Dell Inspiron 8200
I purchased the computer in February 2003, and so far I have been very happy with it. I repartitioned the hard drive shortly after receiving it in the mail and installed Windows and Linux. See the Dual-boot section for a complete description of that setup.The basics:
- P-4 Mobile 2.0 GHz
- Intel 845MP chipset
- 512 MB DDR SDRAM
- 30 GB hard drive
Video
The video is provided by an ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 with 64 MB RAM. Don't confuse it with the standard Radeon 9000. It works great using XFree86 4.3 and the Xfree86 Kernel DRM modules. Gentoo has an easy to follow How-to at Hardware 3D Acceleration Guide. Note, however, that I complied agpgart as a kernel module. See the /etc section for more information.
The following line is added to my /etc/modules.conf:
alias char-major-226 radeonReturn to top
Display
The display is a UXGA Dell Ultrasharp with a resolution of 1600 x 1200. At first it was hard for me to get used to the super-fine resolution, but now I can't imagine computing without it.
Return to topSound
The sound is provided by an Intel AC97. The sound card basically worked out of the Gentoo box using the ac97_codec and i810_audio modules. This is added to my modules.conf:
alias sound-slot-0 i810_audio # slot/service 0 is for the mixer alias sound-service-0-0 i810_audio alias sound-slot-2 off # slot/service 2 is for midi (not supported) alias sound-service-0-2 off alias sound-slot-3 i810_audio # slot/service 3 is for dsp alias sound-service-0-3 i810_audio alias sound-slot-4 i810_audio # slot/service 4 is for dsp alias sound-service-0-4 i810_audioReturn to top
DVD-CDRW Drive
The drive is a Mashita CDRW/DVD. I can watch movies, burn CDs, rip CDs, etc. See the Software section for more information. You have to use SCSI emulation to make the burner work.
1. The kernel configuration is extremely important. Here's the SCSI options from my .config file.
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDESCSI=m CONFIG_SCSI=m CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SD=m CONFIG_SD_EXTRA_DEVS=40 CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SR=m CONFIG_SR_EXTRA_DEVS=2 CONFIG_CHR_DEV_SG=m CONFIG_SCSI_DEBUG_QUEUES=y CONFIG_SCSI_CONSTANTS=y CONFIG_SCSI_SYM53C8XX=m CONFIG_SCSI_NCR53C8XX_DEFAULT_TAGS=4 CONFIG_SCSI_NCR53C8XX_MAX_TAGS=32 CONFIG_SCSI_NCR53C8XX_SYNC=20
2. Make sure your Linux loader line resembles the one in my grub.conf. This is important: hdb=ide-scsi.
3. This is added to my modules.conf
options ide-cd ignore=hdb # tell the ide-cd module to ignore hdb alias scsi_hostadapter ide-scsi pre-install sg modprobe ide-scsi # load ide-scsi before sg pre-install sr_mod modprobe ide-scsi # load ide-scsi before sr_mod pre-install ide-scsi modprobe ide-cd # load ide-cd before ide-scsiReturn to top
PCMCIA
The pcmcia-cs package will not work without the proper PCIC option set. Here's my /etc/conf.d/pcmcia configuration file:
CARDMGR_OPTS="-f" SCHEME="home" PCIC="yenta_socket" PCIC_OPTS="" CORE_OPTS=""Return to top
USB
Unfortunately, only USB 1.1 is supported. So far I've only used the USB port for syncing my handheld. Here's the USB options from my .config file.
CONFIG_USB=y CONFIG_USB_DEBUG=y CONFIG_USB_DEVICEFS=y CONFIG_USB_BANDWIDTH=y CONFIG_USB_UHCI_ALT=y CONFIG_USB_AUDIO=m CONFIG_USB_EMI26=m CONFIG_USB_BLUETOOTH=m CONFIG_USB_MIDI=m CONFIG_USB_STORAGE=m CONFIG_USB_ACM=m CONFIG_USB_PRINTER=m CONFIG_USB_SERIAL=m CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_VISOR=mReturn to top
USB Mouse
I got a Logitech Traveler for my birthday. It's a USB optical mouse with a scroll wheel that works great. It sure beats using the touchpad. I got it working right away but had some problems with hotplugging. Here's how I did it.
1. Reconfigured and recomplied my kernel modules because I had not enabled HID support. See my .config for the USB options.
2. Added the following to my /etc/modules.conf:
alias char-major-13 mousedev post-install mousedev modprobe hid
3. Added a new section to my /etc/X11/XF86Config file:
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "USB Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Name" "AutoDetected"
Option "Vendor" "AutoDetected"
EndSection
4. Added a new line to the server layout section in my /etc/X11/XF86Config file:
InputDevice "USB Mouse" "AlwaysCore"Return to top
IRDA
The infrared chip is a SMC that supports both fast and slow IR, although I've used it only in the SIR mode for syncing my handheld. Here's how I got it to work.
1. Configured the kernel.
CONFIG_IRDA=m CONFIG_IRLAN=m CONFIG_IRNET=m CONFIG_IRCOMM=m CONFIG_IRDA_ULTRA=y CONFIG_IRDA_CACHE_LAST_LSAP=y CONFIG_IRDA_FAST_RR=y CONFIG_IRDA_DEBUG=y CONFIG_IRTTY_SIR=m CONFIG_IRPORT_SIR=m CONFIG_SMC_IRCC_FIR=m
2. Installed the irda-utils package.
3. Added the following to my /etc/modules.conf.
alias char-major-161 ircomm-tty alias ircomm0 ircomm alias tty-ldisc-11 irtty
4. Wrote the start script /etc/init.d/irda I use for starting IRDA and syncing my Sony CLIE. Note that my BIOS settings are for a SIR (slow infrared) port on COM4 (/dev/ttyS3 in Linux, of course). Since my WLAN PC-Card also uses interrupt 3, I have my start script do a check to see if the interrupt is free. Otherwise, I forget to remove the network card and wonder why the IRDA isn't working.
Return to topFirewire
I don't have any IEEE 1394 devices, so I haven't tried the firewire port.
Return to topEthernet (on-board)
The on-board LAN is a 3Com Corporation 3c905C-TX/TX-M [Tornado] chip. The following line is in my /etc/modules.conf:
alias eth0 e100Return to top
Dell Truemobile 1180 WLAN Card
The mini-PC WLAN card from Dell is based on a Broadcom BCM4301 chip with no open-sourceLinux driver available. You might want to sign the online petition, although I'm not sure it'll help much. A better bet is to follow the development activities at SourceForge.net.
Update: I installed the bcmwl5driverloader from Linuxant. If you're a Linux purist, you definitely don't want to use this driver. It's not open-source; it requires a license (now they only offer a free 30-day trial); and it requires the Windows driver. However, it does work.
Follow the install instruction that come with the driver. Make sure the following appears in your modules.conf:
alias eth1 bcmwl5driverloader
I inserted the following lines in /etc/init.d/net.eth1 directly after the line that reads checkconfig || return 1 in the start section. If this file doesn't exist simply copy net.eth0 to net.eth1.
/usr/sbin/iwconfig eth1 essid mySSID # Change mySSID to match yours. /usr/sbin/iwconfig eth1 nickname "Dell TrueMobile" # Not realy needed. /usr/sbin/iwconfig eth1 key 1234-5A6B-78 # Change to match your WEP key.Return to top
Belkin F5D6020 WLAN PC-Card
The F5D6020 Version 2.0 PC-card works with Linux. The range seems to be just as good as the Dell TrueMobile with the built-in antenna running under Windows. You can find a detailed How-to at House of Craig. Here's how I did it, although I've not been able to get the xvnet application to work.
1. Installed the wireless-tools package.
2. Installed the ATMEL WLAN Drivers.
3. Added this to /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts.
# Belkin 6020 Version 2
*,*,*,00:30:BD:*)
INFO="Belkin 6020 V2"
ESSID="mySSID" # Change mySSID to match yours.
MODE="Managed"
RATE="auto"
KEY="1234-5A6B-78" # Change to match your WEP key.
;;
4. Added this to /etc/pcmcia/atmel.conf.
card "Belkin 6020 Version 2" manfid 0x01bf, 0x3302 bind "pcmf502rd"
5. Restarted pcmcia and inserted the card. Checked status with ifconfig and iwconfig.
Return to topModem
The modem is a softmodem using a Conexant chipset. I emerged the Gentoo hsflinmodem package. If you're not a Gentoo user, you can download the driver from Linuxant.
Return to topKeyboard
The keyboard is a standard German 88-key device. I got the volume and CD keys to work using the following setup. Note that I use the package aumix to control the volume. I'm sure you can do it using kmix and dcop, but this way was faster. You also need the khotkeys package.
1. Installed the i8kutils package, a set of utilities for the Dell Inspiron 8000 series.
2. Added the following to /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/XKeysymDB:
! Ken's Custom Keys KenCDPlay :10090001 KenCDNext :10090002 KenCDPrevious :10090003 KenCDStop :10090004
3. Created a file called .Xmodmap in my user directory. You can run xev to determine the keycodes for individual keys.
keycode 129 = KenCDPlay keycode 130 = KenCDStop keycode 131 = KenCDPrevious keycode 132 = KenCDNext
4. Created a file called khotkeysrc in ~/.kde/share/config. Note that I'm using the Win button in combination with the End button for the mute function. Make sure the Win button is enabled using the KDE Control Center -> Regional and Accessibility -> Keyboard Layout and Keyboard Shortcuts.
[Main] Num_Sections=5 Version=1 #CD Player - Previous track [Section1] MenuEntry=false Name=CD_Prev Run=dcop kscd default previous Shortcut=KenCDPrevious #Mute [Section2] MenuEntry=false Name=Main_Mute Run=/home/ken/scripts/aumute Shortcut=Win+End #CD Player - Play [Section3] MenuEntry=false Name=CD_Play Run=dcop kscd default play Shortcut=KenCDPlay #CD Player - Next Track [Section4] MenuEntry=false Name=CD_Next Run=dcop kscd default next Shortcut=KenCDNext #CD Player - Stop [Section5] MenuEntry=false Name=CD_Stop Run=dcop kscd default stop Shortcut=KenCDStop
5. Created a script named dellbuttons in my scripts directory:
#!/bin/bash # This script sets the media buttons on a Dell Inspiron 8200 for use with KDE. # This line sets the volume buttons /usr/bin/i8kbuttons -u "/usr/bin/aumix -v+5" -d "/usr/bin/aumix -v-5" -m "/usr/bin/aumix -v0" & # This line maps the CD buttons /usr/X11R6/bin/xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap & khotkeys
6. Created a symbolic link so that the script is executed when KDE starts:
ln -s ~/scripts/dellbuttons ~/.kde/AutostartReturn to top
Touchpad
Both the touchpad and the pointing device work fine. See my XF86Config file for the configuration details.
Return to topSony CLIE
I have a Sony CLIE, model PEG-N610C, that works great with Linux. I sync my data using both the IRDA and the USB ports and J-Pilot and KPilot, although I had some trouble getting the AvantGo conduit to work with KPilot. See the software section for more information.
See my fstab entry /mnt/clie for mounting the memory stick. Before trying to mount the device with
mount /mnt/clie
be sure to start the handheld's MSImport program.
Return to topEpson Stylus Color 800
I use the CUPS printing system and the standard CUPS driver. The output suits my purposes just fine, although I did want to try the gimp-print driver. However, I have given up trying to get the gimp-print driver to work. All it gives me is a blank page instead of a test page. Any help on this subject would be appreciated.
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