Dell Inspiron 6000

[mds32h]

First of all I would like to thank Sejam and all the other contributors to this thread for the useful hints they gave me installing Gentoo on the I6k.

I hope I can contribute as well pointing your attention to this link

It should help solving our last open issue: the SD card reader. I have not yet tested it and unfortunately I'll have no possibility to test it until next monday evening (CET): I'll be far from my I6k for so long!

The patch provided by Pierre Ossman is intended for the vanilla sources (2.6.15.2 as far as I've understood), but I'm confident they will be easily adapted to Gentoo-sources as well.

To help everybody using the patches I give you also this link

[Sejam]

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.

It's been a while since I've checked this post ... and man has it really gotten full of great details. Sad to see that VinzC is actually moving on. I can remember the first months that him and I were the only two really working on getting this to work correctly. Maybe it's time I should convince my wife to let me upgrade the laptop to an Inspiron 9400 so we can start over again . Not going to get much luck with that though .

[VinzC]

...
Maybe it's time I should convince my wife to let me upgrade the laptop to an Inspiron 9400 so we can start over again .

Well, in fact... no. Just keep your good ol' 6K and you'll be happy. There are a couple of things that don't work yet on the 9400. Sound, for instance, is a bit noisy. (I.e. I can hear, at a very low level, plops and cracks whan playing music and sound files.)

But most of all wireless doesn't simply work at all. I could have tried ndiswrapper a bit more but I'm reluctant on using 16K kernel stacks and running only one CPU .

Fortunately I have an nVidia card instead of the initial i950GM. In fact my Dell i6K would have been quite nice if I had an nVidia too - I think there was a configuration with an nVidia instead of ATI. Given the problems most of us have with either i915 and ATI...

And you know what? Ironically I've got the same problem with framebuffer consoles on my nVidia than those with a i6k and ATI . The resolutions listed by vbetest aren't even 16/10 and I can't use my full resolution with framebuffer consoles. Too bad. At least I have X work without any difficulty so the framebuffer thing is secondary.

The best advise I can give is to - if possible - stay with the i6k but chose an nVidia - still if possible. Soon ICH7 chipset et al will be fully supported one day but for the moment don't rush.

[VinzC]

First of all I would like to thank Sejam and all the other contributors to this thread for the useful hints they gave me installing Gentoo on the I6k.

I hope I can contribute as well pointing your attention to this link

It should help solving our last open issue: the SD card reader. I have not yet tested it and unfortunately I'll have no possibility to test it until next monday evening (CET): I'll be far from my I6k for so long!

The patch provided by Pierre Ossman is intended for the vanilla sources (2.6.15.2 as far as I've understood), but I'm confident they will be easily adapted to Gentoo-sources as well.

To help everybody using the patches I give you also this link

That *is* interresting. Thanks. I'll try it too on my new laptop. Just in case.

[chris_de]

So what do you guys have in your /dev/snd directory?
Mine looks like this:

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ls chris@homer ~ $ ls /dev/snd/
controlC0  pcmC0D0p  pcmC0D2c  pcmC0D4p  timer
pcmC0D0c   pcmC0D1c  pcmC0D3c  seq
chris@homer ~ $

Which is the one I have to link /dev/mixer or /dev/dsp to? I am still not able to activate full duplex with arts

[VinzC]

So what do you guys have in your /dev/snd directory?

I assume you have a Dell Inspiron 6000? As you didn't talk about kernel and udev versions, I'd advise Vanilla Sources (the latest, even the ~x86 keyword masked ones). Try 2.6.16-rX or just the 2.6.15 series. These ones have built-in ipw2200, SATA fixes plus other stuff. All you have to do is patch the tree with Spock's vesafb and vesa-tng if you want framebuffer consoles.

If you have the i915 chipset, use VESAFB and kernel argument vga=0x361 to get 1680x1050 framebuffer console. Works with LiveCD-2005.1 theme.

...
Which is the one I have to link /dev/mixer or /dev/dsp to? I am still not able to activate full duplex with arts

You should have anything to link in fact. It should all be supported by udev. I had udev 079-r1 I think. You should try it. It works with recent kernels. I've noticed Vanilla Sources best fit the Inspiron 6k as per my own experience.

[chris_de]

Yes, it's for a Dell Inspiron 6000. I'm running a kernel from the 2.6.15 series, but I'm using the drivers from the alsa-driver package, anyway. I'm also running the newest udev version. Perhaps I should try using the original kernel driver intead of the alsa-driver. I use the gentoo-sources, but I don't think that makes the big difference concerning the sound support. I'll try that tomorrow, I hope it works.

[chris_de]

ok, it works, finally. Using the sound card driver from the kernel rather then alsa-driver was a good idea. Maybe I just missed to load a module or so, usually the alsa-driver package shouldn't cause any problems.

Greetings,

Christian

[mmebane]

I'd advise Vanilla Sources (the latest, even the ~x86 keyword masked ones).

Why vanilla sources over gentoo-sources?

[VinzC]

Why vanilla sources over gentoo-sources?

I can't offer you a scientific response. All I can say is that I just *observed* I did get less troubles with Vanilla Sources than Gentoo Sources for the same kernel level (e.g. 2.6.14). Maybe there are patches in Gentoo patchset that have an adverse effect.

I don't know who exactly gave me that advise (was it seppelrockt or hoschi). But at that time I used Vanilla Sources and the problems I experienced with Gentoo Sources were gone.

EDIT: Also note that using Vanilla Sources applied to i6k only. I've reverted to Gentoo Sources on the i9k4.

[seppelrockt]

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.

Writing a step-by-step installation how-to is on my to-do list for a long time. Maybe I will finaly write one when Gentoo 2006.0 is out and/or gcc-4.x is in ~x86. Why? Cause if I write a installation how-to I want to test-proof it by a fresh installation.

Still there are some small things I didn't worked out yet (WLAN LED, complete support for multimedia buttons and FN keys). And have to test the things about suspend. But NO TIME in the next 6 weeks anyway.

[hiboo]

Why vanilla sources over gentoo-sources?

I can't offer you a scientific response. All I can say is that I just *observed* I did get less troubles with Vanilla Sources than Gentoo Sources for the same kernel level (e.g. 2.6.14). Maybe there are patches in Gentoo patchset that have an adverse effect.

I don't know who exactly gave me that advise (was it seppelrockt or hoschi). But at that time I used Vanilla Sources and the problems I experienced with Gentoo Sources were gone.

Maybe because the vanilla sources are always newer than the gentoo ones.
As you said, the SATA works now well with the 2.6.15, of the vanilla and the gentoo sources.

[mds32h]

Hello everybody,

Just tried the patches for the SD card: they work.

I've downloaded the patches in ~/sdhci and patched the kernel sources (I'm using gentoo-sources-2.6.15-r5) with:

Code: Select all

patch -p1 < ~/sdhci/sdhci-0001.bin
patch -p1 < ~/sdhci/pci-sdhc-0001.bin
patch -p1 < ~/sdhci/mmc-respopcode-0001.bin

Configuring the kernel I've added the support for MMC/SD Card:

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#
# MMC/SD Card support
#
CONFIG_MMC=y
# CONFIG_MMC_DEBUG is not set
CONFIG_MMC_BLOCK=y
CONFIG_MMC_SDHCI=y
# CONFIG_MMC_WBSD is not set

Note that I've added CONFIG_MMC_SDHCI to the other parameters, because it is not present in standard .config for gentoo-sources-2.6.15-r5.

After compiling the kernel and rebooted I've inserted an SD Card into the reader: a couple of new lines appeared in dmesg:

Code: Select all

mmcblk0: mmc0:0001 128MB 122752KiB <NULL>
 mmcblk0: p1

A new device is now present: /dev/mmcblk0, with what I guess is its primary partition /dev/mmcblk0p1.

Just create a new directory and mount the new device:

Code: Select all

mkdir /mnt/sdcard
mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt/sdcard/

OK: the SD Card is mounted.

To make things more clean I've added the device and the mountpoint to /etc/fstab like this:

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/dev/mmcblk0p1          /mnt/sdcard     vfat            noauto,umask=0,iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850,user      0 0

I've tried deleting and moving some files from the mounted device: it seems to work properly.

br

[VinzC]

Hurraaaaayyy!

Man, a hundred thanks! I've followed the steps and applied them to my Inspiron 9400 and it worked. Note however the code doesn't work as a module but built-in. I don't know why but at least this is a great step forward.

Next is to create a set of UDEV rules to rename the mmcblk node.

[mds32h]

Hurraaaaayyy!

Man, a hundred thanks!

You're welcome. I'm glad it has been useful to somebody else.

Note however the code doesn't work as a module but built-in

Thanks: I didn't try as modules. You spare me to recompile the kernel and try it.

Next is to create a set of UDEV rules to rename the mmcblk node

I plan to do it in a few hours ...

[dritan]

hey guys...
Im now trying to get my dad's dell i6000 to work with gentoo, and i only wany e17(and deps) installed in it...so i unmasked and emerged all the packages and the ati-drivers-8.22.5, but when i try to startx i only get a black screen and the computer hangs, i'll have to press the power button in order to reboot...so i thought there might be something wrong with my xorg.conf, then i tried a couple of different xorg.conf from this post but i still get the same problem, i configured my kernel's video options as required by the ati how-to on the wiki page, what did i do wrong? following are my hardware and some configs.

Dell i6000: Intel Pentium Centrino 1.83G
512SD DDR2
80G Sata
AtiX300 Mobility
Wifi (no-bluetooth)
NIC: BoardCom and ipw2200
Screen 1680x1050

I can't post my .config since its impossible to type it all here but my xorg.conf follows the one of AvantLegion(thanks )

EDIT: i forgot to mention this... when i try to modprobe fglrx, i get an error saying that the operation is not permitted...but im running as root...

EDIT2: I'm sorry i didn't know that command..thanks it looks cool but i'll still have to edit it manually as i can't copy/paste it from the laptop =p.. and the kernel that i am using is the gentoo-sources-2.6.15-r1
This is the wiki for ati that i used, and the xorg version is 6.8.2-r6

Code: Select all

# 
Section "dri"
Mode 0666
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "dbe" 
SubSection "extmod"
Option "omit xfree86-dga"
EndSubSection
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx" 
Load "dri" 
Load "synaptics"
Load "xtrap"
EndSection

Section "Files"
RgbPath "/usr/lib/X11/rgb"
ModulePath "/usr/lib/modules"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/corefonts/"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/ttf-bitstream-vera/"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/Type1/"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/misc:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/TTF/"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/CID/"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
sequence
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

Identifier "Keyboard1"
Driver "kbd"
Option "AutoRepeat" "500 30"
Option "XkbRules" "xfree86"
Option "XkbModel" "dell101"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"

EndSection



Section "InputDevice"
Driver "synaptics"
Identifier "ALPS Glidepoint"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
Option "LeftEdge" "120"
Option "RightEdge" "830"
Option "TopEdge" "120"
Option "BottomEdge" "650"
Option "FingerLow" "14"
Option "FingerHigh" "15"
Option "MaxTapTime" "0"
Option "MaxTapMove" "110"
Option "EmulateMidButtonTime" "75"
Option "VertScrollDelta" "20"
Option "HorizScrollDelta" "20"
Option "MinSpeed" "0.5"
Option "MaxSpeed" "0.8"
Option "AccelFactor" "0.04"
Option "EdgeMotionMinSpeed" "200"
Option "EdgeMotionMaxSpeed" "200"
Option "UpDownScrolling" "1"
Option "LeftRightScrolling" "1"
Option "CircularScrolling" "1"
Option "CircScrollDelta" "0.1"
Option "CircScrollTrigger" "2"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
HorizSync 27-110
VertRefresh 50-160
Option "UseEdidFreqs"
Option "FlatPanelProperties" "Scaling=aspect=scaled"
ModeLine "1680x1050" 214.51 1680 1800 1984 2288 1050 1051 1054 1108
UseModes "16:10"
EndSection

Section "Modes"
Identifier "16:10"
ModeLine "1680x1050" 214.51 1680 1800 1984 2288 1050 1051 1054 1103
ModeLine "1280x800" 83.5 1280 1344 1480 1680 800 801 804 828
EndSection


Section "Device"
Identifier "ATI Graphics Adapter"
Driver "fglrx"
BoardName "ATI Radeon Mobility x300"
Option "no_accel" "no"
Option "no_dri" "no"
Option "mtrr" "off" 
Option "DesktopSetup" "0x00000100"
Option "MonitorLayout" "LVDS, AUTO"
Option "IgnoreEDID" "off"
Option "HSync2" "unspecified"
Option "VRefresh2" "unspecified"
Option "ScreenOverlap" "0"
Option "NoTV" "yes"
Option "TVStandard" "NTSC-M"
Option "TVHSizeAdj" "0"
Option "TVVSizeAdj" "0"
Option "TVHPosAdj" "0"
Option "TVVPosAdj" "0"
Option "TVHStartAdj" "0"
Option "TVColorAdj" "0"
Option "GammaCorrectionI" "0x06419064"
Option "GammaCorrectionII" "0x00000000"
Option "Capabilities" "0x00000000"
Option "VideoOverlay" "on"
Option "OpenGLOverlay" "off"
Option "CenterMode" "off"
Option "PseudoColorVisuals" "off"
Option "Stereo" "off"
Option "StereoSyncEnable" "1"
Option "FSAAEnable" "no"
Option "FSAAScale" "1"
Option "FSAADisableGamma" "no"
Option "FSAACustomizeMSPos" "no"
Option "FSAAMSPosX0" "0.000000"
Option "FSAAMSPosY0" "0.000000"
Option "FSAAMSPosX1" "0.000000"
Option "FSAAMSPosY1" "0.000000"
Option "FSAAMSPosX2" "0.000000"
Option "FSAAMSPosY2" "0.000000"
Option "FSAAMSPosX3" "0.000000"
Option "FSAAMSPosY3" "0.000000"
Option "FSAAMSPosX4" "0.000000"
Option "FSAAMSPosY4" "0.000000"
Option "FSAAMSPosX5" "0.000000"
Option "FSAAMSPosY5" "0.000000"
Option "UseFastTLS" "0"
Option "BlockSignalsOnLock" "on"
Option "UseInternalAGPGART" "no"
Option "ForceGenericCPU" "no"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0" 
Screen 0
EndSection


Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "ATI Graphics Adapter"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24


Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1680x1050"
ViewPort 0 0 
EndSubsection
EndSection



Section "ServerLayout"

Identifier "Server Layout"
Screen "Screen0"
InputDevice "ALPS Glidepoint" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"

EndSection

[VinzC]

...

Code: Select all

# **********************************************************************
# Refer to the XF86Config(4/5) man page for details about the format of
# this file.
# **********************************************************************
...

Please remove comments before you post large configuration files such as xorg's as the thread has become quite large. Use grep command

Code: Select all

egrep -v '^$|^#' /etc/X11/xorg.conf

It's not too late and you can edit your last post accordingly.

Also indicate what kernel you use and version of Xorg plus the wiki URL to prevent us from googleing and make (possibly wrong) assumptions on the reference you used.

[chris_de]

Do you guys know how to get the power button working? The multimedia-buttons are working well, but I don't get any output with tools like xev or showkey when pushing the power button.

Thanks,

Chris

[VinzC]

Do you guys know how to get the power button working? The multimedia-buttons are working well, but I don't get any output with tools like xev or showkey when pushing the power button.

I thought I was the only one... Normally the power button triggers a shutdown event under certain conditions:

• module or driver "button" must be enabled
• acpid must be installed and running

These conditions are met on my laptop too but I noticed the power button didn't work anymore on my Inspiron 6000. It's a bug but I don't know if it relates to newer kernels, udev or anything else. I'll check on other machines as well.

[chris_de]

Oh, right, it sends an acpi event, I forgot about that. Creating the file /etc/acpi/events/power with the following contents solved the problem for me:

Code: Select all

event=button/power.*
action=/sbin/halt

As you said, the option button in the kernel is enabled and acpid is running. I'm running kernel 2.6.15 with the gentoo sources. Hope you get it running as well.

Chris

[VinzC]

Oh, right, it sends an acpi event, I forgot about that. Creating the file /etc/acpi/events/power with the following contents solved the problem for me:

Code: Select all

event=button/power.*
action=/sbin/halt

Looks so simple! Thanks.

I forgot one simple concept under Linux: every simple problem has a simple solution. In general...

Or... I was too lazy to check it up myself

[VinzC]

Maybe it's time I should convince my wife to let me upgrade the laptop to an Inspiron 9400 so we can start over again .

Well, in fact... no.

Finally?... yes . I've made [topic=436869]my Dell Inspiron 9400 guide[/topic] this time. Wireless LAN plus the Ricoh SD card reader do both work now! It's time you dropped your good old i6k, man

The only thing that doesn't work yet is the framebuffer console at native resolutions. Even then, it's a giant leap from what I had a few days ago.

[juniper]

hello,

has anyone had trouble with the new gnome (2.12) and totem and/or xine with this laptop? ever since i upgraded totem crashes X hard on this laptop (only solution is to reboot).

i had a separate post on this but no one answered so i thought that i would post here.

j

[VinzC]

hello,

has anyone had trouble with the new gnome (2.12) and totem and/or xine with this laptop? ever since i upgraded totem crashes X hard on this laptop (only solution is to reboot).

i had a separate post on this but no one answered so i thought that i would post here.

j

I didn't personnally. Which version of these players do you have? Did you try others like VLC or mplayer?

[juniper]

hey VinzC,

i have totem-1.2.1 and xine-lib-1.1.1-r3.

i have tried mplayer and it hasn't crashed. i am running vanilla-sources 2.6.13.2. i know i should upgrade, i have just been too lazy.

basically, it happens right when i start up totem. it does not happen all the time, but when it crashes, it takes X down with it. i can see that it is trying to restart gdm, but it can't (i see the mouse pointer with the little watch) and it is unable to restart X. the only thing i can do is ctrl-alt-delete. it does shutdown cleanly.

i have xorg-x11 6.8.99.5 (not in portage anymore), but i have been using the same xorg file for ages and the crashing only started when i updated gnome.

j