Introduction

The information within in this document is compiled during the installation of SuSE (8.1)-Linux on a Gericom webboy laptop. I hope my experiences will help others to get a well running system, however you are using this information completely at your own risk!

This document will grow with my ongoing efforts to get everything run as I think it should. Components and devices configured and tested so far are marked with a . Another icon, , indicates elements that partly work.

I´m using SuSE-Linux, so any distribution-specific information is valid for SuSE 8.1. I perform an update from SuSE 7.3 to 8.1, which surprisingly does a good job, except one drawback: The soft-links in /etc/init.d/boot.d/ were not set! So, I make it myself; while not really sure what I'm doing, this is the result.

Technical data

Technical data of the laptop as read from the packaging box:

Component

Data

Display

14.1" TFT

CPU

PIII, 750 MHz

HDD

10GB

CD-ROM

Atapi

Floppy-Disk

Memory

128 MB (shared between memory and video)

Modem

Built-in 56k

BIOS

AMIBIOS (BIOS Version: 062710, BIOS Release: 11/10/2000)

Sound

SiS PCI Audio Accelerator

Network

Built-in 10/100 Mbit LAN

Connectors

1 x Type II or Type III PCMCIA Slot; USB-Port; 1 x serial; 1 x parallel; 1 x PS/2 (external keyboard and mouse)

Infrared

FIR/IrDA

Keyboard

...having a special „Internet-key“

Pointer

Touch-pad

Battery

Li-Ion, apm-compatible BIOS

The output of „cat </proc/pci“ is shown here.

Display

The display is driven by a SiS630 graphics controller.

The appropriate accelerated X-server is installed out of the box, no need for extra configuration.

The /etc/X11/XF86Config on my site may give you a hint how the result can look like. (The version number of the installed X window system is !XFree86 4.2.0)

CPU

Nothing really exciting here. It works at 750 MHz but is much too fast for a laptop as battery power lasts for just one hour.

HDD

The IDE interface SiS5513 is supported.

My drive is a TOSHIBA MK1016GAP, ATA DISK drive. It is capable to use DMA transfer so this option is enabled in the kernel: use PCI DMA by default when available. The hdd device is /dev/hda.

CD-ROM

The IDE interface SiS5513 is supported.

The CD-ROM device is a QSI CD-ROM SCR-242, ATAPI CD-ROM 24x drive. Its device is /dev/hdc and it is using DMA transfer as well.

Floppy-Disk

I never saw problems with floppy-disks under Linux. Therefore it was no surprise that this one works immediately and without any difficulties.

Memory

The system does not use all 128 MB but only 120 MB. This is due to the shared memory area for the graphics adapter.

On the other hand, 120 MB is a lot of memory and the bytes are coming and going fast enough, so the missing 8 MB are not harmful!

Modem

I didn't try neither the built-in win-modem nor the PCMCIA modem, yet.

See the 7.3 area for details.

BIOS

It´s hard to say what symbol this section should get. Of course, Linux works together with the AMIBIOS, but I experience strange problems when not cold-starting after a windows-session (mouse, display). And the apm part of the BIOS is not operating very well.

Sound

The built-in sound system is identified as SiS PCI Audio Accelerator. YaST2 detects it as „snd-card-trident“ without any problem. Therefore, ALSA is sound system that should be choosen.

Network

The SiS 900 10/100 MBit network interface is supported.

Connectors

  • PCMCIA Slot: It´s no problem to use a modem card for instance

  • USB: see separate section

  • serial: tested with the serial connection to the digital camera DC 3400; use as /dev/ttyS0
  • parallel: not tested so far, but why should I doubt

  • PS/2: I connected an external PS/2 mouse to that port - it´s usable beside the touch-pad

Infrared

Perform the following steps:

  • set the BIOS (peripheral setup) to IRDA (instead of FIR)
  • as root: check whether /etc/sysconfig/irda contains the line „IRDA_PORT="/dev/ttyS2"“
  • as root: /etc/init.d/irda start
  • try to connect to your IR-device (mine is a Palm Pilot: „pilot-xfer -p /dev/ircomm0 -l“)

Keyboard

Again, it is no surprise that the keyboard works. Its configuration parameters can be found in /etc/XF86Config.

However, the keyboard has another windows gimmick: the orange web-easy-key. I tried to get this key handled by KDE 3 that I´m using as desktop. The key is recognized as „Ctrl-F12“ and you can assign this code to an action in the KDE control center.

Pointer

The touch-pad device is recognized as PS/2 mouse. A link

/dev/mouse -> /dev/psaux

works for X as well as for gpm.

USB

Not tested with 8.1; see the appropriate 7.3 section.

APM

apm is a strange thing: sometimes it works, sometimes not. This obviously is due to problems in communication between BIOS and kernel. Sometimes the BIOS tells (in a kernel-structure called apm_bios.info) that it is an apm capable BIOS, sometimes it does not.

To get it run, I added an append-line to lilo.conf:

append = " vga=0x0317 acpi=off apm=on apm=broken-psr"

With this line, everything seems to work well, except one drawback: You cannot determine the actual battery status when „broken-psr“ is set. Apm and klaptopdaemon aren't able to show you the remaining battery capacity. When „broken-psr“ is not set, however, the laptop shows many problems (hopping pointer, unexpected printing „q“ or „4“, complete hangups from time to time).

Addendum Feb. 2004: If you do not start „apmd“, everything seem to work, even without „apm=broken-psr“

About

These infos have been edited on 01.02.2004 by Matthias Schütze. If you have questions or comments or hints to make things better, please send a mail to <matthias AT familie-schuetze DOT de>!

This report is listed at TuxMobil - Linux on laptops, notebooks, PDAs, mobile phones.