
besides this:
hibernate (suspend to disc) and
sleep
(suspend to RAM). But this
is an easy thing to solve.
For the sleep
mode edit
/etc/default/acpi-support
and uncomment the second line by
deleting the #
character. Reboot your
machine. Suspend can be triggered by
pressing the laptop's sleep button
or choosing "suspend"
from the GNOME logout menu.
For the hibernate
mode remove
the boot splash
option of your box
vi /boot/grub/menu.lst
Just delet the word "splash" in the
options
title Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.blabla
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.blabla root=/dev/hda1 ro quiet
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.blabla
savedefault
boot
Resolution of
the screen
Unfortunately
Ubuntu (Xorg) cannot cope with the 1280x768 pixels and gives you
1024x768... But don't worry, there's a small hack on it.
Download
this small c program and do the following
gcc -o i8xx_patch 1280patch-845g-855gm-865g.c
sudo ./i8xx_patch 30 1280 768
Of course, you'll have to stop X, gdm etc and then restart it
again
When your box has booted and you're in front of your gdm, go to a
terminal
(contrl + alt + any FX , X=1 ... 12) and launch this script, which I
call
ComencaXambBonaResolucio.sh (Catalan for StartXWithRightResolution)
#!/bin/env zsh
sudo pkill -9 Xorg &&
sudo pkill -9 gdm &&
sudo /home/pau/bin/i8xx_patch 30 1280 768 &&
sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart
You can just put the script into your home bin and chmod u+x
ComencaXambBonaResolucio.sh
As of now I didn't have the time to find a way to set the right
resolution on an
external screen... but it's ok, I can live with that for the moment
(and I use it
daily). A possibility is to reboot the laptop with the external screen attached and
DURING THE BOOT press fn + F10 ... the resolution will be automatically set right.
NEWS!!
The Intel Extreme 915GM graphics chip is detected by the Ubuntu
installer and it
correctly writes the /etc/xorg.conf file with
modelines for 1280x800 that appear to be
appropriate for the built-in
panel and no other modelines. Unfortunately the video BIOS
fails to
report the TFT panel's dimensions as one of the modes available from
the card
and when X starts however it decides that the most appropriate
mode to be in is 1024x768.
The resulting video gets mapped onto the TFT
and looks wrong because its aspect ratio is
incorrect (1280x800 is a
widescreen TFT and 1024x768 is a standard screen mode) and the
pixels
of the mode don't exactly map onto the pixels on the panel. There are
also some
unfortunate times when bits of windows fall off the screen
and can't be accessed.
I was pointed in the direction of a program called 855resolution which
rewrites the video BIOS
tables of machines with the Intell 855 Centrino
chipset and allows the reported modes to be
redefined. I was unsure
whether 855resolution was suitable for my 915GM card but I located
a
fork of the project called 915resolution which definitely is.
915resolution is
actually in the Dapper repositories, making it much
simpler. Just do this:
1. Install it from Synaptic or apt-get
2. Find a mode you want to overwrite by typing "915resolution -l" and
choosing a resolution you
don't
use, like 1920x1440
3. sudo gedit /etc/defaults/915resolution, and set x=1920, y=1440,
mode=3d (or whatever mode you don't need)
4. Then start 915resolution (do sudo /etc/init.d/915resolution start)
5.Restart X (ctrl-alt-bkspc).
XGL/COMPIZ