# Gentoo on Toshiba satellite pro 6100

## Pseud

I've used Redhat on my laptop for a couple of years now, and am sick of the RPM mess and the KDE-unfriendliness of redhat (I adore KDE). So, anyway, I'm planning to switch to either Gentoo or Debian, but am not yet sure which I should go for. 

The freedom with Gentoo is a big attraction. But since its a laptop, I'm a bit worried that I might mess things up (I guess I'd have gone ahead boldly if it were a desktop). The cpu fan automagically turning itself on and off under redhat is one thing that comes to mind, for instance.

Is there anyone here who runs gentoo on the same laptop? I'd greatly appreciate any help/suggestions.

PS:

A related thread on a triple-boot arrangement here: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=151511

----------

## Humbled

Hey, I do!

I just installed a few weeks ago.  Runs great, but there are some caveats.  Most of the advice I found on the 'net was spot-on, although some not as good as others.  The install was by-the-book, it's just the hardware config.

For example, I want to run 1600x1200.  A lot of the Linux on Laptop advice was, "1024x768 is good enough."  Yeah, right.

Anyway, if you would like help on the install just let me know. (IM me if you want, too)

H

----------

## Pseud

Wow, that was fast!!

Thanks for the offer to help!

I guess I'll do the install tonight. Any tips you could give me right away?

Oh and btw, I'm picky about having a 1600x1200 resolution too  :Smile: 

Thanks!

----------

## Humbled

Tips, huh?

The best tip I could give you, is that if you're still in your warranty, take it to a service center and get all the fixes.  This model has some nasty defects.  :Smile: 

I'll tell you this:

You'll want to emerge nvidia-glx to get the best graphics.

You have an eepro100 (ethernet)

I haven't set up built-in wireless yet.  :Sad: 

PCMCIA is yenta.

Sound is Intel i810.

USB is UHCI.

(Most of this is detected for you, so it's no biggy.)

ADSL is easy, adsl-setup, adsl-start, adsl-stop.  :Smile: 

If you have a router, just use dhcpcd to get your stuff assigned and up.

As for partitioning, I don't know how you're set up, but I split my HD in two and put Linux in an extended partition.

You've been using RH for a few years, so you probably know all of this already...

To get 1600x1200, you need to set IgnoreEDID to True in your XF86Config.  Use "nvidia" for the driver after emerging nvidia-glx, take out the entry for loading dri in the modules section.  Set the boardname to "NVIDIA GeForce4 (generic)".

Humm, I don't think there's much else to say.  If you're using the 2004.0 LiveCD Ultimate, you may as well start from Stage3.  I might go back and do Stage1 or Stage2 later, but 3 is good enough for me for now.

I fully recommend the 2.6 kernel.  You *want* preemption for a smooth user experience.  Only trouble is, I'm having some issues with sound.  (But apparently, a lot of people are.)

This is really enough to get you up and running if you know what you're doing (and by the looks of it, you have more experience with Linux than I do), but should you need anything from me don't hesitate to ask.  I'd love to help out, that's what makes this thing great.

H

----------

## Pseud

Oh and I'd love to experiment with the complie-everything-from-scratch install. Is it advisable on laptops?

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## Humbled

 *Pseud wrote:*   

> Oh and I'd love to experiment with the complie-everything-from-scratch install. Is it advisable on laptops?

 

The Satellite Pro 6100 isn't zippy but it can do it.  Just start it up, make sure it's working and go cook dinner, have a go on the treadmill, make love to your girlfriend (or boyfriend), whatever it is you do.  :Wink: 

H

----------

## Humbled

Ah,  I wanted to add that I'm safely using -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe for my CFLAGs.  I haven't tried -O3 or anything else drastic.

USE flags are also really great (Gentoo specific, as well).  I only want Gnome, so I hard-set -kde -qt, and who needs svgalib?  -svga.

 :Smile: 

H

----------

## Pseud

Great!

Thanks for all the input!

I'll do my homework and get back with doubts  :Smile: 

And my two years with redhat was not very consistent ... very on-off-ish with a dual boot with XP to fall back on, (of course with the associated guilt-pangs for not sticking with Linux the whole time,) so I'm no expert.

----------

## Pseud

 *Humbled wrote:*   

> Tips, huh?
> 
> The best tip I could give you, is that if you're still in your warranty, take it to a service center and get all the fixes.  This model has some nasty defects. 
> 
> H

 

Yeow! What kind of defects? I'm still on warranty ... My hard disk had a problem and had to be replaced about 6 months ago, and Toshiba's service was great and that convinced me to buy two years of extended warranty.

----------

## Humbled

Oh, you are SO lucky you bought the extended warranty!

First, make sure that you've got the latest BIOS (1.9 I believe).  A LOT of the problems are fixed with that.

It's quite possible that your support guy implemented some of the simpler fixes for you when he had it in his care, or perhaps he didn't.  Check the manifest, see if all he did was replace your HD.

I'm not sure if the defects are in all laptops, or if they sold "fixed" versions later as they discovered problems.

They're really too numerous to mention (and I don't remember all of them), but some of the bad hardware probs include:

VGA board separating from main PCB (system won't power on)

Faulty power handling (system won't power on)

Glue separates on screen (get a weird ring around the screen)

Hard drives dying early (you already experienced this)

BIOS/CMOS electrical issues (system constantly forgets settings)

... and more

You'll know if your VGA board starts to separate, your machine will just turn itself off unexpectedly.  Then it will slowly get more and more frequent until it won't power on at all.

According to the service rep I talked to, this laptop wasn't designed by Toshiba.  The Satellite Pro series was outsourced, and apparently, Toshiba was quite pissed with the results.  He claimed that they won't be using the company anymore, since it turned out to be such a lemon.

He told me what he did to fix the problems:

- new motherboard w/ latest BIOS

- new power supply (not to be confused with your power adapter)

- support bracket to keep VGA board properly set into its position

- new keyboard

- new DVD drive

Basically, he replaced everything except the hard drive (which later died and I replaced myself with a Hitachi), the memory, the case, and the screen.  I wish he had replaced the screen, since I'm starting to get that annoying ring.  It's not burn-in, it gets worse the longer it sits UNused...

I think the battery and charging system is okay.

So anyway, good luck, and enjoy it while you can.  FWIW, I started experiencing crash-and-won't-boot-problems approx. 4 months after I bought mine.  Support was fantastic, but it did take four attempts, the final one being an "advanced" center after yelling at Toshiba a bit.  :Twisted Evil:  That's the place that fixed everything in one go with the latest stuff.  I just kept having critical problems again and again before that.

When did you buy yours?

H

PS - All of those hardware problems I listed, I experienced.  Not one... ALL.  Oh, and my "advanced" service guy said there were actually hardware revs to fix the known problems, which is why he replaced so much stuff.

----------

## Pseud

Holy ravioli!

That's one huge list alright! And a total refurbishing, now that's scary.

I bought mine close to two years back, if I remember right. Now I'm glad I decided to go for the extended warranty.

Actually, other than that one-time hard disk snag, I've had absolutely no problems with my laptop... probably was a patched-up version, like you said.

----------

## Humbled

Let's hope, at least.  I have to admit, 1.5 years is a bit quick for a hard drive to be dying.  I'd want to see 3+, optimally...

Anyway, mine's working fine now, and hopefully yours will continue to work well into the future.  Maybe the fact that I lugged mine to work and back every day egged on the problems. That's always a possibility.  It also made a trip to Japan and back with me..  :Wink: 

H

----------

## Pseud

I just remembered, even the hard disk failure, I have a strong suspicion it was faulty right from the beginning. The laptop came preinstalled with Win XP Pro and among the gazillion pre-installed software packages (Doesn't one find them annoying?), there was AOL... 

I never was able to uninstall AOL ... it would always hang for a long time and I'd cancel it thinking I'll do it later...

It got done in a giffy with the new disk ... so I'm guessing there were some bad sectors on the disk and my near 24/7 usage of the laptop ensured things got worse and i noticed something was wrong, within the warranty period  :Smile: 

Ah well, anyway, my next post will only be after I've loaded Gentoo, and hopefully from something Mozilla-ish.

I love this forum already!

Thanks everyone out there!

----------

## Humbled

emerge firefox-bin

unless you REALLY want to compile Mozilla...  :Wink: 

----------

## Pseud

Hey Humbled,

I just finished the Gentoo install. Well, I have the basic services up and running, that is. (I did a stage1 install and I think it was a good learning experience.) I asked elsewhere in this forum and NeddySeagoon's tips helped me keep the Redhat install and share the /boot and <swap> partitions with Gentoo, which I thought was a neat solution.

I tried cheating X by copying over the XF86Config form the Redhat install, but it didnt work ... guess I'll look into it now. I'll get back to you if I can't figure it out?

Just wanted to say thanks for all the help, really appreciate it.

----------

## Humbled

No problem.

If you need to see any of my config files or anything just let me know (I've got a watch set on this thread so I'll know when you post.)

H

----------

## Pseud

Humbled,

Can you show me your XF86Config file?

X seems to be skipping the 1600x1200 resolution and jumping to 1400x1050. I am guessing its because my HorizSync and VertRefresh aren't set to the full range (I never could find the specs ... googling gives any number of different ranges), or because my VideoRam is only 16384, but I'm not sure.

```

Section "Monitor"

        Identifier      "Monitor0"

        VendorName      "Toshiba"

        ModelName       "Toshiba Satellite Pro 6100 LCD"

        HorizSync       30-66

        VertRefresh     50-100

        Option  "ddc" "off"

        Option  "dpms"

EndSection

```

Also, some kernel configuration setting took care of enabling the on-keyboard-mouse-thingie (I always forget the name) alongside my USB mouse, and I'm damn kicked (I had to struggle a bit for it to work on Redhat)

The fonts look ugly right now, but I guess I'll set up Xfs later today after reading the "font de-uglification howto" which I found somewhere on the Gentoo doc pages.

PS: 

I do have the

Option	IgnoreEDID "True"

line in the Devices section for the videocard

----------

## Humbled

My laptop's at home and I'm at work at the moment, and I don't remember exactly what it is I did.  The IgnoreEDID should be what tells X that you can go higher than that res, but it could be the frequency settings you've got.

IIRC (and I might not), I'm using something more like

```

        HorizSync       30-60

        VertRefresh     90 

```

I'll update here and post my whole config when I get home (5-ish EST).  

Try taking out that DPMS line. I believe laptop screens are configured through APM/ACPI and not DPMS. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

H

----------

## Pseud

Thanks.

Btw, how do I actually check the current resolution?   :Confused: 

I did take out the dpms line... Actually I added it off someone else's config file without knowing what it means or does (Oh, a LOT of things took that route before Gentoo  :Smile: )

----------

## Humbled

Intuition.

Seriously, I don't know.  But I think it's pretty easy to tell when the LCD is interpolating.

----------

## Humbled

You seem like the kind of person who does quite thorough research.

This is my first really serious go at linux, so I'm learning new things as I go.

I used a stage 3 tarball, but I've been reading up more on setting compiler flags and stuff.  I'll probably change all my make.conf settings and emerge -e world this weekend. (I do mean weekend..  :Rolling Eyes:  )

I just found info on NPTL.  Search the forum for it, there should be something in Tips & Tricks for getting it working.  Word is, you'll get a little somethin' somethin' in your Linux mug when it's used instead of linux-threads.  Maybe I'll give it a try on the ol' 6100 and report.

H

----------

## Pseud

Oh its just that I have time to kill with my job starting only in mid-April or so.

This place has quite thorough and professional documentation resources for a community maintained project, don't you think? Best for Linux I've seen anywhere. I've learnt a whole load of stuff about Linux internals that I never knew. (I don't think I even knew there was so much to know heh.)

I set my CFLAGS to 

CFLAGS="-O2 -march=i686 -formit-frame-pointer -pipe"

Oh and there's also a

MAKEOPTS="-j2"

in my make.conf

The installation guide said its recco'd value is number of CPU's+1 (the j's for imaginary? heh)

There's some slight difference between choosing -march=i686 and -mcpu=i686, which I can't recall right now. Haven't looked at the gcc docs to find out more about other flags ... might do eventually.

I'll do an nptl search, too. My Redhat kernel has a .nptl at the end, so I guess it was there for some reason worth looking up.

----------

## Humbled

The difference betweeen -march and -mcpu is that -march will optimize for your architecture & cpu only, whereas -mcpu will make code optimized for your cpu that will run on any i386 architecture.

I've heard that it's a good idea to explicitly add -msse -mmmx -msse2 or whatever other extensions the processor supports, even though they are supposed to be implied with -march/-mcpu.

I think you can get that info in /proc/cpuinfo, or there are resources like freehacker that have that stuff.

----------

## Pseud

Ok, I found a solution for finding the current display resolution:

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=153477

I get this on xrandr:

```

 SZ:    Pixels          Physical       Refresh

*0   1400 x 1050   ( 474mm x 356mm )  *60

 1   1024 x 768    ( 474mm x 356mm )   75   70   60

 2   1280 x 1024   ( 474mm x 356mm )   60

 3   1280 x 960    ( 474mm x 356mm )   60

 4    832 x 624    ( 474mm x 356mm )   75

 5    800 x 600    ( 474mm x 356mm )   85   75   72   60   56

 6    700 x 525    ( 474mm x 356mm )   60

 7    640 x 512    ( 474mm x 356mm )   60

 8    640 x 480    ( 474mm x 356mm )   85   75   73   60

 9    720 x 400    ( 474mm x 356mm )   85

 10   640 x 400    ( 474mm x 356mm )   85

 11   640 x 350    ( 474mm x 356mm )   85

 12   512 x 384    ( 474mm x 356mm )   75   70   60

 13   416 x 312    ( 474mm x 356mm )   75

 14   400 x 300    ( 474mm x 356mm )   85   75   72   60   56

 15   320 x 240    ( 474mm x 356mm )   85   75   73   60

 16   320 x 200    ( 474mm x 356mm )   85

 17   320 x 175    ( 474mm x 356mm )   85

Current rotation - normal

Current reflection - none

Rotations possible - normal

Reflections possible - none

```

So I guess I was right ... 1600x1200 will need some more tweaking.

----------

## Humbled

My xrandr output:

```

 SZ:    Pixels          Physical       Refresh

*0   1600 x 1200   ( 542mm x 406mm )  *60

 1   1280 x 1024   ( 542mm x 406mm )   60

 2   1024 x 768    ( 542mm x 406mm )   60

 3    800 x 600    ( 542mm x 406mm )   60

 4    640 x 480    ( 542mm x 406mm )   60

 5   1400 x 1050   ( 542mm x 406mm )   60

 6   1280 x 960    ( 542mm x 406mm )   60

 7    960 x 720    ( 542mm x 406mm )   60

 8    928 x 696    ( 542mm x 406mm )   60

 9    896 x 672    ( 542mm x 406mm )   60

 10   700 x 525    ( 542mm x 406mm )   60

 11   640 x 512    ( 542mm x 406mm )   60

 12   512 x 384    ( 542mm x 406mm )   60

 13   400 x 300    ( 542mm x 406mm )   60

 14   320 x 240    ( 542mm x 406mm )   60

Current rotation - normal

Current reflection - none

Rotations possible - normal

Reflections possible - none

```

And here is my XF86Config, in all its crappy auto-generated-and-then-tweaked glory.  :Wink: 

```

Section "ServerLayout"

   Identifier     "XFree86 Configured"

   Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0

   InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"

   InputDevice    "UsbMouse0" "SendCoreEvents"

   InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"

EndSection

Section "Files"

   RgbPath      "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"

   ModulePath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/modules"

   FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"

   FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/"

   FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"

   FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/CID/"

   FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"

   FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/"

EndSection

Section "Module"

   Load  "glx"

   Load  "record"

   Load  "extmod"

   Load  "dbe"

   Load  "xtrap"

   Load  "type1"

   Load  "speedo"

EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

   Identifier  "Keyboard0"

   Driver      "keyboard"

EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

   Identifier  "Mouse0"

   Driver      "mouse"

   Option       "Protocol" "Auto"

   Option       "Device" "/dev/psaux"

EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

   Identifier "UsbMouse0"

   Driver "mouse"

   Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"

   Option "Device" "/dev/usbmouse"

   Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"

EndSection

Section "Monitor"

   Identifier   "Monitor0"

   VendorName   "Monitor Vendor"

   ModelName    "Monitor Model"

   HorizSync 31.5-90

   VertRefresh 60

EndSection

Section "Device"

   Option "IgnoreEDID" "True"

   Identifier  "Card0"

   Driver      "nvidia"

   VendorName  "nVidia Corporation"

   BoardName   "NVIDIA GeForce4 (generic)"

   BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"

EndSection

Section "Screen"

   Identifier "Screen0"

   Device     "Card0"

   Monitor    "Monitor0"

   DefaultColorDepth 24

   DefaultDepth 24

   SubSection "Display"

      Depth 8

      Modes "1600x1200" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"

   EndSubSection

   SubSection "Display"

      Depth 15

      Modes "1600x1200" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"

   EndSubSection

   SubSection "Display"

      Depth 16

      Modes "1600x1200" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"

   EndSubSection

   SubSection "Display"

      Depth 24

      Modes "1600x1200" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"

   EndSubSection

EndSection

```

----------

## Humbled

I wanted to mention,

You'll need to emerge both nvidia-kernel and nvidia-glx

----------

## Pseud

Vague, my X doesnt start with that XF86Config -- I get the dreaded white screen (the if-you-see-the-white-screen-kill-the-X-server-immediately-to-avoid-permanent-damage-to-your-screen one). I guess I'll just stick to 1400x1050, which is not all that bad. My only guess is that I dont have sufficient video ram. You probably have 32M?

Ah, btw, emerge nvidia-glx does fork an emerge nvidia-kernel (dependency), so that's alright.

I'm right now trying to get Xfs and/or fontconfig to work... right now the fonts look awful. I'll post my XF86Config (and anything else needed) if things work out.

___

Hey, I just noticed, your xrandr shows larger values under "physical" ... mine's a 15" screen, is your's larger? That'd be a better explanation.

----------

## Humbled

I noticed the physical difference as well.  Interestingly enough, I as well have a 15 inch screen.  Can you get 1600x1200 in Windows?  If so, you should be able to get it here...

 :Sad: 

----------

## Pseud

And what's even more vague is when I measured my screen with a ruler (yes I'm THAT jobless), its around 350mmx230mm  :Confused: 

I'll check the windows thingie when i reboot ... that'll have to wait till I get my fonts fixed. (As of now its getting nowhere  :Mad: )

----------

## Pseud

Ok, I managed to get the X font server working

(ref. https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=153608 )

So basically, the "Files" section of my XF86Config looks like so:

```

Section "Files"

        RgbPath         "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"

        #FontPath       "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"

        #FontPath       "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"

        #FontPath       "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/local/"

        #FontPath       "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/:unscaled"

        #FontPath       "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"

        #FontPath       "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"

        #FontPath       "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/"

        #FontPath       "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"

        #FontPath       "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/truetype/"

        #FontPath       "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/freefont/"

        FontPath        "unix/:-1"                      #using Xfs

        ModulePath      "/usr/X11R6/lib/modules"

        ModulePath      "/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions"

EndSection

```

I commented out all the FontPaths and added the unix/:-1 thingie ...

Then, started the Xfs daemon and added it to the default init script, and restarted X (didn't work on first try, worked on reboot)

(ref. http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/desktop.xml )

```

rc-update add xfs default

/etc/init.d/xfs start

startx

```

Now, I've taken it upon myself to go nuts over Xft, since Xfs is apparently obsolete  :Laughing: . Will report any progress.

----------

## Humbled

You're making me feel guilty for not trying harder to get this thing set up.  :Wink: 

I'll work on getting sound working under the 2.6xxx kernels again.

H

Geez, I just noticed that I'm being very redundant today.  I should work harder on not re-re-repeating myself over and over again redundandtly.    :Shocked: 

----------

## Pseud

hehe

Like I said, I have nothing better to do, hence the over-enthused fiddling around. Its great weather outside, perhaps I should go out and get some Vitamin-D for a change. hmm. Or read some more Wodehouse.

Anyways, have a rocking weekend  :Wink: 

Sri

----------

## Humbled

Now that you're committed to using Linux as your main OS, you might as well get in the habit of calling it "the daystar."

It burnses!

 :Laughing: 

Have a good weekend yourself.

H

----------

## Pseud

The thread on better font rendering is HERE (Still seeking  a solution to get Xft working)

----------

## Pseud

Hey Humbled, I got my sound working with ALSA  :Smile: 

Basically followed the  Gentoo ALSA configuration guide

Compiled the kernel with ALSA support as a *module* (it wouldnt work as part of kernel), did emerge alsa-utils, edited /etc/modules.d/alsa (see below), followed by a modules-update, added alsasound to the boot runlevel, did some editing with amixer (as in the Gentoo ALSA guide) ... and it works!

The portion of /etc/modules.d/alsa that i edited:

```

##  ALSA portion

##alias snd-card-0 snd-interwave

####MY EDIT

alias snd-card-0 snd-intel8x0

## alias snd-card-1 snd-ens1371

##  OSS/Free portion

alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0 ###MY uncomment

## alias sound-slot-1 snd-card-1

##

```

Just lemme know if you need anything. Or if I should take care of something  more that I haven't (I've only tested xmms as of now)

----------

## Humbled

Yeah, that was my next step: trying it out as a module.  I wish I could expect things to work both ways.  Seems like there are a lot of things that just have to be modules (usb, sound, pcmcia...)

Any luck on 1600x1200 or did you give up?

----------

## Pseud

Yeah, pretty much given up on it, and 1400x1050 is pretty decent I guess ... I'm trying to get superkaramba working on kde (yes I'm a chap who likes eye candy).

I mean, look at  this, this and this!

----------

## Humbled

Hmm, that looks very nice.

I still just prefer GNOME and GTK (what can I say, I'm a minimalist).  With gDesklets and some nice themes you can get the goods, too.

Some people recommend enlightenment for the full-on heavy desktop customization.

H

----------

## Pseud

I just checked the maximum available resolution in XP, its 1400x1050 there too. So I guess its limited by my video RAM. And that brings up a question: What exactly is video RAM used for? I shall spend time investigating.

----------

## Humbled

Traditionally, video RAM is used to hold the display data which is converted to your screen.

2D performance is a function of memory size (n x n x n resolution) and the MHz of your RAMDAC (converts digital to analog signal).

I guess you have the 8 or 16 meg card, and I think I've got 32.

1600x1200x32 will require 16 megs of RAM.  If you do the math, it's only 8, but it probably needs to have double the amount of necessary RAM to create a "double buffer" and blit from one to the other.

Nowadays, though, video ram is also used to store data when you play 3D games, so it's a little more complex.  :Wink: 

----------

## Humbled

Hey, I have a question about sound.

I've got it all working, but two things:

- it's grainy, and pops a lot

- it seems like it's playing a little too fast.

If I kill esd before I play sound it seems to improve a little, but not 100%.

Is your sound sorted or are you dealing with the same thing?

H

----------

## Pseud

Hey,

Sorry about the delay, was away most of today. Well, for me, sound was crackly until I used alsamixer and turned down PCM ... I guess that was because of some kind of clipping. Not too sure about it sounding fast though.

Also, when I compiled packages, I disabled both arts and esd, just to make sure alsa would have full control... dont know if its necessary though.

----------

## Pseud

Also, the sound actually seems *much* better on headfones, for some reason. alsa rocks, IMBO.

----------

## Humbled

Well, it's certainly true that reducing PCM will reduce the clipping.

But I am still getting clicks in the sound.  I'm not 100% sure that it's playing too fast, I just get the feeling that it is.  It could very well be set to playback at 48kHz when it should be 44.1kHz.  That kind of subtle difference might be all of the trouble. 

You found a good media player?  I don't like XMMS really... it's such a Winamp clone.  I am using rhythmbox right now, but it crashes all the time.

Many people feel that ALSA rocks, but simply not with the intel8x0 module.   :Rolling Eyes:  Oh well, I've always got a USB audio device worst case scenario.  :Smile: 

----------

## Pseud

Yesterday, for some reason, I had this weird urge to reinstall Gentoo ... Basically, it had been too patchy till now and I wasnt very satisfied with the configuration I had and I was aware that removing packages does leave some hard-to-trace junk behind (There are a lot of threads out there to deal with crud, as they like to refer to it.) 

So I did do a fresh reinstall, and everything has worked out perfectly fine till now, and AFAICT all the basic features are up. Even got my iPod working with gtkpod using kernel-compiled PCMCIA cardbus support, without a hitch  :Smile: . Havent bothered to look at activating wireless LAN as yet, but that's pretty much the only thing left. (Have comiled the required modules with the Kernel, though, to my knowledge.)

This time around, I compiled the kernel with ALSA support, and did _not_ follow the recommended procedure of including it as a module. So I didnt have to emerge alsa-driver; just needed alsa-utils. Also, to keep things free of conflict, I set USE="-esd -arts oss" (Some (legacy?) apps apparently need oss support and ALSA takes care of it provided you set the USE flag for oss before emerging ALSA.) ALSA does work pretty fine for me. The only issue was the clipping that was taken care of by changing the PCM settings. So I'm sure we will be able to make it work on your system too! I mean, but for the amount of video RAM, our systems are pretty much identical, right?

I dont know, though, about other (non-xmms) music players out there. I havent tried out anything else. I'm sure there are threads out there selling other players hehe. Mplayer is pretty much the default choice for _video_ files ... it even works as a plug-in for mozilla/firefox and can play quicktime files off them movie-trailer-pages (emerge mplayerplug-in.) There really is no other (free) alternative for quicktime that I know of for Linux.

Oh, and font rendering works like a charm using Xft (So I did get rid of "deprecated" Xfs.) And I switched to Reiserfs for my root filesystem (Just to try out something different, and also because I've read reviews about it being faster than ext3 on many accounts.)

We could probably compare our USE flag settings, Kernel .config files, etc and find out what's making sound work on one system and not on the other?

Just let me know, I can probably mail you my .config if you want. (Or anything else that'll be more useful that you can think of.)

Sri

----------

## Pseud

Ok, I did some more research in the forums here and noticed one small downside of ALSA on i8x0: no hardware mixing. Here:   i8x0, ALSA and mixing

So with my current configuration, I cant have more than one application using the sound card at the same time (I dont have software mixing because I disabled esd and arts support.) Hmm, don't know if it'll be that big an issue, though.

----------

## Cqwense

Hi guys,

While im not using the same model as you, I am just as crazy about 1600x1200.  Howerver my current configuration is giving me a headache, im locked at 1024x768.

I've adjusted my XF86Config file according to what i've seen posted in this thread:

```
 "Option" "IgnoreEDID" "true" 
```

and other threads mostly refering to H and V sync.

My XF86Config:

```
# 

Section "Module"

    Load        "dbe"     # Double buffer extension

    SubSection  "extmod"

      Option    "omit xfree86-dga"   # don't initialise the DGA extension

    EndSubSection

# This loads the Type1 and FreeType font modules

    Load        "type1"

    Load        "speedo"

#    Load        "freetype"

#    Load        "xtt"

    Load       "glx"

    Load       "dri"

EndSection

# **********************************************************************

# Files section.  This allows default font and rgb paths to be set

# **********************************************************************

Section "Files"

    RgbPath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"

    FontPath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/local/"

    FontPath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"

    FontPath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"

    FontPath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"

    FontPath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/"

    FontPath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"

#    FontPath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TrueType/"

#    FontPath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/freefont/"

    FontPath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"

    FontPath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/"

EndSection

# **********************************************************************

# Input devices

# **********************************************************************

# **********************************************************************

# Core keyboard's InputDevice section

# **********************************************************************

Section "InputDevice"

    Identifier   "Keyboard1"

    Driver   "Keyboard"

    Option "AutoRepeat" "500 30"

    Option "XkbRules"   "xfree86"

    Option "XkbModel"   "pc105"

    Option "XkbLayout"   "us"

EndSection

# **********************************************************************

# Core Pointer's InputDevice section

# **********************************************************************

Section "InputDevice"

    Identifier   "Mouse1"

    Driver   "mouse"

    Option "Protocol"    "Auto"

    Option "Device"      "/dev/mouse"

    Option "Emulate3Buttons"

EndSection

# **********************************************************************

# Monitor section

# **********************************************************************

Section "Monitor"

    Identifier  "My My Monitor"

    HorizSync   31.5 - 107

    VertRefresh 50-160

EndSection

# **********************************************************************

# Graphics device section

# **********************************************************************

Section "Device"

    Identifier  "Trident CyberBlade (generic)"

    Driver      "trident"

    Option   "IgnoreEDID" "true"

    #VideoRam    32768

    # Insert Clocks lines here if appropriate

EndSection

# **********************************************************************

# Screen sections

# **********************************************************************

Section "Screen"

    Identifier  "Screen 1"

    Device      "Trident CyberBlade (generic)"

    Monitor     "My Monitor"

    DefaultDepth 24

    Subsection "Display"

        Depth       8

        Modes       "1600x1200" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" 

"640x480"

        ViewPort    0 0

    EndSubsection

    Subsection "Display"

        Depth       16

        Modes       "1600x1200" "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"

        ViewPort    0 0

    EndSubsection

    Subsection "Display"

        Depth       24

        Modes       "1600x1200" "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"

        ViewPort    0 0

    EndSubsection

EndSection

# **********************************************************************

# ServerLayout sections.

# **********************************************************************

Section "ServerLayout"

    Identifier  "Simple Layout"

    Screen "Screen 1"

    InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"

    InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"

EndSection
```

Heres a link to the specs of my machine: 

http://www.toshiba.ca/web/specifications.grp?lg=en&section=1&group=1&product=1912&part=1772

* Just a note,  no nvidia chipset but rather a Trident Cyberblade.  32meg , 3d supported, cant imagine that 1600x1200 ( let alone even 1280x1024 ) would be out of its range.

Anyway I was hoping maybe one of you had an idea of what i could do.

Thanks

~Cqwense

----------

## Pseud

Cqwense,

While I myself haven't been successful at getting past 1400x1050 (probably because my VRAM is limited to 16M), my inclination to blabber means that I'll attempt to reply, nevertheless  :Very Happy: 

I dont know if this is relevant but I've had it hammered into my head to comment out Load "dri" in the Modules section, so you may want to try it.

Ok, this I know is totally OT, but why the bigotry against TrueType and freefont?  :Wink: 

Also, in the Screen section, try adding a

```

Virtual 1600 1200

```

in one (or all) of the Display subsections. Again, I don't know what exactly this does, but I remember it proved useful long ago in redhat and I've still kept it.

Finally, here's (the current state of) my XF86Config, if it helps (I've changed it half a dozen times since this thread started, while trying to get fonts working):

```

Section "ServerLayout"

        Identifier     "XFree86 Configured"

        Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0

        InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"

        InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"

EndSection

Section "Files"

        RgbPath      "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"

        ModulePath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/modules"

        FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/truetype/:scaled"

        FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:scaled"

        FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:scaled"

        FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/:scaled"

        FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/truetype/"

        FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/"

        FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"

        FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/"

        FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"

        FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic/"

        FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/CID/"

EndSection

Section "Module"

        Load  "glx"

        Load  "record"

        Load  "extmod"

        Load  "dbe"

        Load  "xtrap"

        Load  "type1"

        Load  "speedo"

        Load  "freetype"

        Load  "xtt"

        #Load  "truetype"

EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

        Identifier  "Keyboard0"

        Driver      "keyboard"

EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

        Identifier  "Mouse0"

        Driver      "mouse"

        Option      "Protocol" "IMPS/2"

        Option      "Device" "/dev/mouse"

        Option      "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"

        Option      "Emulate3Buttons" "no"

EndSection

Section "Monitor"

        Identifier   "Monitor0"

        VendorName   "Toshiba"

        Option       "NoDDC" "true"

        ModelName    "Toshiba Satellite 6100 Laptop LCD"

        HorizSync    31.5 - 90.0

        VertRefresh  60.0 - 100.0

EndSection

Section "Device"

        Identifier  "Card0"

        Driver      "nvidia"

        VendorName  "nVidia Corporation"

        BoardName   "NV17 [GeForce4 420 Go]"

        VideoRam    16

        Option      "IgnoreEDID" "True"

EndSection

Section "Screen"

        Identifier "Screen0"

        Device     "Card0"

        Monitor    "Monitor0"

        DefaultDepth     24

        DefaultColorDepth 24

        SubSection "Display"

                Depth     24

                Modes     "1400x1050"

                Virtual 1400 1050

        EndSubSection

EndSection

```

Cheers

----------

## Humbled

That's strange.

I couldn't get mine to work properly with the Board Name set to NV17 (Geforce 4 Go) - the driver would always tell me it wasn't recognized, which is why I used generic Geforce4.

Why don't you try changing that and manually setting your VRAM to 32?  Maybe you'll be able to bump up to 1600x1200.  Although you did mention that not even Windows will run at 1600x1200 on your machine... so I am probably just smoking crack.

Right now I'm jonesing to get GNOME 2.6 installed.  I did a global recompile with better CFLAGs, but I don't see much of a difference.  I also upgraded to the final 2.6.4 kernel, and for some reason 3D performance got worse.

Perhaps Verizon will stop jerking me around and get DSL working in my apt complex again sometime soon so I can have net access at home!

H

----------

## Pseud

Actually, I thought the BoardName entry wasn't at all that critical (like the ModelName entry in the Monitor section). My Redhat XF86Config has some other entry there and it works fine. I would think as long as Driver is set to "nvidia", things should work fine.

Mmm manually setting VRAM to 32M? But I know its only 16M, so I'm a bit unsure if I'd do that.

I'm trying to get wireless working, have you had any success with it? I got my iPod working with a firewire cardbus adapter, with PCMCIA built into the kernel. I should probably re-complie the kernel with PCMCIA support as a module? And btw, does the built-in wireless device first of all count as a PCMCIA device?

Also, I've realised my love for KDE is more like a strong liking for some of the apps on KDE. Kate is an awesome editor I think. Kdevelop is great also. And the eye candy, like you pointed out, isn't off limits by using gDesklets under Gnome. Its been a while since i tried Gnome, though.

I'm currently thinking of trying out fvwm ... I saw this  awesome screenshot where the window manager was configured to allow minimized windows to appear as thumbnails, and I just loved the concept!

Have you gotten ALSA to work better? I've put off trying to get software mixing working for now.

----------

## Pseud

This whole  migrating to XOrg from XFree  is getting me excited. This long but edifying thread on the XFree86 licensing controversy was a very interesting read. Particularly, the healthy point-counterpoint-ish debate between Ian Goldby and sgtrock (Gentoo ids, btw). I realise, though, that I've been kind of late in keeping up with this issue. I shamefully admit that I got to know of the controversy only today  :Embarassed: 

One enthused soul (bless him/her) has even put up  a quick how-to  to help people who wish to switch to XOrg.

I'm beginning to realise this thread is getting a blog-ish feel. Something has to be done soon or I might suffer an unprecedented kick-in-the-butt by some administrator or the other here. But then again, I'm only hoping to be useful, if only by being highly redundant  :Wink: 

----------

## Falling_Icaro

Hey there!

I have the same laptop you do! im quite happy with it, i really love the design. I think i have the "cheap" version: 14.1'' TFT 16MB Video RAM, no WiFi, no Bluethooth.

Now im in the process of switching from 2.4 kernel to 2.6. I spent almost 6 months with 2.4, however i never done much effort on a perfect installation: no ACPI working (and watchout with this, i almost burned my CPU out because a faulty ACPI configuration for about 5 months), no Modem working (dam dreaded software modem - i suspect it will never work in linux), no PCMCIA working, no SD Card Working, no Infrared working, no Dual head working, no TV-out working.. hell, this was a expensive laptop, too expensive for being happy with a minimal working system.

Cause that, 4 days ago i started a new 2.6 kernel install: thanks for your XFree86Config Files, for the first time in linux i have the USB and the pointer mice working on the same time. I can say my PCMCIA is working too, recently i bought the SMC2935W PCMCIA wireless card, i had just to build as modules the PCMCIA core driver, Hotplug drivers, Hotplug firmware driver and PrismGT driver in the kernel.

Alsa is working too, but i cant say im very happy with it: i dont have any sound problems with it, however i cant use Gnome CD Player to play CDs. Althouth i can play mp3, wav, UT2004demo (great benchmark aplication!) with sound and music, i can only play Audio CDs with XMMS and the CD Audio pluggin configured to "Digital Audio Extraction" (is like i havent the Analog cable conected from the DVDRom to the Audio Card - and no, i dont want to open the laptop case!!! - and yes i have all channels (PCM, Master, CDAudio) unmuted in the mixer). I can hear CD Audio in xmms, however i dont think the sound quality is the best it can do (however is quite good), and ill be quite disapointed if i cant use CD Player (like i used to do back in 2.4 kernel - one week ago with 2.2 Gnome).

Well, for the rest, now im struggling with suspend and other powersaving stuff,  i wouldnt want to relly on ACPI for my bad experiences. All what i can do now is to scale the CPU frequence:

- In kernel 2.6

Power Management -> CPU Freq Scalling:

    - Default Governour as "Performance"

    - powersave and userspace Governours as modules

    - Intel Pentium 4 clock modulation as module (CPUFreq processor Driver)

Now if i want to change speed all i do is to use /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq. Ex:

# echo userspace > scaling_governor

# echo 800000 > scaling_setspeed

# cat /proc/cpuinfo

(..)

cpu MHz         : 797.686

(..)

The goal now is to suspend and change the brightness of the TFT. Do you ever try to do this withouth ACPI? (is it possible?) Do you had any sucessfull install of ACPI?

Thanks!

- josemf@portugal

----------

