Contents |
Introduction
I bought this machine December of 2003 from the dell web site http://www.dell.com.au. I intially used Redhat 8.0, but I have now moved to Gentoo. Gentoo is the shiznit. I'm never going back....
Configuration Files
X
I'm now using the latest Xorg from the Gentoo Portage. Just run
emerge nvidia-kernel nvidia-glx
I've had problems running any version of the nvidia-kernel up from nvidia-kernel-1.0.6111-r3. If I have (for example) version 6629, when X starts, my screen goes completely black, and locks up.
I now have
=media-video/nvidia-kernel-1.0.6111-r3 x86 =media-video/nvidia-glx-1.0.6111-r2 x86
in my /etc/portage/package.keywords
One little problem I had early on was after installing the nVidia drivers, and once X had started, if you did the CTRL+ALT+F1 into the terminal, the text was flashing, like the refresh rate had just dropped 3 times. Fiddling in the BIOS, I changed the LCD Mode from SMUL mode (being LCD and CRT) to just LCD fixed this no probs. Also if you find that you display something which is not the full resolution of your LCD, then just hit Fn+Font and it should make it full screen.
I'm not sure if a later BIOS revision fixed this or not.
Mouse
The trackpad can be used as a standard PS/2 device, or as a synaptics trackpad. The synaptics X driver rocks. I have circular scrolling and other nice stuff set up. See the xorg.conf file to settings.
Sound
The chipset is an intel8x0. Kinda crappy, very basic. Works ok with ALSA.
Like all intel8x0 sound chips, you have issues with Return to Castle Wolf and Quake 3. You need to do:
echo "wolfsp.x86 0 0 direct" > /proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/oss"
which apparently gives wolfsp.x86 access to mmap the sound device or something.
Modem
The modem is a bitch. After doing a little probing, I eventually worked out that it was in fact a PCTel modem.
Modem: Intel Corp. 82801CA/CAM AC'97 Modem (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [Generic]) Subsystem: PCTel Inc Dell Inspiron 2100 internal modem
I tried the PCTel drivers, and had no love. I had more luck with the smartlink drivers from portage, but still not a lot of love. I have given up, but that was never really a problem because I always used network anyway.
Network
I opted to install the 3Com Corporation 3c905C-TX/TX-M [Tornado] from dell. It cost me an extra $30, which was easily worth it. Worked well for a while, but now doesn't work. Just died one day. The device is still detected, but I never get any link lights. Bummer....
ACPI / APM
ACPI works great with the 2.6 kernels. Before that, I was using some kernel patches, and I had to compile my own ADST which sucked. Now it just works out of the box, except, If I close the lid, I get the process kacpid go to 100% CPU. Never really got this fixed.
Update: Acually, ACPI on this thing sucks.
PCMCIA
The PCMCIA card bus is detected and works good. I have a Compact flash to PCMCIA adapter that I got with my digital camera, and it will pick up the CF Card as an IDE Hard drive.
USB
The USB works fine. I have a few devices that work well. It's only USB 1.1 though.
