# Dell XPS M1710

## dr_mandarin

I am currently awaiting delivery of my recently-ordered XPS M1710. In the meantime, I thought I would check the forums to see if anybody had encountered issues specific to this machine. I haven't found anything, so I thought I'd post the question explicitly.

Has anybody installed Gentoo (or any other distro) on this machine? Any caveats/pitfalls/issues to be aware of?

----------

## interim descriptor

Very interested in hearing about your experiences with gentoo on the m1710.

I'm considering ordering one myself, so it'd be good to know if there are any shortcomings wrt gentoo.

----------

## interim descriptor

I just heard back from dr_mandarin.

He's still waiting for his m1710 to arrive, and said he'll post a followup with his experiences.

Thanks, dr_mandarin!

----------

## interim descriptor

Seems like somebody was able to get their m1710 to run Ubuntu without any difficulties:

http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=154136

This bodes well.

----------

## interim descriptor

Oh, dr_mandarin, why have you forsaken us?

----------

## iplayfast

well, I've just bought one, and installed gentoo on it. (or at least I'm in the process).

The installation went without a hitch (using x86 minimal). The only problem I had was with grub. (I couldn't figure out the sata drives for grub, and I normally use lilo).

Went back to lilo and all was well.

After I rebooted, found that the ethernet wasn't working. (no I'm not posting from it). It keeps complaining about a card manager not being found. I expect I'll have to do some exploring.

If anyone has some clues, I'm willing to explore together.

----------

## iplayfast

Well first things first. the (non-wireless) network card uses the NetXTreme hardware, which means using the tg3 driver. 

It's not working yet for me, but at least it's a direction to go.

I get 

cardmgr[6123]: no sockets found!

cardmgr failed to start. Make sure taht you have PCMCIA modules built or support compiled into the kernel.

I have pcmcia as a module, and it's loaded.

found some stuff. (will edit in more detail later).

eth0 is the wireless, eth1 is the wired.  Whichever gets the route first stops the other from getting it.

the wireless driver is the tg3, the wired driver is the eth1394, (which must also have the ieee1934 module).

OK, making a bit of progress.

tg3 driver seems to work very easily. Just set up the /etc/conf.d/net, load the driver and it works (on eth0)

ipw3945 is the driver needed to run the wireless. It requires turning off ieee80211 support from the kernel. (it get's compiled outside)

dmesg shows

```

ipw3945: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection

ipw3945: Radio Frequency Kill Switch is on:

Kill switch must be turned off for wireless netowrking to work.

```

This computer can control the wireless with Fn+F2, however this seems to hang linux.

This forum has a possible solution: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=458297

----------

## dr_mandarin

Well, the machine did finally arrive a while ago, but of course it's no good if you're not in the country where the machine is  :Smile: 

Anyway ... I managed to get started on the install yesterday, going fairly well so far. I will attempt to chronicle my installation here, for two reasons:

1. My own reference;

2. It might come in handy for anybody else doing the same.

Initial installation

============

Pretty standard, following the Gentoo handbook. As for partitioning, the following:

sd1: /boot, ext3

sd2: windows

sd3: swap

sd4: extended

sd5: dumpspace to transfer between linux and windows (I still don't trust the ntfs support in linux)

sd6: /, reiserfs

I saw a post regarding grub issues: Even though you're using SATA drives, the first hard drive will still be hd0. So in my case, the path to the kernel will start with (hd0,0) (because /boot is the first partition). Using the framebuffer for console, the text looks a tiny bit stretched, since the highest resolution supported by vesafb-tng is 1280x1024, which has to scale somewhat to fit onto a 1920x1200 display.

Regarding the networking: You don't need to load the PCMCIA module to get networking to work. Just load the tg3 module, and the wired network interface should work. In fact, I don't know if the standard PCMCIA module will work, since the slot in the M1710 is technically an ExpressCard slot and does not support PC cards. I haven't looked into it yet, results if I find any. (todo 01)

I also don't load wireless support by default, since I don't have a wireless network available. In this setup, the wired NIC is eth0. (During the live CD install process, wireless is eth0 and wired eth1). I will look into the live CD setup at a later stage to determine which drivers are used to get the wireless card working. (todo 02)

Note: If you get driven insane by the console beeping, use the following to switch it off:

```
setterm -blength 0
```

 (that's a zero at the end).

So, post-installation, booting to Linux works, booting to Windows works. Next...

X installation

=========

I had initially set my make.conf file to contain MAKEOPTS="-j3"

However, I had compile failures at some stages, where emerge failed because it was "waiting for current process to finish". I changed MAKEOPTS to j2, and emerge was happier.

emerge xorg-x11 and emerge gnome xscreensaver were fine (barring above). I will probably also install kde, althought my primary choice is gnome because it feels more lightweight, I have read many posts all over the place about how much faster kde is. (todo 03). One minor issue that I encountered with the Gentoo GNOME Configuration HOWTO, is that it mentions mDNSResponder, where the daemon name is actually mdnsd.

Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5" doesn't work to enable the scroll wheel with PS/2 protocol (I have a Logitech G7). Changing to IMPS/2 works. I might investigate imwheel at some later stage (todo 04).

AFAIK, and please take this as opinion and not official advice, I don't think horizontal and vertical sync rates make much sense in the context of LCD panels. As such, I merely select the most conservative options for both, and X can still start up at a staggering resolution of 1920x1200.

nVidia drivers

==========

First real issue. The nvidia-glx drivers provided by vanilla emerge don't work. (version 6xxx). However, using ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86", you get version 8762 of the nVidia binary drivers, which gives an nvidia driver that loads. However, the installation doesn't create the /dev/nv* devices. There used to be a NVmakedevices script which could be run, however it seems no more. Also, purportedly if /dev/nv* aren't created by loading the module, they should be created by starting X when using the nvidia driver in xorg.conf. At this stage, it didn't happen. So I downloaded the binary install package manually, and ran it manually. This still resulted in a kernel-loadable nvidia module, which didn't create device nodes. However, starting X up now creates the device nodes and X starts.

ALSA

====

Straightforward, the M1710 use the hda_intel driver.

Now I just need to get the PC speaker to stop beeping while in X.

[update] It seems that can be accomplished by adding

```
xset b off
```

to .xinitrc

So, what's left?

- Get power management working;

- Get lm_sensors working;

- Get bluetooth working (bluetooth module loads fine, that's a start);

- cedega/wine etc;

- DVD playing;

- DVD burning;

- wireless network.

I will update this as and when. All other Gentoo - XPS M1710 experience and questions welcome on this topic.

----------

## Jack of Spades

Anxiously awaiting the conclusion... and the delivery of my own XPS M1710.  If I have insights once it's in hand, I'll post them here as well.

----------

## Jack of Spades

I'm posting this from the M1710.  My experience pretty much matched dr_mandarin's; I should note that the new nvidia-drivers replacement for nvidia-kernel & nvidial-glx works fine.  

I do have wireless support running; I had to disable IEEE80211in the kernel, then use the latest (~x86) ipw3945 and ipw3945d, but it was otherwise easy.  ACPI is handling my battery management properly, but I did have to manually add ac and battery to /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6.  

DVD playback was something of a problem.  The DVD was initially detected as being IDE, but (since it's really SATA)  I couldn't set DMA on.  The solution was to add options ide hdc=noprobe to the kernel line in my grub.conf; the device now shows up as /dev/scd0 and plays DVDs fine.  I haven't tested burning yet.

CPU throttling isn't working yet, and I'm unclear from online documentation whether it can yet be made to work on the Core Duo.  The BIOS is handling dimming the screen for me to my satisfaction.

Things I haven't tested:

 CD/DVD burning

 Bluetooth (I don't have any Bluetooth devices)

 Firewire (ditto, no firewire devices)

 SD reader

----------

## thespongeoflove

I got my XPS a few months ago  :Very Happy: 

Very Happy. I absolutely love this computer. This is the perfect desktop replacement. Because I am very busy with my sys admin job these days I did not bother to do my usual routine with my laptops, take them apart and install Linux on them, instead I play games when I have free time. Well I decided to get started with Linux on my laptop this weekend because I noticed that my favorite sub-gentoo-disto RR4 had changed their name with a new release of their flavor of Gentoo, Sabayon Linux. Check them out: http://www.lxnaydesign.net/ If you did not know RR4 was a Gentoo based live cd environment that had tons of software loaded, excelent hardware detection, and beautiful XGL to impress anyone who looks at your screen. So I downloaded the distro booted up with default boot command with no parameters the live cd detected all the hardware on my computer, GeForce 7900gs, Intel T2600,  Sata drives, DVD drive, and bluetooth. Unfortunately it was not able to configure my network cards correctly. But on the up side XGL  :Shocked: 

Shocked works off the DVD!

This 10 minute experience has given me the motivation I needed to get started with my linux.

Anybody had any luck with Cedega or the media controls on the front?

Are you guys willing to share some of your config files so we can collaborate?

----------

## Suer7reus

Although it looks like you guys have things well under control, I'm posting from a very similar M170 with an almost-perfect Gentoo and would be happy to share configurations if they're relevant.

The only two things which do not work as desired on my box are:

If I try to get a framebuffer console at a resolution higher than 1400x1050, my display is corrupted badly, so I use 1400x1050,

and my Ricoh SD card reader (sdhci, linux-2.6.17) is unable to write (although I think it reads ok).

Note that you all have a different wireless card than I, so I can't help that, although I would highly recommend some udev rules (I'll post mine as soon as I dig them up) to [re]name the plethora of network interfaces (tg3, ipw####, 1394, BT) consistently across reboots.[/b]

----------

## BillyBoy

My experience after one week of tweaks:

First hour

0 - Plug it in

1 - Get ready to press F12

2 - Turn it on

3 - Press F12 and boot off the Gentoo CD

(I could have sworn I hit it fast enough, but I still got the Dell EULA mumbo jumbo then it started to boot Windows. I just held down the power button.... :Twisted Evil: )

4 - Lots of hardware unrecognized by the 2006.0 LiveCD, BTW

5 - My laptop with Bluetooth, 1394, GigEthernet yields eth1 for wired network. DHCP that interface.

6 - Backup the partitions

```
for a in 1 2 3

do

  mount /dev/sda${a} /mnt/gentoo

  cd /mnt/gentoo

  tar zcf - --ignore-failed-read . | ssh mylogin@repositorybox "cat - > /some/big/filesys/sda${a}.tgz"

  cd ..

  umount /mnt/gentoo

done
```

7 - fdisk /dev/sda - have your way with the disk

8 - make your file systems

9 - mount /mnt/gentoo et. al.

10 - finish Gentoo install blah, blah, blah

I found the CPU to be pretty dang fast so I put localhost/3 in my distcc/hosts file:

```
localhost/3 server1/4 server2/4 server3/2 remoteserver/2,lzo
```

It was able to keep green compile bars streaming across distccmon-gui most of the time.  :Smile: 

My make.conf, YFMV:

```
CFLAGS="-O2 -march=prescott -mfpmath=sse -pipe"

CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"

CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"

VIDEO_CARDS="vga vesa svga nvidia nv v4l fbdev"

INPUT_DEVICES="evdev keyboard mouse synaptics"

USE="-pam acpi nptl nptlonly mmx mmxext sse2 sse xv svga opengl nvidia -ati X directfb dga fbcon -xinerama apache2 bluetooth wifi xscreensaver kde gnome gd gif ieee1394 mp3 ssl truetype alsa -oss -ogg -vorbis -oggvorbis firefox nsplugin unicode utf8 localepurge lm_sensors"

# Log the individual emerge sessions

PORT_LOGDIR=/var/log/portlog

# Internal mirrors

SYNC="rsync://localserver/gentoo-portage"

http_proxy="http://localserver:9090"

FEATURES="parallel-fetch distcc"

MAKEOPTS="-j16 -s"

```

Tools

Here are the tools I emerged, kinda in order:

portage

core-utils

distcc

gentoo-sources

system -e

vim

genkernel

lilo

xorg-x11

nvidia-drivers ~x86

app-admin/sudo

world -e

windowmaker

freefonts

sharefonts

ipw3945

wireless-tools

kde

slocate

openoffice-bin

ntp

nmap

wireshark

bind-tools

tcptraceroute

tcpdump

ipcalc

syslog-ng

gentoolkit

portage-utils

kdebluetooth

vmware-workstation

bibletime

xpdf

apache

subversion

php

xephem

stellarium

mplayer

rdesktop

alsa-utils

alsa-tools

acpitool

psutils

mirrorselect

sash

audacity

tightvnc

Power

I had an okay time setting up power mgmt. Here's what I emerged which seem, so far, to give me plenty of usefulness under KDE's klaptop applet.

cpufrequtils

cpufreqd

powermgmt-base

Once I got acpid running, I could shut down by pressing the power button.

Here's what my /etc/modules.autoload.d/ looks like:

```

# NIC

tg3

# acpi thingies

ac

battery

thermal

button

fan

i2c_dev

i2c_i801

# Sound

snd-hda-intel

# for power

# Nope. This gives me an error

# acpi-cpufreq

cpufreq-ondemand

cpufreq-powersave

cpufreq-conservative

cpufreq-stats

cpufreq-userspace

speedstep-centrino

# for vmware and other time-sensitive stuff

rtc-proc

rtc-sysfs

rtc-dev

# for wifi

ipw3945

firmware_class

# bluetooth?

# other stuff

hw_random

```

Now I can just tweak the power levels in klaptop and the CPU does its thing.

Even with these devices loaded, I still cannot get lm_sensors to show me anything other than CPU thermal zone info.

WiFi

The wifi won't come up with the gentoo packages for some reason. I downloaded the tarball from the Intel ipw3945 site and I use their load script. It comes up fine using that but it's kind of flaky. You need to tweak the kernel to remove 802.11 stuff (but not ALL of it!) in order to emerge ipw3945, though.

Bluetooth

I emerged obexftp hoping it would give me some service for file transfers but my TMo MDA phone only sees a serial port. The kdebluetooth shows me nearby devices and I can browse them but I still haven't figured out how to let my phone grab files off the laptop.

When the system comes up, sdpd and rfcomm both give me errors. Maybe I don't have them configured properly yet.

X

I added an input device section to my xorg.conf to use the synaptics pad. Then a load and an InputDevice for it. Add these lines to the indicated sections:

To the Section "ServerLayout" add:

```
InputDevice    "touchpad" "CorePointer"
```

To the Section "Module" add:

```
Load  "synaptics"
```

Then add this whole section:

```
Section "InputDevice"

        Identifier      "touchpad"

        Driver          "synaptics"

        Option          "SendCoreEvents"        "true"

        Option          "Device"                "/dev/psaux"

        Option          "Protocol"              "auto-dev"

        Option          "HorizScrollDelta"      "0"

        Option          "SHMConfig"             "on"

EndSection
```

I also made these option changes in the nvidia driver's Section "Device"

```

Option     "RenderAccel"        "true"

Option     "CursorShadow"       "true"

Option     "NoPowerConnectorCheck"      "true"

```

Summary

All is quite acceptable. VMWare works like a charm so I can administer my AD and group policies with glee. It's certainly speedy enough, I only wish I had gone with 2GB RAM since a few VMs slow it down a bit.

When the CPU is on low speed (1GHz) the console is abysmally slow. I have it running at 1024x768 and text drips slower than a 9600 baud vt100.

The multicolored lights are okay, even though my daughter thinks they are the cat's meow. The wireless is definitely weird but that might just be due to my crappy AP at home - dhcpcd kinda makes it but doesn't. I can get traffic if I hand-craft the ip/netmask/broadcast/gateway etc. My wifi at work comes up fine (Cisco B/G APs) and nice and speedy.

I'm bummed I can't use any of my old PCCards but d2x works! Woo hoo! And stellarium at 1920x1200 is breathtaking.

Update

I noticed that cpufreq-info shows different governors (and speeds!) when klaptop controls the power. It seems to only set one CPU's settings (after klaptop told to use "conservative"):

```
$ cpufreq-info

cpufrequtils 001: cpufreq-info (C) Dominik Brodowski 2004-2006

Report errors and bugs to linux@brodo.de, please.

analyzing CPU 0:

  driver: centrino

  CPUs which need to switch frequency at the same time: 0

  hardware limits: 1000 MHz - 2.33 GHz

  available frequency steps: 2.33 GHz, 2.00 GHz, 1.67 GHz, 1.33 GHz, 1000 MHz

  available cpufreq governors: conservative, powersave, ondemand, userspace

  current policy: frequency should be within 1000 MHz and 2.33 GHz.

                  The governor "conservative" may decide which speed to use

                  within this range.

  current CPU frequency is 1000 MHz.

analyzing CPU 1:

  driver: centrino

  CPUs which need to switch frequency at the same time: 1

  hardware limits: 1000 MHz - 2.33 GHz

  available frequency steps: 2.33 GHz, 2.00 GHz, 1.67 GHz, 1.33 GHz, 1000 MHz

  available cpufreq governors: conservative, powersave, ondemand, userspace

  current policy: frequency should be within 1000 MHz and 2.33 GHz.

                  The governor "userspace" may decide which speed to use

                  within this range.

  current CPU frequency is 2.33 GHz.
```

I also noticed that ipw3945 really whacks out the kernel's 802.11 settings. I would advise making a kernel for wifi usage and emerge with that kernel:

```
KERNEL_DIR=/usr/src/wifikernel emerge -av ipw3945
```

 because after I emerged ipw3945, I couldn't rebuild kernels without unmerging ipw3945. I booted with a Mepis DVD and the wireless came up fine. Weird things with Gentoo's version?

Splashy boot screens came up fine after emerging the splash themes. Don't use splash_manager to update your lilo.conf file if you use genkernel. It's a bit braindead. Just use the usual splash line and don't let it munge up your initrd line:

```
image = /boot/kernel-genkernel-x86-2.6.17-gentoo-r8

  label = Gen2.6.17.r8

  append="real_root=/dev/sda3 video=vesafb:1280x1024-32@60 splash=verbose,fadein,theme:emergence console=tty1"

  #initrd = /boot/splash/initrd-spl-emergence-all

  initrd=/boot/initramfs-genkernel-x86-2.6.17-gentoo-r8

  read-only
```

 Does anyone know how to get rid of Larry after I use the Gentoo theme? I really don't want to see him, as cute as he is, whilst I type around his face. I really don't want a console splash, just a boot splash.

----------

## thespongeoflove

It has been a while since i checked in here.  It looks like everybody is doing well with their computers?

I mad the switch last night. I installed the gentoo based distro, sabayon linux. Yes i know this is the lazy way, but i am really just to short on time these days. Since my install i have upgraded the kernel, and reconfigured it with only the hardware i needed. I then copied all my data from windows. I replaced the thunderbird and firefox profiles with profiles from windows. 

Then i went to work the next day. I had my windows hard drive just in case i needed to do something in windows that i really could not, or didn't know how to do with linux. I was able to go the entire day without booting windows.

I still have some hardware testing to do, but so far i am very impressed with this distro and how easy it is to modify and maintain with portage. I'll post a formal list of everything later. 

Has anybody been able to assign the media buttons in the front of the computer to their proper controls?

Oh yeah, I have XGL running. All windows and mac users gaze in awe at my screen now.

----------

## thespongeoflove

I noticed something odd while i was listening to music today. It seems like my sound is only playing through the two main speakers, and not using the nice little sub.

Has anybody noticed this problem? is there a simple fix? Should i re-configure my sound from the ground up?

----------

## iplayfast

as per your request privately here is my alsa config. As I mentioned, for me it worked as is, but I'm not sure the bass is actually working. I heard sound and didn't think anything more about it.

```

# Alsa kernel modules' configuration file.

# ALSA portion

alias char-major-116 snd

# OSS/Free portion

alias char-major-14 soundcore

##

## IMPORTANT:

## You need to customise this section for your specific sound card(s)

## and then run `modules-update' command.

## Read alsa-driver's INSTALL file in /usr/share/doc for more info.

##

##  ALSA portion

## alias snd-card-0 snd-interwave

## alias snd-card-1 snd-ens1371

##  OSS/Free portion

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

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

##

# OSS/Free portion - card #1

alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss

alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss

alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss

alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss

alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss

##  OSS/Free portion - card #2

## alias sound-service-1-0 snd-mixer-oss

## alias sound-service-1-3 snd-pcm-oss

## alias sound-service-1-12 snd-pcm-oss

alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss

alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss

alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss

# Set this to the correct number of cards.

options snd cards_limit=1

```

----------

## thespongeoflove

Thanks iplayfast. My config looks the same. I spoke with iplayfast about setting up the multimedia keys on the front of the computer, and the subject of sound config came up. He has a slightly older laptop with very similar hardware configuration. In his mixer he has Master, PCM, and mono. I only have Master and PCM. The mono control is the sub woofer. Does anybody with an XPS M1710 have all three speakers working?

----------

## BillyBoy

Using "showkey" I see the media buttons on the front (from L to R) giving me these keycodes:

```
Kill audio - 113

Decrease volume - 114

Increase volume - 115

Play/pause - 164

Rewind - 165

Fast Forward - 163 (go figure....)

Stop - 166
```

I don't know how you'd map them. Anyone?

----------

## thespongeoflove

 *BillyBoy wrote:*   

> Using "showkey" I see the media buttons on the front (from L to R) giving me these keycodes:
> 
> ```
> Kill audio - 113
> 
> ...

 

Suer7reus was kind enough to give me some advice. For his M170 he used xbindkeys.

xbindkeys is the program you want if KDE's keybindings panel doesn't

do it for you.  It allows any keyboard key to be bound to a command,

which will be run when the key (or combo) is pressed.  The media

buttons on your notebook appear as keyboard buttons, so that's great.

xbindkeys is configured via an rcfile in ~/ called .xbindkeysrc.  The

format of this file is as follows, and a default can be found either

by running `xbindkeys -d` or here -

http://hocwp.free.fr/xbindkeys/xbindkeysrc_d:

# Comments anywhere after #'s

# The first line in ""'s is the program to run - absolute paths are

recommended (by me).

# The second line specifies the key to trap.  Most keys can be

specified more logically, but funky keys with no canonical name are

only specifiable [reliably] with low-level codes like these.

"xterm"

 c:41 + m:0x4

Below are instructions to script changing all your volumes at once -

you can also have xbindkeys run something like the old command line

interfaces to xmms to play/pause, stop, etc your playlist upon hitting

the appropriate buttons.  xmms is outdated now, but most players

should still be controllable (at least with a plugin or external

program) from the command line.

You can find the proper keycodes for your buttons by running

`xbindkeys -k` (one key at a time) or `xbindkeys -mk` (many), pressing

your buttons, and seeing what comes out.  Set up a pair of lines in

.xbindkeysrc for each button you want to bind, and you'll be good to

go.

Make yourself some scripts for changing multiple mixer channels at

once using amixer.  Read `man amixer` and know that you're probably

shooting for something like the following in a single file that's

called by xbindkeys for the volume down button:

#!/bin/bash

amixer -c 0 sset Master 4%-

amixer -c 0 sset Mono 4%-

amixer -c 0 sset Headphone 4%-

Read `man amixer` and `amixer -c 0 info` to learn more and find out

exact names for your mixer controls, etc.  Muting can be done with

mute or unmute specified instead of the 4%- (decrement volume by 4%).

You can either have the mute button toggle mute as in Windows, which

would be a little trickier to script (you'd have to determine the

state to know whether to mute or unmute), or you can have the mute

button always set the channels muted and have any changes to the

volume levels with the other buttons unmute the mixer controls (4%-

unmute).

----------

## thespongeoflove

I am still having problems with sound. Nothing through the sub on my laptop. Any ideas?

----------

## Tekel

Has anyone tried to use this laptop wit the docking station 

I am trying to set up the docking station with dual monitors, however X won't seem to power the DVI output 

The nvidia drivers recongiszes all three monitors (DFP-0 DFP-1 CRT) however it will only display on DFP-0 and/or CRT

----------

## BillyBoy

I have not tried the docking station. I do, however, have one of the old Dell Laptop bags and the XPS fits in it perfectly!

BTW, does anyone have strange issues with the ipw3945 driver spinning the CPU if the device isn't running? I have recently seen this and it's really annoying to have to make sure the little blue light is blazing when I boot. Otherwise, I get no choice but to kill the machine and do it all over again, making sure the little bluey is shining this time.

----------

## Tekel

I haven't had a problem with the ipw driver. I am using it with NetworkManager though so I don't think it does anything untill after logon

----------

## thespongeoflove

I have no problems with my wifi card. Actually i notice that i get a stronger signal now then i did when i was running windows.

----------

## grantonstar

Has anybody managed to get the XD card reader to work?

grantonstar

----------

## Tekel

 *grantonstar wrote:*   

> Has anybody managed to get the XD card reader to work?
> 
> grantonstar

 

I have successfully tesed it with SD cards, It was pretty much plug and play for me

----------

## grantonstar

Tekel,

The SD and XD readers are internally using different devices (lspci confirms this). SD is indeed plug and play if the right settings are enabled in the kernel but not XD  :Sad: 

grantonstar

----------

## Tekel

 *grantonstar wrote:*   

> Tekel,
> 
> The SD and XD readers are internally using different devices (lspci confirms this). SD is indeed plug and play if the right settings are enabled in the kernel but not XD 
> 
> grantonstar

 

Ohh well good luck with that I have never even heard of xD cards before, It is amazing that people can't agree on a small form factor memory device.

----------

## BillyBoy

Same for me with SD. As long as I had memory devices checked in the kernel, it was easy. My phone uses a micro sD card but I have an adapter that fits it. Easy way to transfer chunes to tele.

One thing I noticed tonight was the way the BIOS handles the WiFi/Bluetooth control. You can choose to have the hotkey control WiFi, or BT or both. You can also separately enable/disable each transceiver. I disabled BT and changed the hotkey to control WiFi. I could never get the WiFi to come up in this setting. The only way I could get it was to enable both transceivers and use WiFi/BT control on the hotkey.

One other question I started playing with last night was how to boot off an external USB drive. I got to the same place I've been many a time when the drive is incorrect. It tells me the root device is incorrect and to enter a valid device (I'm using lilo). I'll play more but it's obviously a software thing.

----------

## thespongeoflove

The card reader does not work. I have not tried to get it working.

I did get the sub working. I found a ticket on ALSA bug tracker that related to my issue: https://bugtrack.alsa-project.org/alsa-bug/view.php?id=2092

then Virtuous-Disturbance told me that he disabled all ALSA drivers and modules in the kernel then emerged alsa-driver and everything worked fine. I tried this and it did not solve my problem. I checked back with the people over at ALSA and saw someone ask if they had "tried model=ref". I edited /etc/modprobe.conf added the line "options snd-hda-intel model=ref". this basically tells the driver to ask the sound card what speakers it has.

Now the sub works. I have three mixer levels that i can control. Master, PCM, and LFE. PCM is the main two speakers in the front, and LFE is the sub. Master only controls PCM. Does anybody know how i can set the LFE to respond to the Master control?Last edited by thespongeoflove on Mon Feb 26, 2007 7:40 pm; edited 1 time in total

----------

## thespongeoflove

someone with an Inspiron 9400 says his card reader works with a kernel patch.

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-436869-highlight-sndhdaintel+model+ref.html

 *Quote:*   

> SD Card Reader
> 
> It works. No lie, it does. You'll however have to manually patch your kernel. The patches are available at http://list.drzeus.cx/pipermail/sdhci-devel/2006-February/000426.html. See Dell Inspiron 6000 forum for more details. You must use the driver built-in and not as a module however.
> 
> Note: with 2.6.16 kernel series patches might appear not to be applied. You can check this web site (disgruntledgoat.com) for any help on how to apply patches for these kernel series. It's about Gentoo Linux on a Dell Inspiron 630m but the hardware is almost identical.

 

I hope this may be helpful to someone.

----------

## Tekel

Well now with that handy subwoofer tip, almost everyhitng on my 1710 is working, Except I can't connect it to two monitors for a dual screen setup at my desk . It appears the Nvidia drivers recongnize both my monitors, but the one connected to hte DVI port will not work for the life of it, it just blanks out. Her eis the relevent seciton of Xorg.o.log if anyone can help 

```

(II) Setting vga for screen 0.

(==) NVIDIA(0): Depth 24, (==) framebuffer bpp 32

(==) NVIDIA(0): RGB weight 888

(==) NVIDIA(0): Default visual is TrueColor

(==) NVIDIA(0): Using gamma correction (1.0, 1.0, 1.0)

(**) NVIDIA(0): Option "HWcursor"

(**) NVIDIA(0): Option "RenderAccel"

(**) NVIDIA(0): Option "TwinView"

(**) NVIDIA(0): Option "MetaModes" "1280x1024,1280x1024; 1024x768,1024x768 ; 800x600,800x600"

(**) NVIDIA(0): Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "true"

(**) NVIDIA(0): Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "true"

(**) NVIDIA(0): Enabling RENDER acceleration

(**) NVIDIA(0): TwinView enabled

(II) NVIDIA(0): Support for GLX with the Damage and Composite X extensions is

(II) NVIDIA(0):     enabled.

(II) NVIDIA(0): NVIDIA GPU GeForce Go 7900 GS at PCI:1:0:0 (GPU-0)

(--) NVIDIA(0): Memory: 262144 kBytes

(--) NVIDIA(0): VideoBIOS: 05.71.22.16.13

(II) NVIDIA(0): Detected PCI Express Link width: 16X

(--) NVIDIA(0): Interlaced video modes are supported on this GPU

(--) NVIDIA(0): Connected display device(s) on GeForce Go 7900 GS at

(--) NVIDIA(0):     PCI:1:0:0:

(--) NVIDIA(0):     NEC LCD1860NX (CRT-0)

(--) NVIDIA(0):     LPL (DFP-0)

(--) NVIDIA(0):     NEC LCD1860NX (DFP-2)

(--) NVIDIA(0): NEC LCD1860NX (CRT-0): 400.0 MHz maximum pixel clock

(--) NVIDIA(0): LPL (DFP-0): 330.0 MHz maximum pixel clock

(--) NVIDIA(0): LPL (DFP-0): Internal Dual Link LVDS

(--) NVIDIA(0): NEC LCD1860NX (DFP-2): 165.0 MHz maximum pixel clock

(--) NVIDIA(0): NEC LCD1860NX (DFP-2): Internal Single Link TMDS

(II) NVIDIA(0): Assigned Display Devices: CRT-0, DFP-0

(II) NVIDIA(0): Validated modes:

(II) NVIDIA(0):     "1280x1024,1280x1024"

(II) NVIDIA(0):     "1024x768,1024x768"

(II) NVIDIA(0):     "800x600,800x600"

(II) NVIDIA(0): Virtual screen size determined to be 2560 x 1024

(--) NVIDIA(0): DPI set to (90, 89); computed from "UseEdidDpi" X config

(--) NVIDIA(0):     option

(--) Depth 24 pixmap format is 32 bpp

```

any help would be much appreciated

----------

## BillyBoy

 *thespongeoflove wrote:*   

> I edited /etc/modprobe.conf added the line "option snd-hda-intel model=ref". this basically tells the driver to ask the sound card what speakers it has.

 

Shouldn't it be:

```
"options snd-hda-intel model=ref"
```

Also, when I do this, my new device is called "IEC958".

----------

## thespongeoflove

oops! sorry if i made your sound not work properly. My post has been changed.

I don't know what to say about your device name. mine stayed the same.

----------

## Tekel

So after a little bit of playing with Gentoo I can know report I have 

nvidia chip working with Compiz 

Dual monitor with Docking Station 

Subwoofer working 

SD Card reader working 

Smart Card Reader Working (using Coolkeys) 

The current task however is getting lm_sensors to work 

when i run sensors I see a few eeproms, but no sensors. 

and lm_sensors was causing a kernel oops. Has anyone gotten the sensors to work ?

----------

## thespongeoflove

One thing you guys should try (if you have not allready) is Sabayon linux. It is a gentoo based distro, with very good hardware support. It is a VERY lazy way to get a fully functional and beautiful gentoo system. I actually installed it on my notebook because my job got very busy and i didn't have the time to tweak gentoo for my notebook and i really did not want to use windows or some other distro.

Sabayon has all the benefits of a distro that will get almost all your hardware working out of the box, and the power and flexibility of gentoo. Check it out.

----------

## Tekel

Has anyone runinto the issue of the Frame Buffer getting totally hosed once X starts ?

----------

## RichieB

Yes, today, in fact.

I disabled ipw3945d (/etc/init.d/ipw3945d stop)

----------

## Tekel

 *RichieB wrote:*   

> Yes, today, in fact.
> 
> I disabled ipw3945d (/etc/init.d/ipw3945d stop)

 

And that fixed the frame buffer ?

----------

## RichieB

The bloody ipw driver has caused untold issues with my 2.6.21 kernel laptop.

I haven't bothered to regress to 2.6.20 - certainly with that kernel I had to remove the module and 'probe it again on numerous occasions. An abortion of a wireless driver.

If you've got kwirelessmanager starting on kde login, you might try removing that if you don't want to stop ipw.

----------

## BillyBoy

 *RichieB wrote:*   

> The bloody ipw driver has caused untold issues with my 2.6.21 kernel laptop.
> 
> I haven't bothered to regress to 2.6.20 - certainly with that kernel I had to remove the module and 'probe it again on numerous occasions. An abortion of a wireless driver.
> 
> If you've got kwirelessmanager starting on kde login, you might try removing that if you don't want to stop ipw.

 

Well, I'm not convinced it's the ipw driver, though, Lord knows I"ve had my fair share of headaches with it. I'm more apt to say it's a problem with udev mucking things up. I had the same issue with a Linksys card. Any time udev got its mitts "helping" me load the drivers, it never got it right. Once I zapped the config files and wrote a script to handle it myself, all was rosey. Same with the 3945 driver. The stock standard one worked great as long as I hand crafted it.

----------

## Taniwha

thanks everyone for the tips - I can't believe that no one here's explained how to control the blinky lights .... here's how to do it:

```
emerge libsmbios
```

(it's under ~x86 but seems to work great)

The utility you want to try is:

```
dellLEDCtl -h
```

I've written some goodies to use them - something to turn them off when running on batteries and a more general feature so I can get them to flash when mail comes in ..............

First create the file /etc/lightsfx/setlights.sh

```

#!/bin/sh

if [ "$1" = "restore" ]; then

        i=`grep "Current intensity" /etc/lightsfx/saved|awk '{ print $3 }'`

        z1=`grep "Current zone 1" /etc/lightsfx/saved|awk '{ print $4 }'`

        z2=`grep "Current zone 2" /etc/lightsfx/saved|awk '{ print $4 }'`

        z3=`grep "Current zone 3" /etc/lightsfx/saved|awk '{ print $4 }'`

        z4=`grep "Current zone 4" /etc/lightsfx/saved|awk '{ print $4 }'`

        /usr/bin/dellLEDCtl -l $i -z1 $z1 -z2 $z2 -z3 $z3 -z4 $z4

else

        if [ "$1" = "alert" ]; then

                /usr/bin/dellLEDCtl -i >/tmp/lfx_saved

                if [ "$2" == "strobe" ]; then

                        /usr/bin/dellLEDCtl -s

                fi

                if [ "$2" == "traffic" ]; then

                        /usr/bin/dellLEDCtl -l 7 -z2 2

                        /usr/bin/dellLEDCtl -l 7 -z2 3

                        /usr/bin/dellLEDCtl -l 7 -z2 5

                        /usr/bin/dellLEDCtl -l 7 -z2 3

                        /usr/bin/dellLEDCtl -l 7 -z2 2

                        /usr/bin/dellLEDCtl -l 7 -z2 1

                        /usr/bin/dellLEDCtl -l 7 -z2 2

                        /usr/bin/dellLEDCtl -l 7 -z2 3

                        /usr/bin/dellLEDCtl -l 7 -z2 5

                        /usr/bin/dellLEDCtl -l 7 -z2 3

                        /usr/bin/dellLEDCtl -l 7 -z2 2

                        /usr/bin/dellLEDCtl -l 7 -z2 1

                fi

                if [ "$2" == "pulse" ]; then

                        if [ -n "$3" ] ; then

                                 /usr/bin/dellLEDCtl -z2 $3

                        fi

                        for j in 0 1 2 ; do

                                for i in 2 4 6 7 ; do

                                        /usr/bin/dellLEDCtl -l $i

                                done

                                for i in 6  4  2  0 ; do

                                        /usr/bin/dellLEDCtl -l $i

                                done

                        done

                fi

                if [ "$2" == "flash" ]; then

                        if [ -n "$3" ] ; then

                                 /usr/bin/dellLEDCtl -z2 $3

                        fi

                        for j in 0 1 2 3 ; do

                                /usr/bin/dellLEDCtl -l 0

                                /usr/bin/dellLEDCtl -l 7

                        done

                fi

                i=`grep "Current intensity" /tmp/lfx_saved|awk '{ print $3 }'`

                z1=`grep "Current zone 1" /tmp/lfx_saved|awk '{ print $4 }'`

                z2=`grep "Current zone 2" /tmp/lfx_saved|awk '{ print $4 }'`

                z3=`grep "Current zone 3" /tmp/lfx_saved|awk '{ print $4 }'`

                z4=`grep "Current zone 4" /tmp/lfx_saved|awk '{ print $4 }'`

                /usr/bin/dellLEDCtl -l $i -z1 $z1 -z2 $z2 -z3 $z3 -z4 $z4

        else

                if [ "$1" = "save" ]; then

                        /usr/bin/dellLEDCtl -i >/etc/lightsfx/saved

                        shift

                fi

                if [ "$1" = "off" ]; then

                        /usr/bin/dellLEDCtl -l 0 -z1 off -z2 off -z3 off -z4 off

                else

                        /usr/bin/dellLEDCtl -l $1 -z1 $2 -z2 $3 -z3 $4 -z4 $5

                fi

        fi

fi

```

next edit /etc/acpi/default.sh, after the 'button) ....  ;;' section just beofre the matching '*)' add:

```

    ac_adapter)

        case "$event" in

        AC)

                if [ "`cat /proc/acpi/ac_adapter/AC/state`" = "state:                   on-line" ]; then

                        /etc/lightsfx/setlights.sh restore

                else

                        /etc/lightsfx/setlights.sh save off

                fi

                ;;

        *)

                logger "ACPI group $1 / action $2 is not defined"

                ;;

        esac

        ;;

```

finally if you want to get told when mail arrives from kmail you need to make the light changing app setuid - as root:

```

chmod +s /usr/bin/dellLEDCtl

```

and in kmail go to setting->Configure Kmail->Accounts->Other Actions->Advanced check 'Run a program' and entry

```
/etc/lightsfx/setlights.sh alert flash emerald&
```

or something similar - after the alert you can type 'flash' 'pulse' 'strobe' and 'traffic' for different pattern, the first two also optionally get a color

----------

## eusanpe

Hello all:

Is your bass speaker working ok? It used to work great until I upgraded to kernel 2.6.22 and now it is gone. 

I still have the following in modules.conf

# Set this to the correct number of cards.

options snd cards_limit=1

options snd-hda-intel model=ref

Thanks,

Tony

----------

