Averatec 6200 Series Hardware

[xepk]

The averatec 6200 series is a great line of notebooks for running linux. Mine is an averatec 6240 but from what I can tell from the averatec website all the 6200 series has basically the same hardware. All these notes are based on running gentoo amd64.

Hardware:(6240)
CPU: AMD Athlon64 3000+ mobile
RAM: 512MB DDR
80GB Hitachi HD
Slimptype DVDRW SOSW-852S (dual layer, dual format)
RaLink rt2500 Wireless G
SiS900 Ethernet
SiS AC'97 Modem
Realtek ALC655 Soundcard
SiS 760 video card, up to 128MB shared memory
15.4" WXGA (1280x800) display, s-video & VGA out
Built-in DVD player & Infrared remote control

Wireless Networking

Luckily the 6200 series features the RaLink rt2500 chipset, which has a GPL driver in portage as rt2500. The 1.1.0 beta3 version is quite stable in my experience, just need to unmask & emerge:

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# echo "net-wireless/rt2500 ~amd64" >> /etc/portage/package.keywords
# emerge rt2500

If you're emerging this driver in the process of installing, try

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USE="-qt" emerge rt2500

otherwise portage will want to install the qt configuration utility which requires qt and X. It's usually easier to configure the card with the gentoo scripts anyway. You can read my post on getting WPA on boot with gentoo here.

Wired Networking

Ethernet card needs the sis900 driver which is in most kernels, 'modprobe sis900' should be enough to get eth0.

Modem

I've never needed the modem here, but a quick search indicates it might work with the slmodem driver.

Sound

Add this line to /etc/make.conf :

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ALSA_CARDS="intel8x0"

then emerge alsa:

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 # emerge alsa-lib alsa-utils alsa-oss alsa-driver
# rc-update add alsasound default 

Run alsamixer & unmute your channels. The gentoo dmix guide works well for getting software mixing up, the intel8x0 .asoundrc given in that guide works for me.

Xorg (video / touchpad)

The WXGA monitor looks great running at 1280x800 using the sis driver. As mentioned here on the sis driver site the SiS video card's shared memory can cause some flashing lines due to bandwidth limitations, although in my experience these are minimal. As far as using multiple monitors the sisctrl utility (gtk SiS video tweaker) works great for switching between the LCD, VGA, and S-video outputs. Although it is missing an amd64 keyword, you can download the source from Thomas' site and install with a simple ./configure, make, make install. To use the sisctrl utility you must have the SiSCtrl option enabled in your xorg.conf, see below. Here's the video related sections of my xorg.conf:

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Section "Monitor"
    Identifier  "My Monitor"
    Option   "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "** SiS (generic)                      [sis]"
    Driver      "sis"
    BusID	"PCI:1:0:0"
    Option	"EnableSiSCtrl" "Yes"
EndSection


Section "Screen"
    Identifier  "Screen 1"
    Device      "** SiS (generic)                      [sis]"
    Monitor     "My Monitor"
    DefaultDepth 24

    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       8
        Modes       "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        ViewPort    0 0
    EndSubsection
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       16
        Modes       "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        ViewPort    0 0
    EndSubsection
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       24
        Modes       "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        ViewPort    0 0
    EndSubsection
EndSection

Also see my complete xorg.conf

The touchpad is an alps touchpad that works with the synaptics driver:

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# echo "x11-misc/synaptics ~amd64" >> /etc/portage/package.keywords
# emerge synaptics

ALPS touchpads need slightly different parameters than synatpics touchpads since they have a different resolution. Once again see my xorg.conf under the synaptics inputdevice section for an example (vertical scrolling only). It's a good idea to tweak the MInSpeed, MaxSpeed, and AccelFactor values in this section until the touchpad 'feels right'. Here's my input section of xorg.conf (two input devices so that I can plug a USB mouse in at any time and use either the mouse or touchpad):

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Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier	"Mouse1"
    Driver	"mouse"
    Option	"CorePointer"
    Option "Protocol"    "Auto"
    Option "Device"      "/dev/input/mice"
    Option "Emulate3Buttons"
    Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier	"Synaptics1"
Driver		"synaptics"
Option		"SendCoreEvents"	"True"
Option		"Device"		"/dev/psaux"
Option		"Protocol"		"auto-dev"
Option		"AccelFactor"		"0.065"
Option		"LeftEdge"		"100"
Option		"RightEdge"		"900"
Option		"TopEdge"		"100"
Option		"BottomEdge"		"700"
Option		"FingerLow"		"11"
Option		"FingerHigh"		"15"
#Option		"MaxTapTime"		"180"
#Option		"MaxTapMove"		"110"
#Option		"EmulateMidButtonTime"	"75"
Option		"VertScrollDelta"	"30"
Option		"HorizScrollDelta"	"30"
Option		"MinSpeed"		"0.15"
Option		"MaxSpeed"		"0.85"
#Option		"EdgeMotionMinSpeed"	"200"
#Option		"EdgeMotionMaxSpeed"	"200"
#Option		"UpDownScrolling"	"1"
#Option		"CircularScrolling"	"1"
#Option		"CircleScrollDelta"	"0.1"
#Option		"CircleScrollTrigger"	"2"
Option		"SHMConfig"		"on"
EndSection

LCD Brightness

The LCD brightness is easily adjusted using the Fn + F4 / F5 keys (hardwired into the hardware). I haven't experimented with using the ibm-acpi package to adjust LCD brightness but if anyone tries it with this laptop let me know how it goes.

ACPI

ACPI is very helpful for power management as well:

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 # emerge acpid
# rc-update add acpid default

Unfortunately this laptop doesn't generate ACPI events on plugging in or removing the AC adapter, but events are generated for opening or closing the lid.

Laptop_Mode / Dynamic CPU frequency

As described in the power management guide laptop_mode can save you some power as well as managing your CPU frequency.

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 # emerge laptop-mode-tools cpufrequtils
# rc-update add laptop_mode default
# rc-update add cpufrequtils default

Here's my laptop mode config file (max clock speed 2 ghz on battery)

Hibernation (swsusp)

Although swsusp2 is not yet available on amd64 I've had good experience with vanilla swsusp. In my experience the 6240 does not come back from standby or suspend to ram, suspend to disk works great as long as you bring down the wireless network first.

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# echo "sys-power/hibernate-script ~amd64" >> /etc/portage/package.keywords
# emerge hibernate-script
# echo rt2500 >> /etc/hibernate/blacklisted-modules

My hibernate.conf:

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UseSysfsPowerState disk
PowerdownMethod shutdown

Verbosity 0
LogFile /var/log/hibernate.log
LogVerbosity 1
SaveClock restore-only

OnSuspend 10 /etc/init.d/laptop_mode stop
OnSuspend 10 /etc/init.d/net.ra0 stop
OnResume 20 /etc/init.d/pre.ra0 restart
OnResume 80 /etc/init.d/net.ra0 restart

UnloadBlacklistedModules yes
LoadModules auto

SwitchToTextMode yes

Also remember to add 'resume=/dev/hdax' to the kernel line of your grub menu file, where /dev/hdax is your swap partition.

Remote Control / Extra Keys

The infrared remote on the 6240 is easy to get working, all you need is to map the keycodes generated to your keymap, then set up shortcuts for the assigned keycodes. The following keys are working (generate xev events and can be mapped):

• Fn + F7/F8 (volume down/up, same event as volume keys on front panel and volume on remote)
• Fn+F9 (mute, same event as audio button on remote)
• Fn+F12 (sleep)
• Stop/Eject button on front/remote
• Next / Previous buttons on front panel
• Play/Pause button on front panel and remote
• menu button on front/remote.
• Up, down, left right buttons on remote

The following keys are not working:

• Fn+F2 (monitor)
• Power button on front / remote
• Rewind / FF buttons on remote
• Repeat button on remote

Here's an xmodmap that will get all the above mentioned keys working so you can set up shortcuts in, for example, khotkeys. To use it, download it to an appropriate location (maybe /etc/X11/xkb/averatec6240.xmodmap.conf) and set it to load when you start x:

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 $ echo "xmodmap /etc/X11/xkb/averatec6240.xmodmap.conf" >> ~/.xinitrc
$ chmod +x ~/.xinitrc

Then fire up khotkeys or whatever program / config file you use to map keyboard shortcuts, and enjoy your remote and multimedia keys. If you use KDE / khotkeys, add this file to your ~/.kde/share/config/khotkeysrc to get the shortcuts I set up.

If you want to use the Fn+F12 (sleep) key to hibernate your system, try the following:

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# emerge sudo
# echo '%wheel     ALL=(ALL)     NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/hibernate' >> /etc/sudoers

This will allow all users in the wheel group to hibernate the system without a password. Then setup a keyboard shortcut that maps XF86Sleep to 'sudo /usr/sbin/hibernate'.

Using the remote for sound & mplayer

The arrow keys map to the arrow keys on the keyboard, so the remote arrow keys should already work in mplayer for seeking.

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$ echo "XF86_PAUSE pause" >> ~/.mplayer/input.conf

This will get the play/pause remote button working in mplayer, assuming the play button is mapped to XF86AudioPause (it is if you use the xmodmap from above). To get the stop/eject button working, I have the stop button assigned to launch a bash script that stops mplayer if it is open or ejects the DVD drive if it is not:

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#!/bin/bash
if [ "`ps -A | grep mplayer`" = "" ]; then
eject /mnt/dvdrw
else
killall mplayer
killall mplayer32
killall gmplayer
killall gmplayer32
fi

To use the audio buttons to control system audio, first emerge aumix and then setup keyboard shortcuts that map:

• XF86AudioRaiseVolume --> aumix -v +5
• XF86AudioLowerVolume --> aumix -v -5
• XF86AudioMute --> aumix -v 0

You can then adjust the volume using the Fn keys, front panel, or remote.

Good luck and let me know of any problems or tips I missed.