Date: 29 Aug 2001 20:08:44 -0000 From: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in> To: FreeBSD-gnats-submit@freebsd.org Subject: docs/30199: documentation on installing on laptops Message-ID: <20010829200844.13704.qmail@bluerondo.a.la.turk>
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>Number: 30199
>Category: docs
>Synopsis: documentation on installing on laptops
>Confidential: no
>Severity: non-critical
>Priority: medium
>Responsible: freebsd-doc
>State: open
>Quarter:
>Keywords:
>Date-Required:
>Class: change-request
>Submitter-Id: current-users
>Arrival-Date: Wed Aug 29 13:20:01 PDT 2001
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator: Rahul Siddharthan
>Release: FreeBSD 4.4-PRERELEASE i386
>Organization:
>Environment:
>Description:
I suggested having an article or handbook section dedicated to
laptop issues, and posted a first shot at one on the -doc list
(very limited but hopefully others will add to it from their
experience). In response to nik's suggestion of send-pr'ing it
in sgml format as an article, here it is, a little expanded.
>How-To-Repeat:
>Fix:
<!DOCTYPE ARTICLE PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//DTD DocBook V4.1-Based
Extension//EN">
<article>
<articleinfo>
<title>FreeBSD on Laptops</title>
<abstract>
<para>FreeBSD works fine on most laptops, with a few caveats.
Some issues specific to running FreeBSD on laptops, relating
to different hardware requirements from desktops, are
discussed below.</para>
</abstract>
</articleinfo>
<para>FreeBSD is often thought of as a server operating system, but
it works just fine on the desktop, and if you want to use it on
your laptop you can enjoy all the usual benefits: systematic
layout, easy administration and upgrading, the ports/packages
system for adding software, and so on. (Its other benefits,
such as stability, network performance, and performance under
a heavy load, may not be obvious on a laptop, of course.)
However, installing it on laptops often involves problems which
are not encountered on desktop machines and are not commonly
discussed (laptops, even more than desktops, are fine-tuned for
Microsoft Windows). This article aims to discuss some of these
issues.</para>
<sect1>
<title>XFree86</title>
<para>Recent versions of XFree86 work with most display adapters
available on laptops these days. Acceleration may not be
supported, but a generic SVGA configuration should work.</para>
<para>Check your laptop documentation for which card you have,
and check in the XFree86 documentation (or setup program)
to see whether it's specifically supported. If it's not, use
a generic device (don't go for a name which just looks
similar). In XFree86 version 4, you can try your luck
with the command <userinput>XFree86 -configure</userinput>
which auto-detects a lot of configurations.</para>
<para>The problem often is configuring the monitor. Common
resources for XFree86 focus on CRT monitors; getting a
suitable modeline for an LCD display may be tricky. You may
be lucky and not need to specify a modeline, or just need to
specify suitable HorizSync and VertRefresh ranges. If that
doesn't work, the best option is to check web resources
devoted to configuring X on laptops (these are often
linux-oriented sites but it doesn't matter because both systems
use XFree86) and copy a modeline posted by someone for similar
hardware.</para>
<para>Most laptops come with two buttons on their pointing
devices, which is rather problematic in X (since the middle
button is commonly used to paste text); you can map a
simultaneous left-right click in your X configuration to
a middle button click with the line
<programlisting>
Option "Emulate3Buttons"
</programlisting>
in the XF86Config file in the "InputDevice" section (for XFree86
version 4; for version 3, put just the line "Emulate3Buttons",
without the quotes, in the "Pointer" section.)
</sect1>
<sect1>
<title>Modems</title>
<para>
Laptops usually come with internal (on-board) modems.
Unfortunately, this almost always means they are "winmodems" whose
functionality is implemented in software, for which only windows
drivers are normally available (though a few drivers are beginning
to show up for other operating systems). Otherwise, you
need to buy an external modem: the most compact option is
probably a PC-Card (PCMCIA) modem, discussed below, but
serial or USB modems may be cheaper. Generally, regular
modems (non-winmodems) should work fine.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1>
<title>PCMCIA (PC-card) devices</title>
<para> Most laptops come with PCMCIA (also called PC-card) slots;
these are supported fine under FreeBSD. Look through your
boot-up messages (using dmesg) and see whether these were detected
correctly (they should appear as pccard0, pccard1 etc on devices
like pcic0).</para>
<para>FreeBSD currently supports 16-bit PCMCIA cards, but not
32-bit ("CardBus") cards. A database of supported cards is
in the file /etc/defaults/pccard.conf. Look through it, and
preferably buy cards listed there. Cards not listed may also
work as "generic" devices: in particular most modems (16-bit)
should work fine, provided they're not winmodems (these
do exist even as PC-cards, so watch out). If your card is
recognised as a generic modem, note that the default
pccard.conf file specifies a delay time of 10 seconds (to avoid
freezes on certain modems); this may well be over-cautious for
your modem, so you may want to play with it, reducing it or
removing it totally.</para>
<para>Some parts of pccard.conf may need editing.
Check the irq line, and be sure to remove any number already
being used: in particular, if you have an on board sound
card, remove irq 5 (otherwise you may experience hangs when
you insert a card). Check also the available memory slots;
if your card is not being detected, try changing it to one
of the other allowed values (listed in the man page pccardc(8)).
</para>
<para>If it's not running already, start the pccardd
daemon. (To enable it at boot time, add
<userinput>pccardd_enable="YES"</userinput> to /etc/rc.conf).
Now your cards should be detected when you insert
and remove them, and you should get log messages about new
devices being enabled.</para>
<para>There have been major changes to the pccard code
(including ISA routing of interrupts, for machines whose PCIBIOS
FreeBSD can't seem to use) before the FreeBSD 4.4 release. If
you have problems, try upgrading your system.
</sect1>
<sect1>
<title>Power management</title>
<para>Unfortunately, this is not very reliably supported under
FreeBSD. If you're lucky, some functions may work reliably;
or they may not work at all.</para>
<para>To enable this, you may need to compile a kernel with power
management support (device apm0) or add an option to
/boot/loader.conf, and also enable the apm daemon at boot
time (line apm_enable="YES" in /etc/rc.conf). The apm
commands are listed in the apm(8) manpage. For instance,
apm -b gives you battery status (or 255 if not supported),
apm -Z puts the laptop on standby, apm -z (or zzz) suspends
it. To shutdown and power off the machine, use
"shutdown -p". Again, some or all of these functions may not
work very well or at all. You may find that laptop
suspension/standby works in console mode but not under X (that
is, the screen doesn't come on again; in that case, switch to
a virtual console (using ctrl-alt-F1 or another function key) and
then execute the apm command. </para>
<para>The X window system (XFree86) also includes display power
management (look at the xset(1) man page, and search for
dpms there). You may want to investigate this. However, this,
too, works inconsistently on laptops: it
often turns off the display but doesn't turn off the
backlight.</para>
</sect1>
</article>
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