Fedora Core 4 on Dell Latitude D410</a> </head> <body> <div align=center> <h2>Fedora Core 4 on a Dell Latitude D410</h2> <h3>Fran Fabrizio, fran /at/ cis /dot/ uab /dot/ edu</h3> <h3>Last Update: September 8, 2005</h3> <table border=1> <tr bgcolor=ffffcc> <th colspan=3>Hardware Configuration</th> </tr> <tr bgcolor=ffffcc> <th>Feature</th> <th>Hardware</th> <th>Driver</th> </tr> <tr> <td>Processor</td> <td>Intel Pentium M 2.0 GHz</td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Memory</td> <td>1GB</td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Hard Drive</td> <td>80GB Hitachi ATA Drive</td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Graphics Chipset</td> <td>Intel 915GM</td> <td>vesa in FC4 xorg packages, i815 in CVS</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Sound</td> <td>AC97</td> <td>ALSA</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Wireless Network</td> <td>Intel Pro Wireless 2200BG</td> <td>ipw2200</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Ethernet</td> <td>Tigon3 PCIX 10/100/1000</td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Bluetooth</td> <td>Dell Integrated Bluetooth</td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>DVD Writer</td> <td>Dell D-Bay External USB DVD Writer</td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Modem</td> <td>Dell Mini-PCI WinModem</td> <td> </td> </tr> </table> <p> <table> <tr> <th colspan=3 bgcolor=ffffcc>Linux Compatibility Summary</th> </tr> <tr> <th>Feature</th> <th>Result</th> <th>Comments</th> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="#graphics">Graphics</a></td> <td><div style="color: green">Works (after modifications)</div></td> <td>Does not properly detect on startup, manual edits required. More below.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Ethernet Networking</td> <td><div style="color: green">Works</div></td> <td>--</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="#wireless">Wireless Networking</a></td> <td><div style="color: green">Works (after modifications)</div></td> <td>Kernel update and firmware install required.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>External USB DVD Reader/Burner</td> <td><div style="color: green">Reading Works / Burning Untested</div></td> <td>--</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="#audio">Audio</a></td> <td><div style="color: green">Works (after modifications)</div></td> <td>Must enable External Amplifier in audio mixer for internal speaker to work.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><A href"#acpi">ACPI</a></td> <td><div style="color: yellow">Partially Works</div></td> <td>Battery meter and shutdown-on-power-btn works.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>PCMCIA</td> <td><div style="color: blue">Untested</div></td> <td>--</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Modem</td> <td><div style="color: blue">Untested</div></td> <td>--</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Bluetooth</td> <td><div style="color: blue">Untested</div></td> <td>Detected on startup.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><A href="#usb">USB</a></td> <td><div style="color: green">Works</div></td> <td>USB Key Automatically Mounted at /media/USB_MEMORY</td> </tr> <tr> <td><A href="#mouse">Mouse Touchpad / Pointing Stick</a></td> <td><div style="color: green">Works</div></td> <td>Touchpad feels a bit sluggish even at high sensitivity setting.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>External Video</td> <td><div style="color: green">Works</div></td> <td>Only tested through Advanced Port Replicator.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="#buttons">Special Keyboard Buttons</a></td> <td><div style="color: yellow">Partially Works</div></td> <td>See below.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="#docking">Advanced Port Replicator</a></td> <td><div style="color: green">Works</div></td> <td>--</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="#laptopmode">Kernel laptop_mode</a></td> <td><div style="color: green">Works</div></td> <td>Enhances battery life. See below.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="#cpuspeed">cpuspeed</a></td> <td><div style="color: green">Works</div></td> <td>Enables speedstep to slow cpu and conserve power.</td> </tr> </table> </div> <a name="graphics"><h4>Graphics</h4> <p>Upon initially booting from the Fedora Core 4 DVD install disk, the X server started with distorted/wavy graphics. This seemed unhealthy for the monitor so I rebooted and started over with a text install. After the install, on the reboot, it came up in runlevel 5 with the graphical login screen, and the graphics were again distorted as I went through the first-time question screens for time zone, etc... One of those screens was a monitor configuration screen, on which I chose Dell Laptop 1024x768 display. This did not immediately solve the problem. I then dropped into a text console (alt-f1) and logged in as root. I edited /etc/X11/xorg.conf. In this file I set the VertRefresh to 60.0 in the Monitor section and added "1024x768" as the first mode on the Mode lines for depths 16 and 24 in the Screens section. I saved xorg.conf and then ran 'telinit 3' and 'telinit 5' to restart the X server. All worked fine. Flicker gone. You may also here a high pitched buzzing (it's coming from the laptops video inverter) before you make these fixes. After these fixes, the noise went away for me. It still does display a mess of garbled lines for about 2 seconds when first entering the X server, but then it corrects itself.</p> <p>This was all still using the vesa driver. When I tried to use the Video Card configuration utility to tell FC4 I had an Intel 915 graphics chipset, it reconfigured xorg.conf to load the i810 driver. This failed, the X server would not start. I then went to dri.freedesktop.org and downloaded BOTH THE i810 and i915 packages, and run the install.sh. Even though this laptop has the i915, you will actually use the i810 driver, which gets help from the i915 files. I ran the i915 install.sh first and then the i810, not sure if this matters. When I did this against the latest stable FC4 kernel, all went well. I then changed the Driver line in xorg.conf to read i810 instead of vesa. It worked great, and no longer any artifacts when X first starts, like I had with vesa. No compile of Xorg from CVS was necessary. </p> <p>Now I have it using the i810 driver and everything seems happy. More extensive testing is probably required, though.</p> <a name="#wireless"><h4>Wireless</h4> <p>Getting the wireless to work required that I update the kernel to the latest available through up2date. I started up2date (setting useGPG to 0 in /etc/sysconfig/rhn/up2date which will otherwise bug you incessantly) and when it asked if I wanted to get the updated kernel packages I selected both of them (along with all of the other updates that were available for me). As of the time of writing the updated kernel was 2.6.12-1.1447_FC4. This kernel comes with the stable 1.0.0 version of the ipw2200 driver for the Intel Pro 2200 Wireless card (the driver also supports the 2915 a/b/g version of the card, I believe). However, Intel's firmware is proprietary and not included in the distro so you will receive an error message about failure to load firmware when you boot. To resolve this, you must download the firmware from <a href="http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/firmware.php">http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/firmware.php</a>. Be sure to get the correct firmware for the driver version. As the FC4 updated kernel I'm using includes the 1.0.0 version of the ipw2200 driver, I used the v0.19-v1.0.3 version of the firmware. The download includes five *.fw files, which need to be put into /lib/firmware. After doing so, attempt to 'modprobe ipw2200' again, and it should work this time. You can then use the graphical network setup GUI and choose the wireless device, or use the iwconfig tool on the command line to configure the wireless card.</p> <a name="audio"><h4>Audio</h4> <p> Out of the box, audio was working fine when a headphone was connected either to the headphone jack on the computer or the one on the Advanced Port Replicator. However, the internal speaker was silent. It turns out the fix was to open Volume Control, and in Preferences enable the External Amplifier. After doing so, all worked fine.</p> <a name="acpi"><h4>ACPI</h4> <p>The battery meter is working fine, I added it to my system tray, but then a duplicate appeared once I ran up2date for the first time, so I removed one of them. Hitting the power button initiates a shutdown. </p> <p>Sleep and hibernate have been more problematic. The main problem centers around getting the ipw2200 wireless driver to stop and restart correctly. It's been failing to come back up correctly. I think I am close, but as of yet, I can't say that suspend to ram is working yet. The 'hibernate' script seems helpful - it was originally intended for suspend-to-disk but also works for suspend-to-ram. Suspend-to-disk not explored yet. </p> <a name="usb"><h4>USB</h4> <p>I have only tested two USB devices thus far, the D-Bay External USB DVD burner and a Dell 128MB USB memory key. Both work fine. The key was automatically mounted at /media/USB_MEMORY and an icon appeared on my desktop. Right-clicking the icon and selecting Unmount worked fine.</p> <A name="buttons"><h4>Special Keyboard Buttons</h4> <p> Buttons that seem to work are:<br> <ul> <li>Wireless Networking Enable/Disable (Fn-F2) <li>Brightness Adjustment <li>CRT/LCD (Fn-F8) </ul> Buttons that seem to not work: <ul> <li>BIOS Battery Meter (Fn-F3) <li>Volume Controls (both the dedicated buttons and the Fn- buttons) <li>Stand By (Fn-Esc) and Hibernate (Fn-F1) </ul> The rest are untested. I expect I can get more of these to work with the proper ACPI setup.</p> <a name="docking"><h4>Advanced Port Replicator</h4> <p>The Advanced Port Replicator seems to work fine. I currently use it to attach an external USB mouse and keyboard, a DVI flat panel display, speakers, the D-Bay External DVD burner and a wired ethernet connection. All work fine, but you have to explicitly start sending output to the external monitor by hitting Fn-CRT/LCD even if you boot while in the dock.</p> <A name="laptopmode"><h4>laptop_mode in Kernel</h4> <p>The 2.6 kernel as of 2.6.6 (as well as 2.4 from 2.4.23) now supports laptop_mode, which allows the hard drive to be spun down on a more aggressive schedule. This enhances battery life. There is a set of tools called Laptop Mode Tools that makes enabling laptop_mode painless. The toolset is available at <a href="http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsamwel/laptop_mode/tools/index.html">http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsamwel/laptop_mode/tools/index.html</a>. Follow the instructions there and then run /etc/init.d/laptop_mode start to initialize the mode. Now, whenever you are on battery power, you will operate in laptop_mode which should have a significant effect on your battery life.</p> <a name="cpuspeed"><h4>cpuspeed</h4> <p>Make sure /etc/cpuspeed.conf has the following lines:<br> <pre> VMAJOR=1 VMINOR=1 DRIVER="speedstep-centrino" OPTS="-i 2 -t /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THM/temperature 65 -a /proc/acpi/ac_adapter/AC/state -p 10 25" </pre> This will allow the OS to slow down the CPU and conserve power when on battery.This tip was found at <a href="http://www.hep.phy.cam.ac.uk/~andersen/fedora2latitude600.html">http://www.hep.phy.cam.ac.uk/~andersen/fedora2latitude600.html</a>.</p> </body> </html>