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Wonkey_Donkey
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 5:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nope, its definitely GTX.

Take a look at:

http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?b=&c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&oc=N03XPS6&rbc=N03XPS6&s=dhs&sbc=ukdhsrsinspn_xps_m170_1

And also, lspci shows:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GE Force Go 7800 GTX (rev a1)

:wink:

Edit: Yes, my apology, my machine is slightly different as it is the XPS M170 laptop. The specs however, are similar, in terms of the video chip and PCI-E stuff.
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Entropy42
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 12:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The XPS M170 and Inspiron 9400/E1705 are entirely different systems.

The XPS has a CardBus slot I believe, not ExpressCard.
The XPS uses a Pentium M instead of Core Solo/Duo, hence also must use an entirely different motherboard chipset.
And, it is incorrect to assume that because the XPS has a GTX and has a few similarities to the 9400/E1705 that the 9400/E1705 has a GTX. It doesn't.

And yes, the 9400 and E1705 *are* identical hardware.
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VinzC
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 9:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Entropy42 wrote:
The XPS has a CardBus slot I believe, not ExpressCard.
The XPS uses a Pentium M instead of Core Solo/Duo, hence also must use an entirely different motherboard chipset.

And I saw from the specs in the link the XPS has an Intel Pro/Wireless 2200 while the 9400 has an Intel Pro/Wireless 3945ABG.
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Wonkey_Donkey
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 11:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You're right. Sorry guys. I don't know what machine I was looking at at the time. But it obviously wasn't the 9400.

emerge -C muppet_postings

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VinzC
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 3:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A fake Wonkey_Donkey wrote:
You're right. Sorry guys. I don't know what machine I was looking at at the time. But it obviously wasn't the 9400.

emerge -pvC muppet_postings

--- Couldn't find muppet_postings to unmerge.

:roll:

Forgive me changing your post . You're welcome anyways whenever you have suggestions. We need contributors that also have some sense of humour, you know. Don't refrain from posting and don't worry about that :-).

Whatever you succeed or fail to do it is clearly stated provided you post it. Whether it's a success or a failure it'll help anyway. If we all had to post our successes only we wouldn't need this forum. We won't flame you - unless of course you're smoking over a barrel of fuel spitting at us and shouting we're just plain bastards ;-) .
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2006 10:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

For a >2.6.16 kernel the patches for the SD reader are at

http://list.drzeus.cx/pipermail/sdhci-devel/2006-February/000465.html

However using a vanilla linux-2.6.16-rc6 I couldn't get audio or the Cd/DVD drive to work. Everything else was fine however.
Gone back to a linux-2.6.15-gentoo-r7 kernel now.
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 1:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cpu frequency scaling. (good guide http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_make_use_of_Dynamic_Frequency_Scaling)

Only changes I needed from VinzC's kernel and modules were to
Code:
USE="acpi" emerge cpufreqd


edit /etc/cpufreqd.conf (man cpufreq.conf is invaluable)

I'm using the following plugins
Code:
enable_plugins= acpi_ac,cpu,acpi_battery,acpi_temperature


Add it
Code:
rc-update add cpufreqd default
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Sejam
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 24, 2006 12:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

djtreble wrote:
For a >2.6.16 kernel the patches for the SD reader are at

http://list.drzeus.cx/pipermail/sdhci-devel/2006-February/000465.html

However using a vanilla linux-2.6.16-rc6 I couldn't get audio or the Cd/DVD drive to work. Everything else was fine however.
Gone back to a linux-2.6.15-gentoo-r7 kernel now.


I've been using the linux-2.6.16-rc6-mm2 kernel, and it already has the SD reader in it.
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Sejam
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 24, 2006 12:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've got a Dell E1705 that I'm working on. Slight difference with this model is the option video card upgrade. Instead of nVidia, mine has the ATI Radeon Mobility x1400. It works with VESA at 1600x1200 and that's it at the current time. I got the upgrade so the real resolution should be 1920x1200. So I'm stuck until either an opensource radeon driver is updated or ati actually releases their own linux drivers to support that version.
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Entropy42
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 29, 2006 2:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sejam wrote:
I've got a Dell E1705 that I'm working on. Slight difference with this model is the option video card upgrade. Instead of nVidia, mine has the ATI Radeon Mobility x1400. It works with VESA at 1600x1200 and that's it at the current time. I got the upgrade so the real resolution should be 1920x1200. So I'm stuck until either an opensource radeon driver is updated or ati actually releases their own linux drivers to support that version.

Actually, there is no difference between the E1705 and the 9400 in that regard. For unknown reasons, the options for both systems were downgraded from the NV 7800 Go to the Radeon 2-3 weeks ago.

I have an E1705 with the NV 7800. I would never have ordered it if I were getting an ATI chip.

Unfortunately mine was defective on arrival (second core of the CPU is flaky, the system crashes every 5-10 minutes unless I disable dual core support in BIOS), and Dell is taking forever to ship the replacement, possibly due to the Nvidia vs. ATI issue. (Speculation is that Dell changed because of availability issues with the 7800.)
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LD
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 30, 2006 3:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Note on widescreen resolutions with the framebuffer. I got those working using the 2.6.16 gentoo-sources and setting vesafb-tng to 1280x800,32@75 in the kernel. I haven't gotten it to work so well from grub yet. BUt using the 1280x800 resolution did make it work after boot and everything had been accomplished. THis was done on a Dell E1505 with a 15.4 inch screen.

I am having issues with Xorg 7 and the video. I'm also having boot issues. Grub in the stable tree is demanding that I manually load and type the boot command from the grub prompt. I had it working proper with unstable tree's grub so I'mgoing to see if that works proper.

Networking hates me.
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Noven
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 12:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Vinz {and everyone else} - thanks heaps for this guide. I now only have one issue - the hotkey to turn wireless back on doesn't work. I turned it off when I first got the box, while windoze was still installed. Now that everything seems to be correctly configured I load the ipw3945 module and dmesg contains the following error

Code:

ipw3945: Radio Frequency Kill Switch is On:
Kill switch must be turned off for wireless networking to work.


When I use the hotkey to turn it back on I get

Code:

atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0x88 on isa0060/serio0).
atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e008 <keycode>' to make it known.


And the led still doesn't come on. When I use the hotkeys to change screen brightness I get a similar message except the screen actually does dim or brighten. Does your wireless hotkey work, and if so does it need to be enabled?
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VinzC
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 5:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, actually I do all that stuff manually, i.e. reload the module and restart net.eth1... If somebody had a trick to do that automatically I'd be glad :-) .
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Noven
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 1:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I tried that. I can load it and start it now without the message about the killswitch being on, and every indication is that it is working - except still no LED. I don't actually have wireless at home yet, but it will be very useful when I go to town. As I won't be doing that for a few weeks it makes it hard to test for certain, but I'd really like the LED to be certain things work as they should {and just cause *everything* should work to make me uber happy}.

I can easily map a keycode to a character, so I'll play with mapping it to a function {ie module load / unload}.
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Sejam
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 3:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Noven wrote:
I tried that. I can load it and start it now without the message about the killswitch being on, and every indication is that it is working - except still no LED. I don't actually have wireless at home yet, but it will be very useful when I go to town. As I won't be doing that for a few weeks it makes it hard to test for certain, but I'd really like the LED to be certain things work as they should {and just cause *everything* should work to make me uber happy}.

I can easily map a keycode to a character, so I'll play with mapping it to a function {ie module load / unload}.


The LED on my computer only comes on when I'm connected to a wireless network. If I'm trying to connect to one that is around, then the LED will flash randomly.
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Noven
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 4:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ah, well, that could explain it then. I know the light was on under windows without any connection, but then thats no reason for gentoo to work the same way. For now I'll presume it works and when I get to town next hopefully be happy.

[edit] While playing with something completely unrelated I redid the kernel and borker the ipw3945 module. I rebuilt it and it the led works - it flashes as if it's searching for a connection. So yes, I am happy :)
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Noven
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 09, 2006 7:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Okay, I got slightly confused before with the whole RF-Killswitch {fn-F2} thing. It does work direct with the bios. However if the ipw3945 module is loaded and working and you use the killswitch {on}, then killswitch {off}, it *does not* come back up. Unload module, killswitch {off}, load module works fine.

fn-F2 does generate a scancode but trying to map this to a hotkey function seems like a bad idea. Creating a keyboard shortcut to load / unload the wireless module is easy enough. I created a script 'wireless':

Code:

#!/bin/sh
ipw3945=`lsmod | grep ipw3945 -c`
if [ $ipw3945 = '0' ]; then
        /sbin/modprobe ipw3945
        /etc/init.d/net.eth1 start
else
       /etc/init.d/net.eth1 stop
       /sbin/modprobe -r ipw3945
fi


Note this only works because I added the

Code:

install ipw3945 /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install ipw3945 ; sleep 0.5 ; /sbin/ipw3945d --quiet
remove ipw3945  /sbin/ipw3945d --kill ; sleep 0.5 ; /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore-remove ipw3945


from earlier to /etc/modules.d/ipw3945 .

As modprobe requires root I added a sudoers line allowing one user {me} the ability to run that command without password {anyone see a way to exploit that vector? chmod wireless 0750 run as root seems more secure than making wireless suid - comments?}

Then using e16keyedit {or the relative kde / gnome prog} map any keypress you like to exec sudo wireless. Probably a very long and cumbersome way to do it, let me know if you have a more efficient way.

While I was doing this I also set up all the multimedia keys. They all had a keycode already assigned, so I just had to set up a .Xmodmap and then bind the keys in e16keyedit. Here is mine:

Code:

$ cat .Xmodmap
keycode 160 = XF86AudioMute
keycode 174 = XF86AudioLowerVolume
keycode 176 = XF86AudioRaiseVolume
keycode 162 = XF86AudioPlay
keycode 144 = XF86AudioPrev
keycode 153 = XF86AudioNext
keycode 164 = XF86AudioStop

$ cat .e16/e_config.bindings
<snip>
KeyDown    C        e exec Eterm
KeyDown    - XF86AudioLowerVolume exec amixer sset PCM 4-
KeyDown    - XF86AudioRaiseVolume exec amixer sset PCM 4+
KeyDown    - XF86AudioMute exec amixer sset Master toggle



I used the xmms plugin 'itouch' to set the play / stop / skip keys. You could do it in the keybindings above using xmms cli commands, but I didn't cause I thought I'd try xmms-itouch . I don't yet see any advantage to it and may ditch the plugin later.
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VinzC
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 09, 2006 8:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is a nice approach, Noven. In my opinion, the RF-Kill switch should generate either an ACPI or a UDEV (i.e. hotplug) event. Both events trigger scripts that run as root so the sudo/su/suid thing is not required. However I don't have enough knowledge on how to implement that - isn't it implemented BTW?
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Noven
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 09, 2006 12:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The rf-killswitch talks directly to the bios and has an effect before the OS sees it. So without doing anything it *does* work to enable or disable wireless functionality. {however as I discovered if the module is loaded etc killswitch will take it down but not bring it back up}

However once you have 'functionality' you need to load the module / start script etc. That is where the 'wireless' script comes in and I'm applying it in userspace. Fn-F2 {killswitch} does generate a scancode, which can be mapped to a keycode... but I can only see how to map that to a function {as opposed to a simple character} in userspace {ergo sudo/suid needed}. If there is a way to trigger a script from a keycode at system level I'd love to know it.
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 09, 2006 8:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Noven wrote:
The rf-killswitch talks directly to the bios and has an effect before the OS sees it. So without doing anything it *does* work to enable or disable wireless functionality. {however as I discovered if the module is loaded etc killswitch will take it down but not bring it back up}

I know but I also think using the switch to re-enable the wireless card should trigger a hotplug event, just like when you plug a USB mouse or camera. There should be a way to tell udev or hotplug or apcid to detect such a change. Since Windows does it (I don't know how anyway) it should be possible under Linux.
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Noven
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 09, 2006 9:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes, you possibly could be right. I'll play with that later today... maybe when I get bored at work.

Has anyone got the internal modem working? Thats a higher priority for me to get working.

[edit] Modem works like a dream. I know this because I'm currently posting over dial up... {grimace}

I used the HSF driver from www.linuxant.com . Installed and worked flawlessly. The only odd bit is that they claim the free driver {which I am using} only works at 14.4, but I connected at 57600 - and the speed definitely seems more like that than 14.4. Regardless, it worked like a dream so I'll pay for the licensed version.

Now I have one little bug remaining. If I close down the lid for a long period of time (say >10 mins) and leave it running, for instance when its compiling and I want to sleep, the screen doesn't come back on. Everything is still working in the background, and I can ssh in fine, but I jsut can't get the screen to turn back on without rebooting. Is anyone else experiencing this?
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Sejam
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 11, 2006 5:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've been able to get the ATI Mobility x1400 working correctly with the laptop. Had to do a dirty hack, but it gives me full resolution at 1920x1600.

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-3247785.html
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Sejam
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 8:28 am    Post subject: Website Guide Reply with quote

Made a installation guide on my blog (like I did with the 6000) to help keep up the more recent way to install on this laptop. Seemed to work nicely for new folks with the 6000 so that they didn't have to go through 12 pages of the forum to get all the information. I usually update it monthly until everything is stable.

http://james.jamesandkristin.net/install-gentoo-linux-on-a-dell-inspiron-e1705/
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 17, 2006 1:56 am    Post subject: Insprion 9400 - Broadcom wireless Reply with quote

Thanks for all the info in this thread!

My Inspiron 9400 had a different setup in regards to wireless. It appears to be a Broadcom BCM4301 WLAN-bg MiniPCI+3.

The 'lspci' output reads:

0c:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation Unknown device 4311 (rev 01)

I was able to get the card working under kernel gentoo-sources-2.6.16-r2 using ndiswrapper-1.11 (latest as of this writing has a bug with the 2.6.16 kernel under ndiswrapper-1.13).

Once ndiswrapper is installed get the driver from the following link:
http://www.station-drivers.com/telechargement/broadcom/broadcom%20bcm-43xx.exe

To actually install the driver run the .exe downloaded from above under Wine, then you can install under ndiswrapper with the following command:

$ sudo ndiswrapper -i ~/.wine/drive_c/SWSetup/SP32161A/bcmwl5.inf

If all is going well you can load the ndiswrapper module and will see the following output:
$ sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
...
$ tail dmesg
ndiswrapper version 1.11 loaded (preempt=yes,smp=yes)
ndiswrapper: driver bcmwl5 (Broadcom,12/17/2005, 4.10.40.1) loaded

Finally you're kind of on your own in actually getting wireless running since there are a couple variants. I'm using wpa_supplicant. Check out the following for more info on wireless under Gentoo:

http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Wireless_Configuration_and_Startup

I hope this helps people without the Intel wireless chipset that seems to be more common.
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 10:58 pm    Post subject: Insprion 9400 - Broadcom wireless (UPDATE) Reply with quote

I've switched to the driver officially supported for Dell Service Tag on my Inspiron. The URL to that driver is:

http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R115321.EXE

Same instructions as before, except you will first have to remove the existing driver from ndiswrapper (since they're named the same).

$ sudo ndiswrapper -e bcmwl5

Afterwards the instructions from my previous post are the same, except the driver will be under ~/.wine/drive_c/dell/drivers/R115321/DRIVER

Cheers
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