# Toshiba P25 Users Check in!

## zaphod84

Just looking for anyone else using a Toshina P25 laptop who would like to share their linux experiences.   Main issues are bootsplash and the wireless card.   I have also been tossing around the idea of writing a driver for the multimedia buttons and remote control, but havn't really been able to find much information on them.   Toshiba will now release anything (suprise suprise) and i've pretty much determined they do not work as a character device sending control keys because i have been unable to hook any kinds of unusual keys.   I know it works only under windows XP with a proprietary drive in windows.

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## Doomwookie

I've had a P25-S607 for a couple of weeks and finally have time to install linux on it.   (Actually starting an install from stage2 on it as I type this.)  Have you tried Mythtv or freevo on it yet?  I was wondering if the TVtuner and hardware MPEG2 encoder that came with the laptop worked in linux.  It seems to be made by Emuzed and run off the USB bus, but I have no idea what chipset it uses or whether it is supported by Video4linux.

Lirc seems to be what is used to talk to infrared remotes in linux.  In windows the remote seems to run off a generic driver that is call "Microsoft eHome".  I have no idea if anybody has come up with config for it since it seems pretty hard to find any info on the lirc.org page on what is supported.

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## zaphod84

I actually havn't gotten around to getting the remote yet, i was just messing around with the buttons on the machine.

I've got an s507 so i wouldn't know anything about the TV Tuner.

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## ric_man

This is my first post from my freshly installed Gentoo machine on a Toshiba P20 from Stage1 off the 2004.0 universal CD. I've finally gotten X up and running with the nVidia drivers, and have just installed Mozilla - but haven't gotten around to installing a WM (I was just eager to get to the Gentoo Forums).

The Toshiba P20 is a similar "beast" to the P25, but comes with a few different setups / hardware options. It's named P20 in Australia (and possibly Canada, as well as some other countries). It is still a 17" monitor on a Intel P4 +HT CPU, with a nVidia GeForceFX Go5200 graphics card. It comes pre-installed with WinXP Pro, and the box it came in had a EULA sticker on it saying if you break the sticker, you're happy with the pre-installed OS ( :Confused:  Is that a story by itself??). I don't have WiFi (maybe one day), but do have Bluetooth (no devices to test on), DVD-R/RW, and the remote (WTF is that for??).

I've previously attempted to install Linux on this machine, but was not impressed at the lack of answers from Toshiba about their dial-up modem. I asked their support division here in Australia, and the person I got didn't know what model the modem was, didn't know what hardware specifications it had (ie. did it have a UART on it or not), and definately did not want to continue the conversation when I told him I intended to install Linux onto it. Not his fault I guess, just following the company line. Mandrake and Redhat / Fedora didn't do it for me with all the pre-installed applications. Knoppix was fun, and gave me hope that Linux was going to be great on this box.

Gentoo GRP was good, but I didn't feel like I was taking full advantage of the Intel P4 3.0GHz CPU. I did most of the system install yesterday, and I think it took about 9.5 to 11 hours from putting the CD in to getting the kernel compiled correctly, and booting up for the first time to the command line. Still not everything is 100% but it's getting there. Oh yeah, I also got cable, which is what got me through, as I couldn't get the modem working at all (and this lead to me not being able to download the portage tree, correct nVidia kernels, other applications, etc). I wasn't at the PC for the entire time, as most of the Stage1 to Stage2 to Stage3 is basically just doing a few config files, and then letting the scripts take care of the rest. I was possibly interactive with the PC for about 3 hours in total (maybe not even that). Today I think I've clocked in about 4 hours to get X and nVidia and Mozilla on it, with a lot of examining / tweaking the make.conf file, as well as reading the documentation on the install and desktop of Gentoo.

Overall, I thought it was great experience, and would highly reccomend it to anyone wanting to give it a go. I wouldn't recommend it to corporates as it does take a long time to get the system set up, but I guess once it is set up, maintenance is a breeze. I'll be documenting what I've done (from memory) on my geocities page over the next few weeks.

Besides documenting what I've done I also intent to continue to get a full 1440x900 desktop running (some forum posters have been extremely helpful in this by sending me their XF86config files), as well as much of the hardware features on this machine as possible.

Feel free to discuss any aspect with me.

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## hacmac

i also have a toshiba p20 but i think it works really fast. compiling openoffice takes about 3 or 4 hours i think that is really fast. i know some desktops with same or better processors which need more time. the things i didnt get to work are the multimediabuttons and the remotecontrol.

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## ric_man

I've just noticed that the BIOS upgrade from the Toshiba Australia web site is now version 1.7.

http://203.56.127.6/driver_download/Public/p2_all/P20170.exe

(Although at the time of writing the link works... I don't think you can directly download from the link, but you may have to click it, and then let it resolve to download the file for you.)

Does anyone know what features the upgrade brings? I'm hesitant to contact Toshiba until I hear about what other P20 / P25 users (running Linux) have got. I am currently running BIOS 1.6 (I think it's Pheonix). 

And the second question I have is if you don't have access to a Windows / DOS PC, how do you use it? Does something like DOSEMU let you write it to a floppy (that didn't come as standard with my machine).

Any experiences?

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## yuza

I have a satellite P10 and I'm experiencing a little problem (I think). I often hear a little noise from the hard disk (like when it accesses data, but a bit louder) and while the hard disk is glitching the comp quite freezes for less than a second... you know it seems like is loading something or whatever, it lasts less than a second but it happens quite often. I thought it might be something kernel or bios related... any idea? (the bios is phoenix and kernel-2.4.25).

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## zerokill

I have a P15, and I like how gentoo works well with it. I'm sure you know the differences between p15 and p25 w/ the smaller screen on mine. I get people telling me how big of laptop I own, I tell em there's bigger. The only thing that i cant configure or install in the wireless card. Have you set yours up?

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## ixion

```

ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge madwifi-driver (reboot just to be safe (that's what I did))

emerge hotplug && rc-update add hotplug default && /etc/init.d/hotplug start

emerge wireless-tools

iwconfig ath0 key <your key here>

iwconfig ath0 key on

dhcpcd ath0

```

The above worked for me to get the wireless working on the P25.

What I would love to do is get the SD Reader to work. Anyone had any luck with that? Sure would be nice to save the $30 - $50 on a card reader.  :Wink: 

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## ric_man

 *ixion wrote:*   

> What I would love to do is get the SD Reader to work. Anyone had any luck with that? Sure would be nice to save the $30 - $50 on a card reader. 

 

I heard that since the card reader is using Toshiba's propritary encryption algorithms or code, that it may never work in Linux, unless Toshiba have a change of heart and release the details on how to get it to work...

If you look at this site http://newsletter.toshiba-tro.de/main/ and drill down to the different variations of the P20, you'll see most of the SD Cards come with a "?". I've yet to see one that's an "OK".

On another note...

 *ric_man wrote:*   

> I've just noticed that the BIOS upgrade from the Toshiba Australia web site is now version 1.7. 

 

It appears that the version for the BIOS is now 1.8. I never upgraded to 1.7. Any comments or experiences?

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## ilovegentoo

Hey all, just found a link to this forum thread via Ric's Toshiba P20 page:

http://www.geocities.com/ric_on_the_go/linux_with_toshiba_p20/

I own a Toshiba Satellite P25-S509.  General system specs:

2.8 GHz P4 with Hyperthreading Technology

512 Megs RAM

80 Gig Hard Drive

17" 1440X900 Widescreen

I successfully installed Gentoo on a desktop PC yesterday and got KDE up and running so my confidence is booming.  This being my first successfuly installation (after 7 failures) I'm feeling a bit potent.   :Smile: 

Soooo, given that I've familiarized myself with OOo, Firefox and a few other apps in Windows that have Linux equivalents, I'm gonna take the tumble and try to get Gentoo/Gnome installed on my Toshi.

I don't believe in going halfway on anything, therefore I'm gonna take over the ENTIRE hard drive for Gentoo.  YAY!

Ok, silliness aside, it's time for me to get to work and see what damage, er, success I can have.

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## ilovegentoo

 *ric_man wrote:*   

> On another note...
> 
>  *ric_man wrote:*   I've just noticed that the BIOS upgrade from the Toshiba Australia web site is now version 1.7.  
> 
> It appears that the version for the BIOS is now 1.8. I never upgraded to 1.7. Any comments or experiences?

 

I'm running my P25-S509 on BIOS 1.8 without a hitch.  the only thing I've noticed that is bothering me is that I cannot seem to boot from a thumbdrive.  I've used a variety of format/boot utilities to prepare the thumb drive and when rebooting my Toshi and hitting F12, I select the other boot devices option.  I notice the light on my thumbdrive blink quickly, then the hard drive OS starts up.

The thumbdrives I am using are both Lexar.  One is the Lexar JumpDrive 128 meg and the other is the Lexar JumpDrive Secure 256 meg.

Using various utilities, I've prepared both thumbdrives as DOS bootable as well as Linux bootable following information to run Damn Small Linux (48 meg GUI-based distro) from the drives.

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## o0the_llama0o

im thinking of buying a toshiba satellite p25-526 laptop and am wondering how compatible it is with linux.

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=34-114-095&catalog=23&manufactory=BROWSE

things im worried about

1)gfx card (good cuz its nVidia)

2)wlan (i haven't found out what chip it is, but im hoping it'll work)

3)fast ethernet (this better work, i don't know what chip it is either)

4)processor core, is it a northwood or a prescott?? in know its trivial, but northwoods are performing better =-)

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## ilovegentoo

 *o0the_llama0o wrote:*   

> im thinking of buying a toshiba satellite p25-526 laptop and am wondering how compatible it is with linux.
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=34-114-095&catalog=23&manufactory=BROWSE
> 
> things im worried about
> ...

 

Hey there!  Looks like the one you're looking at is identical to my model except mine is a 2.8 GHz while that one is a 3.2 GHz.  Otherwise the specs are identical.  Check out Ric's site above for the P20 (the P20 is the same as the P25, only the P20 is sold in Australia and the P25 is sold in America - the only differences are in the bundled software that come with the Toshiba).

I have installed Gentoo on mine (A P25-S509) and using Ric's website I've configured the video to render at 1440X900 and got the wifi card to work (it is an Atheros).  The modem isn't supported, but it is worthless in this day and age anyway.  But everything else works.

Oh, and virtually every distribution of Linux I've tried (9 or 10) detect the audio and LAN.  Audio and lan are both Realtek chipsets so they are pretty standard among all Linux distros.

Click this link:

http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/su/su_sc_home.jsp

And then select "Tech Support Center" then select "Portables" then "Satellite" and then  the P25-S526 and then you can view the system specs and manual and software upgrades.

Oh, as for your question about the processor core, not sure, never really thought to find out, but I'm sure it is listed in the specs on the link above.

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## o0the_llama0o

thank you very much, this was very helpful

i think ill convince my mom to get it =-), i hope the card reader magically works, but if it doesn't, thats ok.

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## cros13

Hi Guys!

I've been running Gentoo and Fedora on my P20-S203 since Aug. 2003.

I seem to have worked out quite a few of the kinks:

The wireless is usually an atheros: use the madwifi driver from Http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/madwifi/ for help with that(dosent work well with the 2.6 kernel i'm afraid)

The quick buttons can be made work using dallas's one-wire bus driver in the latest kernel + some configs.

X works AAA with the proper modelines in your configs(I'll post them soon, i got both XFree and xorg confs)

The SD controller works with kernel 2.6 drivers(its a toshiba america systems typA controller)

The remote, i forgot about, lying down the back of a couch somewhere.

Hardware and relevant drivers:

TI firewire controller: ohci1394

Realtek 8139 Ethernet : 8139too

Toshiba PCMCIA: yenta_socket

Trackpad : ALPS Glidepoint

Intel AC97 Sound: snd-intel8x0

Intel AC97 Modem: snd-intel8x0m

USB2 controllers: ehci_hcd and uhci_hcd

DVD-RAM: you need dvd-record and it'll work fine

The ACPI stuff needs to be stuck in your kernel there's a value for toshiba extras in there.

I'll post a .config soon for an optimised kernel for the beast(inc. all the cool stuff like suspend and ethernet networking at 400 mbits over that wonderful little firewire plug).

Heres some stuff to get your IDE controller working fully:

open a terminal

type su

enter root passwd

hdparm -c3 /dev/hda

hdparm -u1 /dev/hda

hdparm -k1 /dev/hda

And sit back enjoying 200-300% increased hard drive performance

BTW: tried FreeBSD and NetBSD: works great.

Good luck fellow travellers,

cros13  :Smile: 

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## ric_man

Firstly, thanks for the reference to the page I put up on my experiences with GNU/Linux and the Toshiba P20. It's good to see it is of some benefit to others.

 *ilovegentoo wrote:*   

> I have installed Gentoo on mine (A P25-S509) and using Ric's website I've configured the video to render at 1440X900 and got the wifi card to work (it is an Atheros).  The modem isn't supported, but it is worthless in this day and age anyway.  But everything else works.

 

The software modem was detected by a SUSE linux installation I was playing around with for a while. Windows XP detects it as something like "TOSHIBA Software Modem AMR", and I think SUSE installed somthing along the lines of "slmodem". According to a german toshiba site (in english), the modem is a softmodem - Lucent SCORPIO and works with the slmdm-2.7.8 driver. Gentoo has ebuilds for the 2.9 version of drivers, but I don't know if that version is compatible.

The modem may be worthless with broadband being so common these days, but in some cases it may be the only means for some people to communicate...

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## bzdee

Hi, 

I finally got Gentoo installed on my P25. (I'm a noob, just learning)

I cannot get my wireless card installed, and honestly, I'm lost.

I tried the suggestion:

ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge madwifi-driver (reboot just to be safe (that's what I did)) 

emerge hotplug && rc-update add hotplug default && /etc/init.d/hotplug start 

emerge wireless-tools 

iwconfig ath0 key <your key here> 

iwconfig ath0 key on 

dhcpcd ath0 

-----

However, this did not work for me. I don't know if I should be using the madwifi-driver in the first place. When I check my wireless card info in WinXP, it is listed as "Toshiba Wireless LAN Mini PCI Card".

AFter I ran the setup described above, and tried to iwconfig, i got "ath0 No Such device"

Many thanks to any help I can get. These forums are awesome  :Laughing: 

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## ixion

I am having this same problem all of a sudden 'ath0: No such device', but it was working flawlessly for months before I did an 'emerge -U world'. I have re-emerged madwifi-tools numerous times, nogo. Restarted hotplug, nogo. For some reason the device just isn't detected anymore.. anyone else having this problem?

lspci -v:

```

0000:02:01.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)

        Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems: Unknown device ff00

        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 17

        I/O ports at 3000

        Memory at c2014800 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]

        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2

0000:02:02.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5212 802.11abg NIC (rev 01)

        Subsystem: Askey Computer Corp.: Unknown device 7058

        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 80, IRQ 18

        Memory at c2000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)

        Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2

```

```

 [*] Wireless LAN drivers (non-hamradio) & Wireless Extensions 

```

The above is enabled in the kernel.  :Smile: 

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## bzdee

Hi, I was just wondering if anybody has their laptop's wireless working with the "Toshiba Wireless LAN Mini PCI Card".

I have been trying for a couple weeks, on and off, to no avail. When I lspci, the card is not detected. Maybe somebody who has this same card set up can offer assistance. I appreciate it!

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## ixion

I just found that there are updated madwifi-drivers and madwifi-tools in portage. I would emerge both of them, but separately. At the end of the the madwifi-drivers emerge it will give you directions on getting ath0 up and running again.

Basically, you need to load the following modules:

```

ath_hal

ath_rate_onoe

wlan

wlan_acl

wlan_ccmp

wlan_tkip

wlan_wep

wlan_xauth

ath_pci

```

Good luck!

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## jkroon

For the BIOS updates without Windows, the following link may prove usefull:

http://www.kroon.co.za/howto.php?howto=bios_update

It boils down to you get the floppy disc upgrade version, and then you create a bootable cd from that instead of dd'ing it to a floppy.  Obviously you then boot the CD.

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## pvphaneuf

well, I've had a Toshiba P20 for about a year and I've been trying out most of the n00b distros of linux on it; there have been many times where it needed a small hint to get properly configured, but she worked cleanly with Debian based distros and most others. I decided to install gentoo over the weekend... and failed, but I haven't given up. I followed Ric's webpage and the installing handbook off the gentoo site, but Ric's page compared to the handbook seemed to have some steps out of order. If there are any other resources on installing gentoo on a P20, could ya'll send me a link.

thnx  :Smile: 

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## jkroon

Depending on how close it is to the P10 http://www.kroon.co.za/howto.php?howto=toshiba_p10 might be usefull.  If other distro's have just installed, so should Gentoo.  If you are having acpi trouble, do not boot with acpi=off, first try using "i8042.nomux=1 usb-handoff".  I still need to update my page but that eventually solved my problem.  The P20 has a nVidia card right?

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## pvphaneuf

the two systems compare pretty close... thanks for the tips!!! Maybe this weekend I can get things up and going.

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## pvphaneuf

I was wondering if any of you guys have this probleme too because it seems only to affect P20 linux users, but when I boot up my P20 after a session where I had used Linux (any kind of linux including SuSE, Ubuntu, Gentoo...) I always have to unplug my power cable and run off battery power so that the BIOS boots up and boots up the bootloader. If I don't pull the power plug out when I start the P20 up, I just get a blank screen.

I was wondering if any of you also have this problem and if it can be solved. I was thinking that maybe I had to update my BIOS, and I did, but there isn't a change. I think I'm runnning Phoenix 1.2 BIOS now.

Thanks in advance for any help!

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## jkroon

The P10 is affected too.  It's what I call the black void death.  It happens when you boot with acpi=off, or use a 2.4 kernel.  The suspicion some of the kernel hackers and myself share is that the BIOS doesn't properly reset all the hardware, and then specifically the AUX, which btw, pretends to be a MUX, which it is not.  It is for this reason that you need i8042.nomux=1, the usb-handoff is required because (suspicion again) the keyboard and touchpad is in fact hooked up via the usb system.  This also explains why without the usb1.1 modules you don't have any keyboard or touchpad ...

Rather irritating ...

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## coshx

 *cros13 wrote:*   

> 
> 
> The SD controller works with kernel 2.6 drivers(its a toshiba america systems typA controller)
> 
> 

 

All of the info I've found says that the card reader doesn't work under linux. I see it as a typA controller in lspci, but then dmesg doesn't show anything when I insert a card under linux. Can you post some specifics (maybe .config settings?) as to how you got this working?

thanks,

coshx

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## Toastbrot

 *coshx wrote:*   

>  *cros13 wrote:*   
> 
> The SD controller works with kernel 2.6 drivers(its a toshiba america systems typA controller)
> 
>  
> ...

 

Well, I need some information, too. I'm using an Toshiba P10, but the SD reader is the same as in the P20, i think.

tanks.

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## jkroon

Same here, P10 as well, lspci wasn't being very helpful until now:

```
0000:02:04.0 CardBus bridge: ENE Technology Inc CB-710/2/4 Cardbus Controller

0000:02:04.2 Class 0805: ENE Technology Inc ENE PCI Secure Digital Card Reader Controller
```

I list both since the cardpus (pcmcia?) is working but the SD card reader not.  Looks like it's the same physcial chip though as only the function numbers differ.  Guess the time is ripe to take another wack at this.  Then I can truly claim that it's only the onetouch keys I haven't got working, but I exchanged emails with someone who did.  So if the SD card reader can work then there is not a single piece of hardware on this notebook that doesn't function.  A shame the binary ati drivers doesn't support suspending though.

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## ewan.paton

ive got a P20  also, got to love having a brute of a processor and a 17" screen especaily since i got mine at cost from my work.

amyone have any luck getting sensors working yet, ive got the cpu modulating fine but would like to monitor the temps so i can see if it has any affect.

ps if anyone wants to post their xorg.conf and save me spend ages tracking down modline and alps configs thanks to a reinstall it would be cool

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## jkroon

Not sure whether the P20 also has an ATi, if so, my xorg.conf is available from http://www.kroon.co.za/howto.php?howto=toshiba_p10.

As for the sensors, I managed to get a deffinate "not supported" last time I tried (It detects them but states that they're not supported type of thing).  Haven't checked in a while.  You can however "emerge omnibook", "modprobe omnibook" and then take a look at /proc/omnibook  :Smile: .

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## ewan.paton

cheers nice to know what the temperaturs are even if changing the clock speed has no effect.

out of interest what do the dvd controll buttons on the front actually do, i never had had windows on long enough to find out , also any idea how i find what the other special keys do so i like the web button

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## jkroon

Well, I got the "mode" button to work under Linux once.  That is supposed to switch between "flat" stereo and the "digital" 3D or something.  Basically they add a hardware filter over the frequencies so that it sounds 3D although its not (by softening stuff that supposedly behind you etc ... don't have full details on this).  The other buttons are pretty obvious from the signs  :Smile: .

I never got the buttons on the side (web + ??? + tv-out) ones to even register events in Linux so I can only guess as to their purpose.

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## nitediver

 *jkroon wrote:*   

> The P10 is affected too.  It's what I call the black void death.  It happens when you boot with acpi=off, or use a 2.4 kernel.  The suspicion some of the kernel hackers and myself share is that the BIOS doesn't properly reset all the hardware, and then specifically the AUX, which btw, pretends to be a MUX, which it is not.  It is for this reason that you need i8042.nomux=1, the usb-handoff is required because (suspicion again) the keyboard and touchpad is in fact hooked up via the usb system.  This also explains why without the usb1.1 modules you don't have any keyboard or touchpad ...
> 
> Rather irritating ...

 

thank you very much for this  info. been using linux for a few years but it is only now, that i am getting more and more into it. i own a toshiba p 20 as it is known here in the u.k. have tried suse 10.1 and fedora c5, both with success as a dual boot with windows and the only thing was the black screen. i have racked my brains, tried lots of things and hunted the forums and thanks to your advice it is sorted now.

next step gentoo.  :Very Happy: 

best wishes,

derek

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