Specifications:
| Processor: | Pentium M 900MHz |
| Bus Speed: | 400MHz |
| Memory: | 512MB PC2100 DDR (512MB maximum) |
| LCD: | 10.6" wide-format SXGA TFT (1280x768x16M) |
| Graphics Card: | Intel 855GM (up to 64MB shared memory) |
| Hard Drive: | 40GB |
| Media Drive: | Removable 8x DVD + 8x/16x/24x CD-RW Combo Drive |
| Audio: | Intel 82801DB AC'97 Audio (i810_audio) |
| Modem: | Intel 82801DB AC'97 Modem 56K |
| Ethernet: | Integrate 10/100 base-T (8139too) |
| Wireless: | Broadcom 802.11b/g Integrated |
| Mouse: | Touchpad (2-Button + scroll) |
| Keyboard: | 82-key full-size keyboard (18mm pitch x 2mm stroke) |
| Ports: | 2 USB 2.0, S-Video, VGA, RJ-11, RJ-45, IEEE 1394 (Firewire), 3 audio. |
| Media Slots: | Compact Flash and Memory Stick/Memory Stick PRO/SD Card |
Installation:
Installation proceeds with no real problems or surprises for Red Hat 9.0, Fedora Core 3, and Fedora Core 4. The internal ethernet works without any extra tweaking. Compact Flash memory cards are automatically mounted as PCMCIA devices. Wireless Card requires some additional drivers. Issues with the video card prevent the use of the entire screen, but the display is functional and can be fixed later.
X Configuration:
The laptop has no problem emulating any of the standard video modes (i.e. 800x600 or 1024x768), which means it's perfectly safe to let the installer configure the Xserver. However these modes will look stretched (or framed by black bars) since the native resolution is 1280x768. Due to a buggy Video BIOS not reporting 1280x768 the X Server does not think it's available, and cannot start in this mode. Fortunately there are two methods which will allow you to achieve 1280x768 on this laptop. (1) Buy a commercial X-Server from Xig. I have confirmed that it works by downloading the demo, but I decided to not use this as a permanent solution. (2) Reprogram the Video BIOS on boot, before the X Server starts, to tell it that the 1280x768 mode is possible. This is the method I am using (see discussion here):
- Download the code from here (mirror).
- Compile the code (with gcc) and save the executable somewhere (e.g., in /etc or /sbin).
- Put a command to execute this small program in your /etc/rc.local file.
- Add the following line to the Monitors section in /etc/X11/XF86Config :
Modeline "1280x768" 80.14 1280 1344 1480 1680 768 769 772 795
Wireless:
The integrated wireless card is made by Broadcom, and is not supported by the linux kernel. It is possible to get this one working under the 2.4 and 2.6 kernel, by using the ndiswrapper package. To get this to work on my system, I performed the following steps:
- Copied the bcmwl5.inf and bcmwl5.sys files off my windows partition.
- Installed the kernel-source (RH9) or kernel-devel (FC4) packages.
- Compiled and installed the ndiswrapper kernel module and tools:
tar -xzvf ndiswrapper*.tar.gz ; cd ndiswapper* ; make install - Installed the drivers copied from the windows partition:
ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf - Checked to make sure the line "alias wlan0 ndiswrapper" was in the /etc/modprobe.conf file.
- Executed "modprobe ndiswrapper"
Other Tweaks:
-
If you are having problems with incessant disk access, you can try the following two modifications:
— Uninstall magicdev, which is used by GNOME for checking to see if you have inserted a mountable removable device. Unfortunately this means checking for the existance of a CD/DVD every few seconds.
— Uninstall autofs which does basically the same thing as magicdev.
— Don't use ext3, or change the kjournald commit interval from 5 seconds to something like 30 seconds. If you want to compile your own kernel you can apply the patch found here.
Summary:
This laptop works great with linux if you don't mind the (a) VBIOS flash and (b) Ndiswrapper for the windows wireless drivers.
Linux on Laptops Links:
TuxMobil - Linux on laptops, PDAs and mobile phones
Last Updated: 07-Jun-05