From owner-freebsd-mobile Sat Feb 1 09:25:28 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA00793 for mobile-outgoing; Sat, 1 Feb 1997 09:25:28 -0800 (PST) Received: from jli.com (jli.com [199.2.111.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id JAA00788 for ; Sat, 1 Feb 1997 09:25:23 -0800 (PST) Received: from cumulus by jli.com with uucp (Smail3.1.29.1 #3) id m0vqjAZ-0002TWC; Sat, 1 Feb 97 09:24 PST Message-Id: To: ron@3rivers.net (Ron Warnick) cc: freebsd-mobile@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: ps/2 (?) mouse on compaq laptop References: In-reply-to: Your message of Fri, 31 Jan 1997 20:19:25 MST. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="----- =_aaaaaaaaaa0" Content-ID: <6429.854817863.0@cloud.rain.com> Date: Sat, 01 Feb 1997 09:24:24 -0800 From: Bill Trost Sender: owner-mobile@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk ------- =_aaaaaaaaaa0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-ID: <6429.854817863.1@cloud.rain.com> Ron Warnick writes: I just got X11R6 running at 800x600 on my 4120 compaq armada, with 2.2-BETA, by copying over a previous version XF86_SVGA, and kludging the device section. However, I haven't yet succeeded in getting the touchpad mouse to be recognized. You might find the attached email useful -- at least it's a place to start. I tried to send email the adddress listed in the first message, but no luck. Incidentally, have you used any PCMCIA devices yet? I'm very seriously considering buying a 4120 or better, and would like to make sure it can handle *those* devices correctly before I do so. ------- =_aaaaaaaaaa0 Content-Type: multipart/digest; boundary="----- =_aaaaaaaaaa1" Content-ID: <6429.854817863.2@cloud.rain.com> ------- =_aaaaaaaaaa1 Return-Path: trost@cloud.rain.com Return-Path: Received: for from grey.cloud.rain.com by cloud.rain.com with smtp (Smail3.1.29.1 #2) id m0vRVrn-00006uC; Sat, 23 Nov 96 20:08 WET Sender: trost Message-ID: <3297CA3A.41C67EA6@cloud.rain.com> Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 20:08:26 -0800 From: Bill Trost X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.01 (X11; I; FreeBSD 2.1.0-RELEASE i386) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: trost Subject: Linux on the Compaq Armada 4120 X-URL: http://www.aplac.hut.fi/staff/sakari/armada.html Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="------------446B9B3D2781E494167EB0E7" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------446B9B3D2781E494167EB0E7 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit http://www.aplac.hut.fi/staff/sakari/armada.html --------------446B9B3D2781E494167EB0E7 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline; filename="armada.html" Linux on the Compaq Armada 4120

Linux on the Compaq Armada 4120

Introduction

Our laboratory recently bought a Compaq Armada 4120 notebook computer. This page describes the installation of Linux on it. I only pay attention to the particular difficulties encountered - look elsewhere for a complete description of Linux installation.

What proved extremely helpful was Chris Burghart's Linux on the Samsung SENS 810 (it seems the Armada is a rather close copy of the Samsung machine.) Chris Burghart includes many other tips you might be interested in; I haven't copied all of them here. Many thanks to others with similar pages on the Linux Laptop Homepage.

Keeping Windows 95

The Armada comes with Windows 95 pre-installed on a single partition that spans almost the whole hard disk, i.e., there is no free partition to set up Linux on. That is not a problem if you do not plan to keep Windows 95 available, in which case you just use the partition for Linux.

On the other hand, if you do want to keep Windows 95 available, then note that Compaq does not supply a Windows 95 CD-ROM with the computer, which means that if you want to back-up the Windows 95 installation, you need 31 (thirty-one) diskettes and... a lot of patience. (I did this, just for safety's sake, but it was not fun.)

Next, you could, conceivably, re-partition and re-format the Windows 95 partition. However, as a less brutal alternative, you can split the existing Windows 95 partition with Arno Schaefer's non-destructive partition splitting program FIPS. It runs under DOS and is simple to use, so I did, ending up with two partitions of about 500MB each. (Compaq has put a third partition of some 4MB at the start of the disk - it seems to contain various Compaq setup files, so I did not touch it.)

Installing Linux

I installed Slackware 3.0, starting with the idenet boot disk. If you get the CD-ROM expansion unit, you can install the rest from a CD-ROM. Of course, the kernel should have IDE/ATAPI CD-ROM support enabled. In our case, the drive showed up as /dev/hdb.

XFree86

I installed the SVGA X server (XF86_SVGA). The VGA16 server works, too, but there's not much point in using it.

The Armada 4120 has a Cirrus Logic CL-GD7548 graphics chip. While this chip is listed among those supported by the SVGA server (current version 3.2), the support appears broken. However, the chip can be treated as a CL-GD5428, which is supported by the server. Here is a copy of our current XF86Config file (from /etc/XF86Config); note that it is set up to support our Finnish keyboard.

I have noticed the same occasional 16x1 horizontal glitches as Chris Burghart. As he says, xrefresh fixes the problem. Another problem is that the variable font that I'm fond of shows up disproportionately large. Perhaps a new version from XFree86 will solve these problems.

The mouse is overly sensitive. However, it is so under Windows 95, too, so this is not XFree86's fault.

Sound

Chris Burghart's sound configuration works fine:

SoundBlaster
address base: 0x220
IRQ: 10
first (8-bit) DMA slot: 1
second (16-bit) DMA slot: 7
DSP buffer size: 16 Kbytes

Some programs, notably RealAudio, will open both the audio in (microphone) and the audio out (loudspeaker) channels. The speaker output will then feed back through the mic, and the Armada starts emitting a terrible whine. Get the SoundKit package; it includes a mixer utility that can mute the microphone:

armada:~>mixer mic 0

PCMCIA Card Services

The Armada has the typical PCMCIA slot for two type II cards or one type III one. The first Ethernet card we put in - a D-Link DE-850T - wouldn't work; indeed, it wouldn't work under Window 95, either (well, it's not supposed to, as documented in the README file on D-Link's driver diskette.) It would appear that only D-Link's DE-850 combo card works, the one with both 10Base2 and 10baseT. In any case, we swapped it for a 3Com 589CS - another combo card - and that card works just fine.

The card services are built as modules; get the PCMCIA card services package. Once again, Chris Burghart's set-up ( config.opts) did not need changing.

Advanced Power Management

With APM enabled in the kernel (in our case, 2.0.24), things seem generally to work as they are supposed to. Even hibernation (the contents of the RAM are written to disk, then restored) works. However, there are problems that manifest themselves with the keyboard - when resuming after suspension, the Armada comes up seemingly not accepting any keyboard input at all. A trick we've found is to change to another virtual terminal, then come back to the first one.

The PCMCIA devices - in our case, the Ethernet card - do not seem much bothered by suspension (this is contrary to Chris Burghart's experiences with the Samsung). That is, inside of an X11 session with Netscape running, you can hit the suspend button and go away for a while, then come back, hit the suspend button again, and have your network connection still up and running.

IrDA

The IrDA port's use under Linux is currently a mystery. It appears to need some sort of enabling, that is, it is not automatically active. Some other laptops apparently have a choice in the BIOS setup for this; unfortunately, I haven't found anything concerning the IrDA port in the Compaq diagnostics, say.

Other References

The Linux Documentation Project

The Linux Laptop Home Page

XFree86

Linux PCMCIA Information

Linux Applications and Utilities

Sakari Aaltonen <sakari@aplac.hut.fi>

Last modified: Nov 20 1996 --------------446B9B3D2781E494167EB0E7-- ------- =_aaaaaaaaaa1 Return-Path: trost@cloud.rain.com Return-Path: Received: for from grey.cloud.rain.com by cloud.rain.com with smtp (Smail3.1.29.1 #2) id m0vRVsk-00006uC; Sat, 23 Nov 96 20:09 WET Sender: trost Message-ID: <3297CA75.794BDF32@cloud.rain.com> Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 20:09:25 -0800 From: Bill Trost X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.01 (X11; I; FreeBSD 2.1.0-RELEASE i386) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: trost Subject: XF86Config for Armada (sort of) X-URL: http://www.aplac.hut.fi/staff/sakari/XF86Config Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="------------1CFBAE3959E2B60015FB7483" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------1CFBAE3959E2B60015FB7483 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit http://www.aplac.hut.fi/staff/sakari/XF86Config --------------1CFBAE3959E2B60015FB7483 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline; filename="XF86Config" # # XF86Config file for the Samsung SENS 810 # Section "Files" RgbPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/" EndSection Section "ServerFlags" EndSection Section "Keyboard" Protocol "Standard" XkbRules "xfree86" XkbModel "pc102" XkbLayout "fi" AutoRepeat 500 5 EndSection Section "Pointer" Protocol "PS/2" Device "/dev/psaux" Emulate3Buttons EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "Samsung Sens810 LCD" VendorName "Samsung" ModelName "Sens810" Bandwidth 100.0 HorizSync 31-69 VertRefresh 55-120 Modeline "800x600" 50 800 800 808 808 600 600 608 608 EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Cirrus CL-GD7548" VendorName "Cirrus" BoardName "CL-GD7548" VideoRam 1024 Chipset "clgd5428" Clockchip "cirrus" Option "linear" # s.a. MemBase 0xfc000000 Option "no_bitblt" EndSection Section "Screen" Driver "svga" Device "Cirrus CL-GD7548" Monitor "Samsung Sens810 LCD" Subsection "Display" Depth 8 Modes "800x600" # Virtual 1152 900 EndSubsection Subsection "Display" Depth 16 Modes "800x600" EndSubsection EndSection --------------1CFBAE3959E2B60015FB7483-- ------- =_aaaaaaaaaa1-- ------- =_aaaaaaaaaa0--