Gentoo Linux on a Dell Latitude D820 Notebook

Created: 24-Jul-2006
Last updated: 04-Sep-2007
Author: Guido Flohr (<guido @ imperia . net>)
License: GNU Free

• 04-Sep-2007: Kernel 2.6.22-rc4 requires disabling IDE default drivers (otherwise you have /dev/hdaN instead of /dev/sdaN).
• 02-Jan-2007: Got DVD burning with the DVD/R+W running

Table Of Content

1 Summary

I use the Dell Latitude D820 with Gentoo Linux and sometimes (dual-boot) with MS-DOS. All basic features of the notebook work with this setup. I currently use the kernel version 2.6.18-r6 (gentoo-sources).

Feedback, negative and positive, is welcome. But please note, that this document is currently work in progress. The notebook arrived only on July, 21 2006 and I am still (January 2007) fiddling around with it.

In the following, actions you have to perform in a root shell are marked like this:

root@hostname # tail /var/log/messages

Things that should be done from the shell of a regular user look like this:

user@hostname $ ls ~

2 Installation

I followed the normal installation instructions. I had problems with the network card though. I ran "net-config eth0" as advised in the installation docs and it detected the network card but did not set the IP address, routing and DNS via DHCP. I configured the network manually:

  root@hostname # ifconfig eth0 192.168.6.2 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
  root@hostname # route add default gw 192.168.6.1
  root@hostname # echo "nameserver 192.168.6.1" >/etc/resolv.conf

Your milage may vary.

If you have never had S-ATA disks, you may be happy to know, that they appear as SCSI, not as IDE disks. That means, the hard drive will most probably be /dev/sda, not /dev/hda.

3 Network Devices

3.1 Ethernet Card

The built-in ethernet card works with the "tg" driver. Kernel config:

  Device Drivers  ⇒
    Network device support ⇒
       Ethernet (1000 Mbit)  ⇒
       <*> Broadcom Tigon 3 support

Compile and install the new kernel, and reboot. If you have a DHCP server in your network, the following should do for you:

  root@hostname # ln -sf net.lo /etc/init.d/net.eth0
  root@hostname # rc-update add net.eth0 default
  root@hostname # /etc/init.d/net.eth0 start

If you are not always connected to a wired network, you should reduce the DHCP timeout in /etc/conf.d/net:

  dhcpcd_eth0="-t 5"

5 seconds is enough for me. But if you often miss a lease, you should experiment with the value.

3.2 WLAN

Not always working at the moment, see below. If you can live with a somewhat dodgy setup, follow the instructions below:

You probably have to re-compile your kernel. The possibly built-in support for IEEE 802.11 conflicts with the modules. Turn it off:

  Networking  ⇒
    < > Generic IEEE 802.11 Networking Stack

Turn on generic WLAN support:

  Device Drivers  ⇒
    Network device support  ⇒
      Wireless LAN (non-hamradio)  ⇒
        [*] Wireless LAN drivers (non-hamradio) & Wireless Extensions

We need a number of cryptographic modules:

  Cryptographic options  ⇒
    ...
    <*> AES cipher algorithms (i586)
    ...
    <*> ARC4 cipher algorithm
    ...
    <*> Michael MIC keyed digest algorithm

Compile and install the new kernel, and reboot. Now install the necessary driver:

  root@hostname # emerge net-wireless/ipw3945

The dependency "net-wireless/ieee80211" may fail to compile, because your kernel sources contain conflicting header files. The error message points you to a script that can be used to remove the conflicting files.

Now try to load the module. FIXME: Reboot necessary?

  root@hostname # modprobe ipw3945

Try a couple of times, if loading the module fails (see below). If you always want to load the module add it to /etc/modules.d/autoload.d/kernel-2.6 by adding a line "ipw3945".

FIXME: The built-in wireless works often. Half of the time, the kernel fails to initialize the driver, and currently my only resort is to reboot until it eventually loads alright. This issue needs further investigation.

A quick start guide for setting up WLAN with WPA-PSK:

  root@hostname # emerge net-wireless/wireless-tools
  root@hostname # emerge net-wireless/wpa_supplicant

Enable wpa_supplicant for eth1, in /etc/conf.d/net:

modules=("wpa_supplicant")
wpa_supplicant_eth1="-Dwext"
wpa_timeout_eth1="10"

Edit /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf:

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ctrl_interface_group=wheel
eapol_version=2

network={
        ssid="essesseidi"
        psk="my secret passphrase"
        priority=2
        pairwise=TKIP
        group=TKIP
        proto=WPA
        key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
}

Replace "essesseidi" with your network ESSID, and "my secret passphrase" with your pass phrase. Fire up the interface:

  root@hostname # ln -s net.lo /etc/init.d/net.eth1
  root@hostname # /etc/init.d/net.eth1 start

Refer to http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=4&chap=4 or http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Wireless_Configuration_and_Startup for better information.

3.3 Bluetooth

Not yet tried.

3.4 Modem

Not yet tried.

4 Sound

Other resources report that there are issues with certain ALSA versions and the kernel module hda-intel in kernel 2.6.16. I used alsa-utils 1.0.11 with kernel (gentoo-sources) 2.6.16-r13 and things worked flawlessly here.

Kernel configuration:

  Device Drivers  ⇒
    Sound  ⇒
      <M> Sound card support
        Advanced Linux Sound Architecture  ⇒
          <M> Advanced Linux Sound Architecture
	  <M>   Sequencer support
	  ...
	  <M>   OSS Mixer API
	  <M>   OSS PCE (digital audio) API
	  [*]   OSS Sequencer API
	  ...
	  [*]   Support old ALSA API
	        PCI devices  ⇒
	        < > ATI IXP AC97 Controller
	        ...
	        <M> Intel HD Audio
       Open Sound System  ⇒
         < > Open Sound System (DEPRECATED)

In brief: Enable sound card support, enable ALSA plus the sequencer (optional) and mixer support, and select your sound card "Intel HD Audio". The "ATI IXP AC97" is probably enabled in the configuration but you do not need it. Disable the deprecated OSS (Open Sound System). After compiling and installing the new kernel, and rebooting, proceed with the installation of support packages:

  root@hostname # emerge alsa-utils

You do not need to run alsaconf! It is sufficient to install the init script:

  root@hostname # rc-update add alsasound boot
  root@hostname # /etc/init.d/alsasound start

Ignore verbose output about missing configuration, and enjoy. You may have to unmute, try "alsamixer", navigate to "Master" and "PCM", press M to unmute. Pitfall: If you run alsamixer on the virtual console of the Latitude D820, the output is maybe garbled, because of the terminal emulation. Run "alsamixer" in a graphical terminal emulator like xterm or the Gnome terminal in that case.

See http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/alsa-guide.xml for better information. By the way, that document recommends using loadable modules, and not compile them into the kernel. I didn't bother to check out whether this is necessary.

5 Video System

Like with most nVidia hardware, you have two options for supporting your video hardware. If you can make do without 3D acceleration, or if you are a GPL purist, you can use the open source "nv" driver. In all other cases you have to swallow the bitter pill of the nVidia closed source drivers. GPL purists generally do not need lengthy howtos, and I will therefore describe the proprietary version.

5.1 Drivers

The built-in support for the nVidia card conflicts with the proprietary drivers. Turn everything off:

  root@hostname # grep -i nvidia /usr/src/linux/.config
  # CONFIG_AGP_NVIDIA is not set
  # CONFIG_FB_NVIDIA is not set

Disable it, in case one of the configuration options has been set:

  Device Drivers  ⇒
    Graphics Support  -->
      <*> Support for frame buffer devices
      ...
      < > nVidia Framebuffer Support
      < > nvidia Riva support

FIXME: I am not completely sure that the above is really needed.

You need to set a number of options:

  Processor type and features  ⇒
    ...
    [*] MTRR (Memory Type Range Register) support
    
  Device Drivers  ⇒
    Character Devices  ⇒
      ...
      <*> /dev/agpgart (APG Support)

The currently stable versions (1.0.6629) of the nvidia drivers, did not work for me. When trying to load the nvidia kernel module, there were error messages about missing symbols. The recent version (1.0.8762) works here though with kernel (gentoo-sources) version 2.6.16-r13, now with 2.6.17-r4. In order to use the latest version, unmask the two packages in /etc/portage/package.keywords:

  # Missing symbols.
  media-video/nvidia-kernel ~x86
  media-video/nvidia-glx ~x86

Now download and install the source and binaries of all proprietary evil:

  root@hostname # emerge media-video/nvidia-kernel
  root@hostname # update-modules
  root@hostname # modprobe nvidia

Some people say that every time you compile a new kernel you have to repeat the above procedure, i. e. re-emerge the package "nvidia-kernel". I cannot verify that. I have re-compiled my kernel several times since I have installed the nVidia kernel drivers, and everything still works fine here, the driver loads ("modprobe nvidia") and obviously works.

I had a problem after using that kernel configuration when I activated removal of kernel modules. As soon as I started xdm, the screen was black. I am not sure, whether the module removal feature was the culprit but if you have the same problem ssh to your machine, and compile a new kernel:

  Loadable module support  ⇒
    [*] Enable loadable module support
    [ ]   Module unloading

Don't forgot to re-emerge "nvidia-kernel"!

5.2 X11 Configuration

For X11 you need a separate driver:

  root@hostname # emerge media-video/nvidia-glx

Now edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Change the "Driver" line in section "Device":

  Section "Device"
          Identifier  "Card0"
	  Driver      "nvidia"
	  VendorName  "nVidia Corporation"
  EndSection

Look for the section module, and make sure that "glx" is loaded, and "dri" is not:

  Section "Module"
          ...
	  Load "glx"
	  ...
	  #Load "dri"
	  ...
  EndSection

You will sometimes read that you have to load a module "GLCore". That module no longer exists.

Then go to the section "Screen":

  Section "Screen"
          Identifier "Screen0"
	  Device     "Card0"
	  Monitor    "Monitor0"
	  DefaultDepth 24
	  SubSection "Display"
	          Viewport 0 0
		  Depth 1
		  Modes "1920x1200" "1680x1050" "1440x900" "1280x1024" "1280x800" "1280x720" "1024x768" "800x600" "720x480" "640x480"
	  EndSubSection
	  SubSection "Display"
	          Viewport 0 0
		  Depth 4 
		  Modes "1920x1200" "1680x1050" "1440x900" "1280x1024" "1280x800" "1280x720" "1024x768" "800x600" "720x480" "640x480"
	  EndSubSection
	  SubSection "Display"
	          Viewport 0 0
		  Depth 8 
		  Modes "1920x1200" "1680x1050" "1440x900" "1280x1024" "1280x800" "1280x720" "1024x768" "800x600" "720x480" "640x480"
	  EndSubSection
	  SubSection "Display"
	          Viewport 0 0
		  Depth 15 
		  Modes "1920x1200" "1680x1050" "1440x900" "1280x1024" "1280x800" "1280x720" "1024x768" "800x600" "720x480" "640x480"
	  EndSubSection
	  SubSection "Display"
	          Viewport 0 0
		  Depth 16 
		  Modes "1920x1200" "1680x1050" "1440x900" "1280x1024" "1280x800" "1280x720" "1024x768" "800x600" "720x480" "640x480"
	  EndSubSection
	  SubSection "Display"
	          Viewport 0 0
		  Depth 24
		  Modes "1920x1200" "1680x1050" "1440x900" "1280x1024" "1280x800" "1280x720" "1024x768" "800x600" "720x480" "640x480"
	  EndSubSection
  EndSection

Note that the maximum resolution I was able to use - no matter what color depth - is 1680x1050, not 1920x1200 like the above configuration suggests. See http://math.umh.ac.be/an/D820/#nvidia for a source stating that 1920x1200 would actually work. You will also find a much more detailed and advanced xorg.conf configuration file on that site: http://math.umh.ac.be/an/D820/xorg.nvidia.conf.

You should also enable the nVidia OpenGL backend for hardware 3D acceleration:

  root@hostname # eselect opengl nvidia set

After restarting the X server, try out the 3D stuff:

  user@hostname ~ $ glxgears
  10792 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2158.393 FPS
  10591 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2118.176 FPS
  10641 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2128.013 FPS

If the performance on your machine is a lot worse, there must be something wrong.

The Gentoo nVidia guide has a lot more information: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/nvidia-guide.xml. You will also find a wealth of information in the documentation from nVidia that is installed in /usr/share/doc/nvidia-glx-* and /usr/share/doc/nvidia-kernel-*.

5.4 Console configuration

To be written: Replace the ugly 80x25 character console with something nicer.

6 Busses

6.1 USB

No problems, unless you have terribly misconfigured your kernel.

6.2 PCMCIA (CardBus bridge)

Not yet tested, but should work with the Yenta driver.

6.3 Firewire (IEEE 1394)

Never needed, never tested.

7 Input Devices

7.1 Keyboard

Works out of the box. My keyboard has a German layout (qwertz). In /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

  Section "InputDevice"
          Identifier "Keyboard0"
	  Driver "kbd"
	  Option "XkbLayout" "de"
  EndSection

For the console I edited /etc/conf.d/keymaps:

  KEYMAP="de-latin1"

You can find more keymaps in the directory tree in /usr/share/keymaps/i386.

7.1 Mouse/TouchPad

I pretty much followed the instructions on http://gentoo-wiki.com/HARDWARE_Synaptics_Touchpad. In brief, you have to do the following:

You need at least kernel version 2.6.11 and you need to turn on event interface support:

  Device Drivers ⇒
    Input device support ⇒
      <*> Event interface

Compile and install the kernel, and reboot. If everything went fine you should now have three character special files /dev/input/event0, /dev/input/event1, and /dev/input/event2. Now install the X11 synaptics driver:

  root@hostname # emerge synaptics 

The package "synaptics" contains the X11 driver for Synaptics and Alps touchpads, and some useful tools. Next find out what the kernel knows about your touchpad:

  user@hostname $ cat /proc/bus/input/devices
  ...
  I: Bus=0011 Vendor=0002 Product=0008 Version=6337
  N: Name="AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint"
  P: Phys=isa0060/serio1/input0
  S: Sysfs=/class/input/input2
  H: Handlers=mouse1
  B: EV=f
  B: KEY=420 0 70000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
  B: REL=3
  B: ABS=1000003
  ...

Select the section that contains "AlpsPS/2" in the Name field, and look at the Handlers field. In my case it says "mouse1". That means that the device file /dev/input/mouse1 is our mouse. A very simple but working setup for our touchpad would look like this in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.

  Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier  "Mouse0"
        Driver      "mouse"
        Option      "Protocol" "auto"
        Option      "Device" "/dev/input/mouse1"
        Option      "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"
  EndSection

If you want fancier stuff, stay tuned. Edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf and go to the section "ServerLayout".

  Section "ServerLayout"
          Identifier      "Guido's Default Configuration for Dell Latitude D820"
          Screen        0 "Screen0" 0 0
          InputDevice     "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
          InputDevice     "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
          InputDevice     "TouchPad" "AlwaysCore"
  End Section

The last line in the section with "TouchPad" is the one I added. Now go to the bottom of /etc/X11/xorg.conf and add a new device section there:

  Section "InputDevice"
         Driver "synaptics"
         Identifier "TouchPad"
         Option "Device" "/dev/input/mouse1"
         Option "Protocol" "event"
         Option "LeftEdge" "130"
         Option "RightEdge" "840"
         Option "TopEdge" "130"
         Option "BottomEdge" "640"
         Option "FingerLow" "7"
         Option "FingerHigh" "8"
         Option "MaxTapTime" "180"
         Option "MaxTapMove" "110"
         Option "EmulateMidButtonTime" "75"
         Option "VertScrollDelta" "20"
         Option "HorizScrollDelta" "20"
         Option "MinSpeed" "0.60"
         Option "MaxSpeed" "1.10"
         Option "AccelFactor" "0.030"
         Option "EdgeMotionMinSpeed" "200"
         Option "EdgeMotionMaxSpeed" "200"
         Option "UpDownScrolling" "1"
         Option "CircularScrolling" "1"
         Option "CircScrollDelta" "0.1"
         Option "CircScrollTrigger" "2"
         Option "SHMConfig" "on"
         Option "Emulate3Buttons" "on"
 EndSection

In the unlikely case that your Latitude doesn't have the touchpad at /dev/input/mouse1 (remember the output of /proc/bus/input/devices!) change the line accordingly. IMPORTANT! Turning the option "SHMConfig" on is a security risk if you are working in a true multi-user environment, i. e. when other people have access to your machine during your X session. All local users can change parameters of the touchpad then. I don't think that this risk will contribute to global heating or cause a war but you should be warned.

Restart the X server, and feel the difference. As you can see, the synaptics driver understands a wealth of options that control its behavior. Please try "man 5 synaptics" for more information. If you want to tweak the options, you should try the program "synclient" that also comes with the synaptics driver. If you have set the shared memory configuration option on, you can then change parameters in the already running X server.

After some time, you may be unhappy with the touchpad because while typing into the keyboard, the ball of your thumb often touches the touchpad, and the mouse pointer moves around unintentionally. It is even worse when the current input window loses the focus. The program "syndaemon" that comes with the synaptics X11 driver solves this problem in a simple yet elegant way. You can start it either on the command line:

  user@hostname $ syndaemon -d -i 0.5 

Now, whenever you start typing, the touch pad gets temporarily disabled until you're done typing. The arguments "-i 0.5" reduce the default time to re-enable the touchpad after the last keystroke from the default of 2 seconds to 0.5 seconds. With two seconds you will often have the impression that your mouse has died. Try "man syndaemon" for more options.

Alternatively you can try to autostart it with your X session. For Gnome, go to Desktop ⇒ Preferences ⇒ Sessions, choose the tab "Startup Programs" and add the command "/usr/bin/syndaemon -d -i 0.5". You can also start the program syndaemon as a regular daemon with "/etc/init.d/syndaemon start" but I would not recommend it, because it should be up to the user if she wants to disable the touchpad while typing or not. If you still prefer the system wide solution, add start options for syndaemon in /etc/conf.d/syndaemon.

There is another touchpad issue in Mozilla or Firefox. When using the touchpad, you will often go back or forth one page in the browser, because Mozilla misinterprets some gestures. In order to fix that, you first have to stop all instances of your browser and locate your prefs.js file. You can find all of them in a shell:

  user@hostname $ find ~ -name prefs.js

In every file you find add the following lines with your favorite editor:

  user_pref("mousewheel.horizscroll.withcontrolkey.action", 3);
  user_pref("mousewheel.horizscroll.withcontrolkey.numlines", 1); 
  user_pref("mousewheel.horizscroll.withcontrolkey.sysnumlines", true);
  user_pref("mousewheel.horizscroll.withnokey.action", 0);
  user_pref("mousewheel.horizscroll.withnokey.numlines", 1);
  user_pref("mousewheel.horizscroll.withnokey.sysnumlines", true);
  user_pref("mousewheel.horizscroll.withshiftkey.action", 1);
  user_pref("mousewheel.horizscroll.withshiftkey.numlines", 1);
  user_pref("mousewheel.horizscroll.withshiftkey.sysnumlines", true);

Alternatively, you can edit these configuration values in a running browser at the pseudo URI "about:config". Right-click in the window, and insert the values with the context menu that show up.

It looks like a bug in Mozilla resp. Firefox, that these values are initially wrong, but there are compatibility issues with the MS-DOS versions of the browser, and the problem cannot be solved automatically at the moment.

8 CPU

8.1 HyperThreading

The Intel CPU comes with HyperThreading. Although a single processor machine, to the operating system it looks like a dual processor box. To get the most out of it, you should set some kernel options:

  Processor type and features  ⇒
    Processor family  ⇒
      (X) Pentium-4/Celeron(P4-based)/Pentium-4 M/Xeon 

Enable hyperthreading with:

  Processor type and features  ⇒
    [*] Symmetric multi-processing support
    (8)   Maximum number of CPUs (2-255)
    [*]   SMT (Hyperthreading) scheduler support 

In order to benefit from these features you should also edit your /etc/make.conf:

  CFLAGS="-O2 -march=pentium4 -pipe"
  CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
  MAKEOPTS="-j3"

8.2 ACPI

FIXME: To be written.

8.3 CPU Scaling

CPU scaling or CPU throttling adapts the frequency of your CPU to the current computing requirements. That saves energy resp. battery power, and also improves the lifetime of the hardware because of the lower heat emission.

The Linux kernel supports multiple "governors" (strategies for scaling the CPU power). The "performance" governor always selects the maximum performance, "userspace" allows userspace programs to change the frequency, "powersave" minimizes the power consumption by selecting the minimum frequency, "ondemand" switches between the available frequencies depending on the current system load. The "conservative" governor does the same as the "ondemand" governor, but instead of jumping between frequencies, it gradually increases or decreases the frequency. The "conservative" governor should therefore the ideal governor for mobile hardware like the Dell Latitude, but I - personally - prefer "ondemand" because with "conservative" I had stability problems. Maybe pure coincidence, but "ondemand" does the job for me as well.

In order to enable it, we have to configure and compile a new kernel:

  Power management option (ACPI, APM) ⇒
    CPU Frequency Scaling ⇒
      [*] CPU Frequency scaling
      [ ]   Enable CPUfreq debugging
      <*>   CPU frequency translation statistics
      [ ]     CPU frequency translation statistics details
            Default CPUfreq governor (performance) ⇒
      ---   'performance' governor
      <*>   'powersave' governor
      <*>   'userspace' governor for userspace frequency scaling
      <*>   'ondemand' cpufreq policy governor
      <*>   'conservative' cpufreq governor
      ...
      <*>   Intel Enhanced SpeedStep
      [*]     Use ACPI tables to decode valid frequency/voltage pairs
      [*]     Built-in tables for Banias CPUs
      ...

I have turned off all cpu frequency scaling options not shown here. Compile and install the new kernel, and reboot. Then cd to the directory /sys/devices/system/cpu. You should see two directories "cpu0" and "cpu1". If you have only one directory, you haven't turned on the SMP features of the kernel (see section Hyper Threading above). In each directory you find a subdirectory "cpufreq" with several files that show the current cpu frequency scaling. Some of the files are writable and can be used to change the current state.

We want to switch to conservative cpu frequency scaling, and therefore issue the following commands as root:

  root@hostname # echo ondemand >/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor
  root@hostname # echo ondemand >/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cpufreq/scaling_governor

If you want to make the change permanent, also insert the above two lines into the file /etc/conf.d/local.start, so that they will get executed at each boot.

Now do a "cat /proc/cpuinfo". You should see that the current frequency is lower (probably at 1 GHz) than the maximum frequency (1.83 GHz). Gnome users can add the "CPU Frequency Scaling Monitor" if they want to watch the current cpu frequency. Please note that you have to add two instances of the applet (and configure "cpu1" for the second) if you want to watch both CPUs.

9 External Devices

9.1 DVD/R+W

This device caused me a lot of headache. But now with Kernel 2.6.22 (Gentoo sources) I can finally burn CDs and DVDs.

I changed my kernel configuration a little, although I am not sure how much of this is really necessary. But since every test costs me one blank DVD for burning, I did no further investigation on the topic and just accepted it:

  Device Drivers  ⇒
    SCSI device support ⇒
    ...
      <*> SCSI CDROM support
      ...
      SCSI low-level drivers ⇒
        ...
        <*>Serial ATA (SATA) support
        ...
          <*> Intel PIIX/ICH SATA support

The only "real" change here was to enable SCSI cdrom support, although I doubt that this is really necessary. The other options are a must anyway, because without general support for SATA or the Intel ICH7 chipset, the kernel wouldn't detect your hard disk.

After compiling and installing the new kernel, I also added options to my relevant kernel line in /boot/grub/menu.lst. Append to the line that begins with "kernel" the options:

   combined_mode=libata libata.atapi_enabled=1

I don't know whether these options are really needed but I read it somewhere. If you boot with these kernel options your device no longer appears as the ide device /dev/hdc but instead as /dev/sr0. This is usually not an issue for you, because the relevant symbolic links /dev/cdrom and /dev/dvd are created automatically.

9.2 Smart Card Reader

Could not be tested so far.

9.3 IrDA

Could not be tested so far.

  Device Drivers  ⇒
    <*> ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support ⇒
      ...
      < > generic/default IDE chipset support
      ... 
    SCSI device support ⇒
    ...
      SCSI low-level drivers ⇒
        ...
        <*>Serial ATA (SATA) support
        ...
    <*> Serial ATA (prod) and Parallel ATA (experimental) drivers ⇒
        <*> ACHI SATA support
        < > ServerWorks Frodo / Apple K2 SATA support
        <*> Intel ESB, ICH, PIIX3, PIIX4, PATA/SATA support
        ...

It is crucial to disable the "generic/default IDE chipset support" (symbol CONFIG_IDE_GENERIC). Otherwise the IDE driver will see your harddisk first, and your booting will fail with "Kernel panic - no root device", because your root device is now /dev/hda6 (or /dev/hdaN) instead of /dev/sda6 (or /dev/sdaN). See http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8611 for details. If you have locked yourself out because of this, and you have no other running kernel configuration that you can boot, here is your rescue plan:

Change the root device temporarily to /dev/hdaN instead of /dev/sdaN. with Grub press "e" for "edit", and add the parameter "root=/dev/hdaN" to the kernel parameters (of course replace /dev/hdaN with the real root device.

The booting will still fail, because in /etc/fstab your mount points are wrongly configured. When the boot process stops, you will be prompted for your root password. Before you can change /etc/fstab, you have to remount your root device read-write. You can do this by:

    mount -t -n rw,remount /

Now you can edit /etc/fstab with your favorite editor (vi or nano) and change all occurencies of "/sda" to "/hda". Theoretically, you can also double all lines, and giving both possible device names, but this will lead to a lot of error messages.

You should now definitely try to fix the problem, because using the IDE driver (/dev/hda) instead of libata (/dev/sda) will result in lousy performance. Once you have fixed the problem, you have to undo all the changes made to /etc/fstab before you reboot.

10 Further Reading

You can find more information here:

• Debian guide for the D820 with sophisticated X11 configuration http://math.umh.ac.be/an/D820/
• SuSE 10.1 guide for the D820 http://www.legacyofhonor.net/linux/d820.html
• Slackware guide for the D820: http://www.fzu.cz/~kolorenc/d620/
• Fedora Core 5 guide for the D820: http://mysite.verizon.net/vze2j8bn/D820-FC5.html
• Ubuntu Linux Dapper Drake guide for D820: http://www.ailis.de/~k/docs/delld820/
• Kubuntu 6.06LTS guide for the D820: http://www.tktcr.net/?p=4
• German guide for the D820 on SuSE 10.0: http://www.rrze.uni-erlangen.de/dienste/arbeiten-rechnen/linux/projekte/dell-d820.shtml
• Bill Giannikos' guide for the D620: http://www.linlap.com/wiki/Dell+Latitude+D620

11 Copyright/License

Copyright (C) 2006-2007 by Guido Flohr, all rights reserved.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license can be found at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.txt.

Imprint/Impressum (maybe required by German law)