Installing Gentoo on Toshiba M45

rabarkar · n00b Joined: 24 Apr 2005 Posts: 9

I'm starting this topic so everyone owning a Toshiba M45 can post some common problems when we want to install gentoo in this machine.

I've manage to get gentoo working on this computer, and here are what I was able to get working, and what not, and the main issues I've found:

Basically, my installation was made using the following components:
- Install gentoo using the 2005.0 LiveCD
- Using the vanilla-kernel

1. Booting Gentoo, and set up the network.
At the begining I booted the system using the default kernel configuration, just to realize that I was unable to get the networking up. This machine comes with 2 network interfaces, listed below, as reported by lspci:

CDeSousa · n00b Joined: 12 May 2005 Posts: 2

IT doesnt work for me, I couldnt start any of the networks devices using the boot CD. The wireless card was detected but it doesnt connect, i have tried with severals routers but nothing. I have tried EVERYTHING including a pcmcia ethernet card but it doesnt work.
I am really frustated rigth now, I am new to Gentoo. I have used Fedora and Mandrake before but i want to install Gentoo in my new Laptop, if you know any alternative way to make a network device work(wireless, ethernet, pcmcia) please post it.

CDeSousa · n00b Joined: 12 May 2005 Posts: 2

Hi I had managed to get the sound working. It doesn't give me any trouble using the alsa modules. This is what i do

rabarkar · n00b Joined: 24 Apr 2005 Posts: 9

ACPI Problem

I have received some help from the Toshiba Support Forum about how to deal with the ACPI Problem (thanks to Luis Pinto). The solution is to disable the IRQ routing using ACPI, this is done by editing my /boot/grub/grub.conf, and passing the acpi=noirq option, as seen below:

higor · n00b Joined: 19 May 2005 Posts: 1

I'm using intel ac97 alsa driver and sound is working. My driver is built in kernel.

My driver is:
Intel/SiS/nVidia/AMD/ALi AC97 Controller

I install alsa-utils e alsa-lib too.

EvenOdd · n00b Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 3

rabarkar · n00b Joined: 24 Apr 2005 Posts: 9

Just to update this thread. I was able to get sound working using the intel8x0 driver. The issue I found (with help of blurp http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-363473-highlight-.html) is that when I used alsamixer to unmuted channels, I unmuted all channels, this was my mistake. There are two channels that must be muted in order to allow redirection of sound to the laptop speakers: "Headphone Jack Sense" and the "Line Jack Sense". Once I mute this channels, everything started to work OK.

Thanks everyone again!

zpet731 · Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 2:02 pm Post subject:

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to know what is the alternative method to install gentoo without the wireless. My adsl modem is not wireless and I have yet to by a card for it. So last night I tried to get the wired nic going but with the same dissapointment as you guys experienced. So if I have no wireless and would like to start a stage 1, what are my options? Thanks
_________________
" Invention is the most important product of man's creative brain. The ultimate purpose is the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of human nature to human needs."
Nikola Tesla

zpet731 · Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2005 6:14 pm Post subject:

So does anyone have any ideas. Thanks again, hope to get a reply soon.
_________________
" Invention is the most important product of man's creative brain. The ultimate purpose is the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of human nature to human needs."
Nikola Tesla

mnemo · n00b Joined: 24 Jul 2003 Posts: 13

I was in a similar situation with a Toshiba Satellite A80 notebook. Same Yukon Ethernet chip and Intel wireless networking not working on the LiveCD. I installed the base system (stage3) from the 2005.0 LiveCD, emerge'd gentoo-sources from the CD, compiled the kernel, downloaded the sk98lin driver, installed it via the kernel patch option into the kernel sources, built the kernel and I finally had network access for full emerge.

I've created an install guide for the Toshiba, it's not finished yet, but maybe it can help others.

Read here: Installation on Toshiba Satellite A80-154

The sound (ICH6 AC97) still doesn't work. Everything looks alright, I've unmuted some/all channels, but I haven't heard a thing yet.

Regards.

zpet731 · Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2005 1:15 am Post subject:

I decided to go with the wireless setup which ment buying a wireless router and setting that up first. Then Memo thanks to you I managed to probe the ipw2200 module. Yes indeed it must first be removed and the probed again. The reason for this is that the kernel also loads the bluetooth module and maybe there is a conflict. Well thanks again guys for the help, so far it is smooth sailing. Im emerging the system and am almost half way done. I'll let you know how things go.
_________________
" Invention is the most important product of man's creative brain. The ultimate purpose is the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of human nature to human needs."
Nikola Tesla

zpet731 · Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2005 6:59 pm Post subject:

Ok I booted into the new kernel and there are several problems:

loading af_packet fails
nvidia fails

and setting /etc/hostname which i setup via /etc/conf.d/hostname. Don't know why it complains. I think I'll just copy /etc/conf.d/hostname to /etc/hostname. For the rest I am not sure yet.

Also I have problems with setting up my network. No matter what I do wireless or wired I cannot connect.
_________________
" Invention is the most important product of man's creative brain. The ultimate purpose is the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of human nature to human needs."
Nikola Tesla

zpet731 · Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2005 6:08 am Post subject:

Ok finally got the wired connection set. I didn't dispatch the new config files after the installation which caused problems. Then I just created the appropriate symlink for eth0 and with a few reboots and changing stuff in conf.d/net it finally worked. Im just wondering do the wireless and wired connections conflict at all. Does one need to be turned off for the other one to work? Some info and your experiences would be nice.

Wireless is a whole new ball game. Still having trouble with it. If anyone can post their conf files that would be great. Do I need to setup eth1 the same way as eth0 in conf.d/net, plus add the wireless stuff essid and key in conf.d/wireless? Does your little light for the wireless turn off after each reboot and do you need to turn it off and on again for it to be recognised?

Also what is the af_packet module for. It keeps on failing on boot? So does nvidia but I still haven't come to installing it yet.

Apart from the above everything else seems fine so far...

Thanks for your help
_________________
" Invention is the most important product of man's creative brain. The ultimate purpose is the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of human nature to human needs."
Nikola Tesla

zpet731 · Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2005 2:55 am Post subject:

Ok a few steps forward now...

I managed to get the networking part going. I have managed to get the wired and wireless on it's feet. Still need to do some optimisation in the config files for it to work flawlessly but so far I am happy. Still having to move the switch to off and back on after a reboot, so if anyone had the same problem and has found a solution I would be happy to hear it.

Thanks to mnemo:
Nvidia work great, so far. glxgears outputs almost the same values as my amd64 which runs the same card so happy with that. Plus I needed to muck around a bit more with the xorg.conf to get the nice resolution going.

For the sound I am just about to install the alsa utils so I'll update on this.

Currently my main concern is the dma setting especially for the dvd drive. I cannot seem to get dma going. I believe I have the correct settings in the kernel. I used mnemo's guide for the basis of my setup but there were some extra modules that were already preselected for me, that I didn't turn off. If someone has any input on the dma that would be great.

There is a lot of mucking around to be done, but so far I am happy. Hope to hear from you soon. Hehe the last 4-5 posts were all me, but then again I am at the peak of setting this machine up. Most of you can sit back and relax...

Ohh one other thing does anyone know if it is possible to set the touchpad mouse to behave similarly to windows. What I'm talking about is the double tap for grabing windows and stuff? I used it in windows breifly before I formated the hardisk and decided on a all gentoo centrino

_________________
" Invention is the most important product of man's creative brain. The ultimate purpose is the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of human nature to human needs."
Nikola Tesla

mnemo · n00b Joined: 24 Jul 2003 Posts: 13

Hi!

Excuse me for not answering yet, I didn't monitor the forum in the last few days. I'm glad I could help you a bit with my small guide.

I had wireless networking successfully configured using wpa_supplicant - I will add that to the guide as well. Basic stuff, just my router at home, no roaming or other access points.

You should use the ipw2200 1.0.6 module, which is in the ~x86 unstable tree. Just add ipw2200, ieee80211 and ipw2200-firmware to the /etc/portage/package.keywords file if you're normally emerging the stable tree (sorry, I don't have the notebook with me right now for copy&paste). This will also allow you to use programs like Kismet.

Regarding DMA on the DVD drive, I'm having the same problem. hdparm -d says that DMA is off, but it's not possible to enable it because an ioctl call fails. Maybe hdparm is wrong and DMA is already enabled?

I've read some articles about the double tap... Haven't yet bothered again getting it to work because I'm using a USB mouse. There's a new ALPS driver for the touchpad or something. If I have the time, I'll investigate.

ewaller · Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2005 1:28 am Post subject: A first post from a new M45 owner

I am new to Gentoo and I've a new M45. This forum is just what I've been looking for...

My experience thus far:
I figured out how to resize the NTFS partition with Windows down to 20 GB.
Partitioned the rest of the drive in accordance with the 2005 handbook
I installed using a stage III install without network.
Used windows to download the IPW2200, IEEE80211, and wireless-tools.
Rebooted Linux, moved the tar files over from NTFS and installed them
The network came up, found my wireless router (using brute force: ifconfig, iwconfig, route)
emerge sync -ed
emerge --update world
emerge KDE-meta. No luck on 1280x800 until I played with keywords to use Xorg-x11-6.8.99.15 then 1280x800 worked.
ALSA config fought with me. Installed it all in the kernel and hand configured.
BIOS complained of IRQ 10 nobody cared ... sound was unreliable. kernel option acpi=noirq fixed all that.
SanDisk USB Flash Drive works fine as SDB1
Download NTFS tools and proved I could (barely) back the NTFS partition up to a DVD-RAM. Restored it to another computer. Good, now when that becomes compromised I can re-install it rather than use the nuclear option (factory default)
Still no DRI or XV. glxgears score ~ 500 f/s
I am fighting with the DRI patch (described in another thread) right now. I'll report further.
I'll be glad to share my config files with anyone who asks.
_________________
If they want it real bad, they will get it real bad.

ewaller · Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2005 8:19 am Post subject:

Okay, Xorg compiled over night -- with the DRI patch!!

The good news: xvinfo and xdriinfo indicate I have XV and DRI
The Xorg.o.log is full of goodness as well.

The bad news: glxgears reports a _very_ disappointing ~33 f/s. Oh well, off to work... more this evening.
_________________
If they want it real bad, they will get it real bad.

mnemo · n00b Joined: 24 Jul 2003 Posts: 13

glxgears on my Toshiba says 4435 FPS. ;-)

Good luck!

ewaller · Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2005 10:23 am Post subject:

mnemo,

Okay I'll bite.
What is your color depth?
are you running 1280x1024?
What Version of Xorg are you running?
Which Kernel are you running?
Are you running with ACPI=off? ACPI=noirq? irqpoll?
Is your kernel compliled with IRQ balancing?
Are you using the memset patch to DRI to get the system to allocate AGP memory?

Here is my situation as of 00:15 this morning (PDT)
I can achieve ~ 800 f/s with DRI v.s. ~200 without.
Unfortunately, If I run glxgears having booted with ACPI=noirq, My wireless connection locks up hard.
If I run with ACPI=off, the network continues, but ALSA goes la-la.
All of this seems to be related to IRQ11
I am at 1280x800 with a 24 bit color depth.
I have compiled in IRQ load balancing to the Kernel.
Even with 800f/s, xine drops *way* to many frames (playing mpeg movies, recorded by a digital camera, stored on /dev/sda)
_________________
If they want it real bad, they will get it real bad.

zpet731 · Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2005 11:45 pm Post subject:

I get similar results a mnemo for glxgears. Have no problem with the sound what so ever and the networking is fine as long as acpi is off. If I turn off irq then the computer simply hangs once I start xorg. So far I am trying to get DMA going. What does hdparm say for the hardrive and cdrom speed. What is your kernel config for the pci?
_________________
" Invention is the most important product of man's creative brain. The ultimate purpose is the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of human nature to human needs."
Nikola Tesla

zpet731 · Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2005 11:53 pm Post subject:

One more thing, are you having problems with running 1280x1024 that is a tought one. Didn't you mean 1280x800. Can you post you Xorg.log file, thats most likely where your problem is. Also mnemo I am really sceptical that you managed to get your resolution with the settings you have in your xorg.conf file. Would you mind posting it so I can have a look. Thanks

(ps. you can just create a link so I can grab it, so you don't post the whole thing in the forum.)
_________________
" Invention is the most important product of man's creative brain. The ultimate purpose is the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of human nature to human needs."
Nikola Tesla

mnemo · n00b Joined: 24 Jul 2003 Posts: 13

ewaller, remember that I have a Satellite A80-154, not a M45.

Kernel 2.6.12-gentoo-r6
Xorg V6.8.2
Video hardware: Nvidia GeForce Go 6600, 128 MB RAM
Resolution: 1400x1050, 24 bit
ACPI fully enabled (via kernel)

I can't find an IRQ balancing option in the kernel config and haven't applied any patches regarding DRI.

zpet731, you can find my current kernel .config and /etc/X11/xorg.conf here:
http://www.mnemotron.de/tosh_config.txt
http://www.mnemotron.de/tosh_xorg_conf.txt

I'm still experimenting with the touchpad and stuff, so that's not final.

ewaller · Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2005 11:20 pm Post subject:

mnemo,

Thanks, I had missed that you are running an A80 -- my bad. I'll grab your config to compare latter tonight. I took a sanity day away from this system so I still in the same place I was. Thanks for the feedback.
_________________
If they want it real bad, they will get it real bad.

Mindstab · Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2005 12:31 pm Post subject:

at a glace it looked like you had the same sound card as my M40x laptop
take a look at http://www.mindstab.net/wordpress/archives/42
enables multiplexing of audio with alsa
might help with your kde + arts problem?

Ryoku · n00b Joined: 15 Aug 2005 Posts: 1

I found this in another forum, but it may help to fix the acpi problem. Try passing the kernel parameter "acpi_load_balance" (without quotes) instead of the other acpi settings.

This may also help fix the dvd drive DMA problem as well.

link: http://forums.fedoraforum.org/archive/index.php/t-47813.html

Let me know what happens. I'll be trying it on mine later.

Toshiba M45S355