Dell Latitude X300 and Gentoo

Message

mooerito · Post by **mooerito** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 4:34 pm

Hello everyone!

has anyone ever tried running gentoo linux on a dell lattitude X300? does stuff like power management, battery status, ... work with gentoo linux? im thinking of switching from acer to this dell machine after christmas, but i wanna know if i can get linux running without missing half the functions my laptop provides for me (whats it worth having a battery if you dont know how empty it is and suddenly loose all work)

does gentoo linux work well with dell laptops?

thanks for your help

regards
marc

quikchaos · Post by **quikchaos** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 4:42 pm

As a matter of fact, I just finished installing Gentoo on a Dell Latitude CPx. I am now in xcfe4 and encountered no glitches all the way in. RUnning gentoo-sources-2.4.21. As for laptop management features, I haven't had a chance to get those emerged yet. I will post back when I do and let you know.

mooerito · Post by **mooerito** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 5:27 pm

thanks a lot for the quick response, id be happy to hear if everything works fine.

Toshimitsu · Post by **Toshimitsu** » Thu Dec 25, 2003 1:27 pm

I've installed gentoo on my x300 now.. Or, is installing it.. Right now I'm trying to get the various acpi-things working. I'll post more when I find out more..

Xhosa · Post by **Xhosa** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 1:30 pm

I'm just in the process of trying to get Gentoo running happily onn an X300 with mediabase (with CDRW). I found that you have to use the modified DSDT file to get the acpi events working (acpi.sourceforge.net) (see the big DSDT and ACPI thread for instructions on how to do this:

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=122145

However, although the acpi stuff starts working when this is used, and I can do speedstepping etc, the docking station suddenly stops working. If you undock from the mediabase, the laptop hangs, with no obvious cause (I have tried stopping all services/removing modules prior to undock).

I also can't seem to get the laptop to detect the docking station if it is connected when it has been booted without it being present.

If anyone has any ideas, please let me know - otherwise the decision is whether to run with a working docking station (but no power management) or with power management (but no docking station)

(As an aside - for the 2.6(.1) kernel, neither of the inbuilt suspend-to-disk systems work - in the end I had to download and manually patch with the system at http://swsusp.sourceforge.net (swsusp2) - as I also did when testing vanilla 2.4.24 - this works fine).

fear_lag · Post by **fear_lag** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 9:41 am

Hi,

I just bought Dell x300 and it has the newest A05 BIOS. The DSDT table found in sourceforge works only partially. I was wondering if anyone has fixed table for this bios version.

Everything else works just fine, no lock-ups using the docking station or anything.

[edit]
I've got everything working now. I really recommend using Linux on this machine. The battery last at least an hour longer with proper configuration. Every piece of hardware works like a dream.

tuxlover · Post by **tuxlover** » Fri May 07, 2004 3:50 pm

I was successful with swsusp2 and made a little how-to:

howto: get swsusp2 (hibernate, suspend to disk) working.

Have fun!

Xhosa · Post by **Xhosa** » Fri May 14, 2004 9:59 am

There is an A04 and A06 DSDT available from http://acpi.sourceforge.net

Could you possibly try upgrading the BIOS and DSDT to this, and see if the docking station still works? I found that I had the choice between Docking, but no working ACPI, or working ACPI, but a crash when I undocked.

If you could let me know if this works, or if you got the A05 DSDT fixed, that would be great!

(Its not my laptop, and the user is currently away, so I can't test changes like this...)

taskara · Post by **taskara** » Tue Jun 08, 2004 6:01 am

hey.. I'm gonna help a friend put gentoo on his dell x300 this weekend.

Do you have any advice / links to getting ACPI and X working properly etc?

cheers!

iandow · Post by **iandow** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 7:50 pm

Has anyone had any luck getting the internal wireless card to work in their X300? I've tried following some leads on http://www.linux-laptop.net/, but none of their instructions are working for me. They all involve using hotplug and ieee802.11 crypt modules, and ipw2200 moduels. I just can't get the modules to load.

Are there any howto guides out there which have worked for people?

Thanks,
Ian

Dell Latitude X300 and Gentoo

Dell Latitude X300 and Gentoo

x300 and A05 BIOS