Dell Inspiron 6000

[seppelrockt]

EDIT: Thanks amaroc, LID works not with the script. I didn't used acpid before, simply had to emerge it and put the default.sh on the right place (and chmod +x ).

"not" or "now" - hope it was a typo and the 2nd is true

The later - works like a charm

Can somebody tell me how I can find detailed infos about my hard disk from within linux (something like lspci for hard disk). I need the vendor and model string to check whether it is a true SATA drive or an IDE drive with SATA bridge (want to replace the hd soon and reuse it in an external case). Thanks.

So far I've learned that it is a parallel IDE-drive behind a SATA-to-IDE bridge. You can retrieve some info via hdparm (here is mine what tells that it is indeed an IDE-drive):

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i6kgt ~ # hdparm -I /dev/sda[/quote]

Damn I was so close - just tried  [code]hdparm -i /dev/sda

but only with capital "i" it's working ...

ATA device, with non-removable media
Model Number: Hitachi HTS541060G9AT00
Serial Number: MPB3PAX5HRLNMM
Firmware Revision: MB3OA61A
Standards:
Used: ATA/ATAPI-6 T13 1410D revision 3a
Supported: 6 5 4 3

Strange - mine is a little different (beside the Manufactor) - look at the used standards:

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ATA device, with non-removable media
        Model Number:       TOSHIBA MK6026GAX
        Serial Number:      45BC7911T
        Firmware Revision:  PA202D
Standards:
        Supported: 6 5 4 3
        Likely used: 6

Are you using hdparm from ~x86?

[amaroc]

Code: Select all

ATA device, with non-removable media
        Model Number:       Hitachi HTS541060G9AT00
        Serial Number:      MPB3PAX5HRLNMM
        Firmware Revision:  MB3OA61A
Standards:
        Used: ATA/ATAPI-6 T13 1410D revision 3a
        Supported: 6 5 4 3

Strange - mine is a little different (beside the Manufactor) - look at the used standards:

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ATA device, with non-removable media
        Model Number:       TOSHIBA MK6026GAX
        Serial Number:      45BC7911T
        Firmware Revision:  PA202D
Standards:
        Supported: 6 5 4 3
        Likely used: 6

I don't think that the drives differ much. Toshiba's 16MB cache give a very little performance benefit compared to the Hitachi's 8MB. Both are running in ATA-6 mode (what is UDMA-100 IIRC). So the real speed is more or less limited by the drive itself - and both are 5.400rpm. You can try

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i6kgt ~ # hdparm -tT /dev/sda
/dev/sda:
 Timing cached reads:   2896 MB in  2.00 seconds = 1447.50 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:   92 MB in  3.02 seconds =  30.48 MB/sec

to test drive and interface.
Btw - this laptop outperformes my old Athlon XP board w/ SIS-chipset significant.
The output gives another hint - there will be not much performance benefit from a 7.200rpm disk (40MB/sec?). More memory will do though (30MB vs 1400MB/sec). So, if you plan to upgrade for the sake of performance - you should think about.

Are you using hdparm from ~x86?

No, it's hdparm 5.9. AFAIK - newer versions do add the security options - what is already supported by the BIOS.

[seppelrockt]

No, it's not performance but the need of more free space on the drive. I would never put a 7200rpm HD in my notebook cause they are to noisy and hot compared to the 5400rpm ones, which are a good compromise between speed and noise/heat IMHO. But it's a good thing to get rid of the SATA-IDE bridge by buying a REAL SATA drive I think.

[amaroc]

But it's a good thing to get rid of the SATA-IDE bridge by buying a REAL SATA drive I think.

I don't believe that it's possible to use a real SATA-drive. I guess there is only the 44pin-connector available. See here. You should unmount the drive before you buy. If you are lucky than the bridge is inside the housing. If you see the large connector however - you have to buy a parallel hdd.

In addition, I don't think that the SATA-to-IDE bridge causes the trouble with libata & co.. What I've learned from the kernel-mailing-list is that it's mainly a driver/architecture issue regarding scsi, pata, sata and acpi.

[seppelrockt]

Cool, there are now git-sources in portage, that's (obvisiously) the latest kernel source - atm linux-2.6.15-git6.

Regarding the HD you are right - the bridge is outside the enclosure and I would have to further disamble the laptop to remove the bridge. Then I can not simply change the HD anymore cause the SATA connector is justly loosy hanging around ih the laptop and I don't even know if it's cable is long enough.

But I read on the thinkwiki that the IBM laptop HDs that use sata-pata bridges have need a special firmware and if you do not my them directly at IBM respectivly Dell in my case they won't work. But I don't want to by a new HD from Dell, they are to expensive!

Damn, ... did anybody ever disamble the notebook any further?

[VinzC]

...
But I read on the thinkwiki that the IBM laptop HDs that use sata-pata bridges have need a special firmware and if you do not my them directly at IBM respectivly Dell in my case they won't work. But I don't want to by a new HD from Dell, they are to expensive!

Damn, ... did anybody ever disamble the notebook any further?

You seem to be unstoppable ...

[amaroc]

But I read on the thinkwiki that the IBM laptop HDs that use sata-pata bridges have need a special firmware and if you do not my them directly at IBM respectivly Dell in my case they won't work. But I don't want to by a new HD from Dell, they are to expensive!

Did you read this for the Dell Sonoma laptops as well? Anyway, IBM provides an utility to do the hdd-firmware update for a bunch of drives (here]. Don't know whether this will work for Dell as well.

Damn, ... did anybody ever disamble the notebook any further?

There is a good description and some pictures on the Dell-link I've posted earlier (see "system board").
However, before you start using your screw-driver - I don't believe that you will find a SATA connector. I assume it's a pcb-assembly-option - either the SATA connector or the SATA-to-PATA bridge. The connector is in the range of about 0.50EUR - so it's very unlikely that it will be populated (maybe even not layouted). I don't want to stop your enthusiasm but you should consider the PATA drive...

[CoPyCaT]

Hi,

I have 2 big problems

1.My bad english
2.My Inspiron DVD-Drive. Since Kernel upgrade 2.6.12 to 2.6.14 it doesn't work anymore.
Yesterday I did an upgrade to 2.6.15 and followed some of the tip's from around this thread but nothing worked for me.

So far I got the sources, patched them and edited libata.h

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#undef ATA_ENABLE_PATA

to

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#define ATA_ENABLE_PATA

My dot_config

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# ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support
# CONFIG_IDE is not set


# SCSI support type (disk, tape, CD-ROM)
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SD=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SR=y
CONFIG_CHR_DEV_SG=y
CONFIG_CHR_DEV_SCH=y

# SCSI low-level drivers
CONFIG_SCSI_SATA=y
CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_AHCI=y
CONFIG_SCSI_ATA_PIIX=y

Also tested the kernel param libata.atapi_enabled=1but it doesn't work.

Please could someone provide an step by step guide for this su*** thing or give me a hint what i am doing wrong.
With a lot help from this thread i finally got ATI with DRI and hibernate/hibernate-ram working, and this is the only thing that stands between me an my fully supported Linux laptop

Thanks in advance

[seppelrockt]

Please could someone provide an step by step guide for this su*** thing or give me a hint what i am doing wrong.
With a lot help from this thread i finally got ATI with DRI and hibernate/hibernate-ram working, and this is the only thing that stands between me an my fully supported Linux laptop

Thanks in advance

Solution is simple I hope: do NOT patch the sources! This doesn't work anymore for linux > 2.6.14. Your .config looks good at first look. So backup the .config and delete the source, build the kernel again and use libata.atapi_enabled=1 in grub.

Hope that helps!

[VinzC]

Hi.

I have installed Gnome sensors applet (gnome-extra/sensors-applet-1.6) and I've seen strange figures about my lap's fan speed: about 110,000 rpms (sic)! I'm sure the actual fan speed is not that high...

Is there a way to get the true fan speed (/proc/..., /sys/..., i8k utils)? Since Gnome sensors applet wants a multiplying factor with its sensors, I could guess it by comparing the actual speed with the one indicated by the sensor.

Thanks for any suggestion.

[VinzC]

Hi again.

Don't know how you guys (and ladies maybe) have solved the lid close/open issue but here's how I did using only Gentoo's way.

First I have unmerged laptop-mode-tools and acpid to clean everything. But you're not required to go that far. Note that re-emerging acpid surprisingly updated /etc/init.d/acpid.

I then edited /etc/acpi/events/default and appended the following lines:

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# Laptop generated event: button (lid open/close)
event=button[ /]lid.*
action=/etc/acpi/lid.sh %e

i.e. after the lines that trigger the default event processing:

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# Optionally you can specify the placeholder %e. It will pass
# through the whole kernel event message to the program you've
# specified.

event=.*
action=/etc/acpi/default.sh %e

And here's /etc/acpi/lid.sh:

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# Turn on dpms when the lid is opened on a Dell Inspiron
# since it is not turned on automatically.
LID_STATE=$(cat /proc/acpi/button/lid/LID/state | gawk '{ print $2 }')

[ $LID_STATE = "open" ] && /usr/sbin/vbetool dpms on

Since the screen is turned off by default when the lid is closed, the only requirement is to bring it back on when the lid is opened. The command vbetool dpms on is enough on my system to achieve this.

Final note: running vanilla-sources 2.6.16-rc1 with sys-power/acpid-1.0.4-r2.

[juniper]

A GREAT SUCCESS!

With kernel 2.6.15-rc2 Everything works here: burning, ripping, ... All that without the PATA stuff in the kernel, only managed by libata and piix and no further beside the libata.atapi_enabled=1. Let's hope this is finaly done for the 2.6.15 release! What a great day

Glad to hear it's all working for you. So does that mean you have everything working now, or just the CD / DVD issues you were having? I have yet to try suspend but its something I'd love to have, even if its just suspend to RAM. Here's what I have left to get working:

1) ipw2200 module loading and WI-FI LED turned on with Fn+F2 key press - Currently being worked on
2) Suspend2 - Pref suspend to RAM
3) Be able to use the monitor out port for presentations / split screen

I know earlier posts managed to get Suspend2 working to some extent, I'll have to go back and re-read. Think I'll upgrade to 2.6.14 before I do anything on that front.

hello,

you post is a little old, but i will answer anyways.

have you gotten the presentation/monitor out to work? i do, mostly. check out my post

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-40 ... ight-.html

i have given an xorg.conf there that mostly works and i have explained its limitations. has anyone else got this working perfectly? don't keep it a secret!

j

[82303]

got the DVD with DMA to work

my kernel for this looks like this now:

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#
# ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support
#
# CONFIG_IDE is not set
-----------
#
# SCSI support type (disk, tape, CD-ROM)
#
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SR=y
-----------
#
# SCSI low-level drivers
#
CONFIG_SCSI_SATA=y
CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_AHCI=y
CONFIG_SCSI_ATA_PIIX=y

then I edited
include/linux/libata.h :
#undef ATA_ENABLE_PATA /* define to enable PATA support in some * low-level drivers */
to
#define ATA_ENABLE_PATA /* define to enable PATA support in some * low-level drivers */

then did a "make" and copied the bzImage to /boot and rebooted

Now my DVD drive is /dev/scd0
I can activate DMA now or even better it's activated automatically now and DVD-movies run like hell

The only problem I have now is that I can't watch DVD as user out of the box. Okay, I did a "chown root:cdrom /dev/scd0" and "xineing" as user works but I dunno if it's still available after reboot or if udev changes something.

Stefan

I read the posts over ... just for fun and I've seen that my post is incomplete
whooou may be alittle late but ...

don't forget to edit
drivers/scsi/libata-core.c :

int atapi_enabled = 0;
to
int atapi_enabled = 1;

Sorry for that ... hope it will help anyway

The only problem I have now is that the movie kinda "jerks" only on fast scenes .... any idea out there?

Stefan

[babytuey]

got the DVD with DMA to work
...snip...

The only problem I have now is that the movie kinda "jerks" only on fast scenes .... any idea out there?

I am a two week newbie to Gentoo after previously using Ubuntu as my first Linux distro so I hope this is not a really stupid question. I have followed the advice on this thread, my dvd player works great for playback but I still cannot burn a cd/dvd in k3b. When I run k3b demesg gives the error:

Assertion failed! qc->n_elem > 0,drivers/scsi/libata-core.c,ata_fill_sg,line=2482

and k3b gives a 255 unknown error. I have tried every bit of advice I can find on the forums to no avail. Any help would be greatly appeciated.

Also, when I play video in mplayer I get a lot of dropped frames / jerky playback. xine seems to be okay. I have remerged mplayer but its still jerky. Any ideas?

Thanks

[VinzC]

I read the posts over ... just for fun and I've seen that my post is incomplete
whooou may be alittle late but ...

don't forget to edit
drivers/scsi/libata-core.c :

int atapi_enabled = 0;
to
int atapi_enabled = 1;

Sorry for that ... hope it will help anyway

The only problem I have now is that the movie kinda "jerks" only on fast scenes .... any idea out there?

Stefan

Since your post is a little old and there have been many updates in kernels, I think your workaround might have been supported by recent kernels (2.15.xx and 2.16.yy series) and kernel argument libata.atapi_enabled=1. You might want give those kernels a try. I now use 2.6.16-rc1 (Vanilla) and it works quite well.

[VinzC]

...
I have followed the advice on this thread, my dvd player works great for playback but I still cannot burn a cd/dvd in k3b. When I run k3b demesg gives the error:

Assertion failed! qc->n_elem > 0,drivers/scsi/libata-core.c,ata_fill_sg,line=2482

and k3b gives a 255 unknown error. I have tried every bit of advice I can find on the forums to no avail. Any help would be greatly appeciated.

Also, when I play video in mplayer I get a lot of dropped frames / jerky playback. xine seems to be okay. I have remerged mplayer but its still jerky. Any ideas?

Thanks

As for burning seppelrockt has made attempts in that direction. I don't remember if he was successfull or not. Anyway you should try to burn a CD using cdrecord (see the man pages for more information on how to burn a CD).

You can also first check the rights on the node /dev/cdrw points to. If it points to /dev/sr0 then you would need write access to the latter node for group cdrom.

You could post the results of equery l udev && ls -ld /dev/cdr* && ls -l /dev/s[rg]*

[babytuey]

You could post the results of equery l udev && ls -ld /dev/cdr* && ls -l /dev/s[rg]*

Thanks very much. The results of the equery told me that /dev/sg0 was the offending device. I changed the group et voila burn burn burn!

[VinzC]

Thanks very much. The results of the equery told me that /dev/sg0 was the offending device. I changed the group et voila burn burn burn!

You might then consider using >=udev-070. It'll fix the access rights on cdr* nodes without custom rules.

[seppelrockt]

You could post the results of equery l udev && ls -ld /dev/cdr* && ls -l /dev/s[rg]*

Thanks very much. The results of the equery told me that /dev/sg0 was the offending device. I changed the group et voila burn burn burn!

Please contribute to my bureport on it on b.g.o

[ClarkeB]

Picked up my custom built inspiron 6000 yesterday.

Had X emerged on a conrad install by this morning (I wanted to try something new).

I did xorg7 and ati-drivers, and found that it hung every time i try and resized or scroll'd firefox.
I fixed that bug by killing fb_radeon (radeon framebuffer) from the kernel config.

[seppelrockt]

Good news! I have switched to ~x86 cdparanoia and all my problems related to playing/ripping audiocds with KDE KIOs are gone. The latest ~x86 cdparanoia includes a patch that lets cdparanoia use the sg_i/o interface instead of cooked ioctrl or what it is called like. Juppiee!

[VinzC]

I am sorry to inform I won't be able to provide help for the Dell Inspiron 6000 anymore. There's good and bad about it. That's the bad side. The good is my boss has decided to renew his crew's hardware and I got a brand new Inspiron 9400 while my "older" laptop will be handed to somebody else. (Hell, there won't be Linux on it!)

It's challenging but I already got it working - at least for some interresting features to me. If I have a little time I'll create a new thread that targets that specific hardware. For the details, it has the following features:

• Pentium-M Duo
• ICH7-M chipset
• 1 Gig RAM
• nVidia 7800 Go PCI Express
• 17" widescreen 1920x1200
• SATA HD
• DVD (2 layers)/CD writer combo
• Intel HD Audio (SigmaTel)
• Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG
• Ethernet NIC Broadcom 4401 10/100 Mb/s
• Bluetooth
• Ricoh card reader 5 in 1

See you in an upcoming thread for feedback.

[chris_de]

Didn't you have any problems setting the sound up? Playing sound works perfectly for me, but as soon as I activate "Full duplex" in the control center, the following error occurs:

device: default can't be opened for capture (invalid argument)

I installed alsa-driver, alsa-oss, alsa-utils and alsa-tools. 'lsmod' yields the following output:

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homer dev # lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by
snd_seq                34064  0
snd_seq_device          5004  1 snd_seq
speedstep_centrino      5268  1
processor              16000  1 speedstep_centrino
snd_intel8x0           22364  0
snd_ac97_codec         64736  1 snd_intel8x0
snd_ac97_bus            1088  1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_pcm                53576  2 snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec
snd_timer              16196  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd                    30328  6 snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer
snd_page_alloc          6600  2 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm
ipw2200               144836  0
ieee80211              37352  1 ipw2200
ieee80211_crypt         3072  1 ieee80211
firmware_class          6528  1 ipw2200
homer dev #               

There is no mixer or dsp-file in /dev or /dev/snd, /dev/snd only contains the following files:

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homer snd # ls -l
total 0
crw-rw----  1 root audio 116,  0 Feb 14 16:42 controlC0
crw-rw----  1 root audio 116, 24 Feb 14 16:42 pcmC0D0c
crw-rw----  1 root audio 116, 16 Feb 14 16:42 pcmC0D0p
crw-rw----  1 root audio 116, 25 Feb 14 16:42 pcmC0D1c
crw-rw----  1 root audio 116, 26 Feb 14 16:42 pcmC0D2c
crw-rw----  1 root audio 116, 27 Feb 14 16:42 pcmC0D3c
crw-rw----  1 root audio 116, 20 Feb 14 16:42 pcmC0D4p
crw-rw----  1 root audio 116,  1 Feb 15 00:42 seq
crw-rw----  1 root audio 116, 33 Feb 14 16:42 timer
homer snd #                                           

So I have no idea what went wrong during the installation, the file /etc/modules.d/alsa also seems to be ok:

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# Alsa 0.9.X kernel modules' configuration file.
# $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo-x86/media-sound/alsa-utils/files/alsa-modules.conf-rc,v 1.4 2004/11/16 01:31:22 eradicator Exp $

# ALSA portion
alias char-major-116 snd
# OSS/Free portion
alias char-major-14 soundcore

##
## IMPORTANT:
## You need to customise this section for your specific sound card(s)
## and then run `update-modules' command.
## Read alsa-driver's INSTALL file in /usr/share/doc for more info.
##
##  ALSA portion
alias snd-card-0 snd-intel8x0
## alias snd-card-1 snd-ens1371
##  OSS/Free portion
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
## alias sound-slot-1 snd-card-1
##

# OSS/Free portion - card #1
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss
##  OSS/Free portion - card #2
## alias sound-service-1-0 snd-mixer-oss
## alias sound-service-1-3 snd-pcm-oss
## alias sound-service-1-12 snd-pcm-oss

alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss
alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss
alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss

# Set this to the correct number of cards.
options snd cards_limit=1

Thank you for your advice,

Chris

[mmebane]

Before I read through this whole post, is there any compilation of all the things needed to get an Inspiron 6000 working? I looked on Gentoo-Wiki, but didn't find an I6000 page.

[chris_de]

Seems like this is the unofficial Inspiron6000 thread

Basically, installing gentoo worked without any big problems, this thread is mostly for special stuff like Suspend to disk or power management. The only thing which is really important is the SATA-part, without enabling it your system won't boot from disk. Also keep in mind that you have to emerge ipw2200 first to enable wireless network, so you should install it using a wired connection.