Intel 700 PIII w/Speedstep
Intel 82440MX Chipset
Intel 82440MX USB Controller
TI PCI 1410 Cardbus PC Card Controller
NEC OHCI IEEE 1394 Interface
Askar HSP56 MR Winmodem
Crystal 4299 AC97 Sound (Intel i810)
Realtek RTL8139 10/100
ATI Rage Mobility M PCI
1024 x 768 12.1" display
Synaptics PS/2 Port Touchpad
20 Gig HD (Hitachi BK23BA-20)
Mitsumi USB Floppy
Toshiba DVD-ROM SD-C2502 (external - IDE)
This was the last revision of this page before the system died and I sold it for parts. To see the original page visit here or the 2003 revision here. In any case these are 'for the record' only. All of which is a perfect lead-in for the start of the next paragraph...
The system is getting a little long in the tooth is also a little beat. Lately it has developed some kind of problem with its power / battery management system. [This might also be a problem with the PnP BIOS.] With the new long-llife battery I purchased a couple of years ago it can run over 4 hours on a single charge. However, when it's not running it will immediately appear to deplete the battery when it's not plugged into the charger. The depletion is an illusion, usually, and if you plug it back it and boot it up, your OS will report 100% battery capacity within minutes. I've had to develop the habit of keeping it plugged into its charger when it's off, and while it's booting up. Once it's up it's usually fine (except sometimes when it takes a bump.) Ah well, nothing lasts forever, but I still like this one enough to keep it around and keep putting on new versions of Linux.
The system is very light (about 3.5 lbs.) and, as you can see, all of the drives are external (I have the floppy and the DVD stacked on top of each other on the left in the picture.) Like all small notebooks, there are a lot of compromises in the design, some good, some not so. Most of the connectors, including the ide, two USB, one 1394, the modem and the NIC and the single PCMCIA slot, are all on the left edge. That's a lot of stuff. The push-button for the release of the PCMCIA card is around ¼" from the NIC cable. If you want to use a USB mouse and you're right-handed, you have to string the cable around the system. The right edge has the IR port, and a large vent for the fan. The fan is fairly loud, and has a will of its own. There is no software or hardware control for it; it's probably locked into a CPU heat sensor.
The keyboard has an inverted T of arrow keys art the lower right. There's a function key at the lower left which converts the arrows to PGUP, PGDN, HOME and END. This presents some key-mapping challenges in Linux. DELETE/SCRLOCK is at the upper right edge. just next to INSERT/NUMLOCK. The keyboard is 'almost' full size; it seems easier to use than the one on my old Toshiba Portege 650. I'm used to it.
USB and IEEE 1394 devices should insert on the fly without a problem, but since the DVD is actually an IDE device, you are warned not to attach or remove it unless the unit is powered down.
There are no legacy ports. Period.
The system came with Windows™ ME pre-installed, and the disk set up in what appears to be a typical Compaq way: large C drive on a primary partition, smallish D drive inside a logical partition, occupied by a large set of 'recover data' files (about 1.4 Gig). There is a 'rescue' CD which is really a floppy image, and which can recover the system to its as-delivered state by reading the files on D.
After some exploration of the system, I copied the recovery data off to another system and put it onto tape. I expanded the logical partition holding D drive and added several Linux partitions. I then removed the primary partition and installed Windows™ 2000 from scratch. The Compaq drivers for Windows™ 2000 were all available from their web site and all worked well.
I tried XP on the system a little over a year ago and it didn't work. Lots of blue screens. So it looks like it's going to be WIN2K forever.The earlier versions of this document describe the installation of verious Debian and SuSe versions, and fun with bootpart as a boot manages. This year (2005,) once Debian Sarge was released, I created a Netinst CD and let it rip. After a false start when hardware discovery got hung with the 2.4 kernel image, I selected the 2.6 image, and the install proceeded without incident. I reformatted the target partition to ext3 but kept my old separate /usr/local which was in /dev/hda6.
It was a very smooth install, and a lot of improvements are immediately apparent.
The (2.6) kernel pcmcia modules work with my Linksys WPC11 version 3 card (which never worked under Linux before,) and I was able to the iwconfig tools to set up WEP (but not WAP.) All my hardware, including sound cards, worked fine with the ALSA drivers. A quick addition of some non standard urls to sources.list and I got RealPlayer10 working. And I'm typing this using OpenOffice 1.1.
There are some issues with the PnP BIOS, as I alluded to above. Very often, if I boot up with the WPC11 v3 already inserted, I get no sound. This appears to be an IRQ conflict. If I boot without the card and then insert it, they manage to work together well. I get some hints in the kernel log about disabling PnP or forcing IRQ assignments, but so far I have refrained from adding any special kernel options. I just keep the WPC11 v3 out until after boot up and everything works OK. If I use an older, original WPC11, I have none of these problems and the card and ALSA drivers coexist quite well.
I'm also using the Synaptics touchpad drives, which took a little manual tweaking in XF86Config-4 (see below.)
From my old report:
I've seen reports that the Lucent ASKAR linmodem may work with one of the Lucent™ binary drivers. I've tried the one in linux568.zip, but it reports an interrupt conflict and fails. This 'modem' performs poorly even under Win2K with custom drivers from Compaq, so that's one Linux problem I'll probably not bother trying to solve.
I haven't bothered with the modem under Sarge, but the ALSA drivers do recognize it as a DSP.
Previously I've used the magnificent BOOTPART program to create boot loader images my Linux partitions under WIN2K. BOOTOPART seemed to have a problem with partitions with GRUB installed to I used LILO for Debian, and added GRUB under SuSE, meaning I had to use the WIN2K menu to get to the Debian boot menu and go to SuSE from there. This time I let Debian install GRUB as the master boot loader, and it picked up and configured the SuSE and WIN2K partitions. The GRUB installer got confused and added 8 iterations of SuSE to the end of the boot menu, but they all worked! And a little editing fixed that.
As I type SuSE is still at version 8.1. The history of that install is on the earlier pages. I plan on over-writing it with SuSE Personal (9.1) just to check it out.
Kylix 3.0 Open Edition works with the original 2003 installation in /usr/local and the license file saved replaced in my 'home' directory.
Here are some key configuration files.
Debian 3.1a files:
# XF86Config-4 (XFree86 X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the XF86Config-4 manual page.
# (Type "man XF86Config-4" at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xfree86 package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xfree86
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following commands as root:
#
# cp /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 /etc/X11/XF86Config-4.custom
# md5sum /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 >/var/lib/xfree86/XF86Config-4.md5sum
# dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86
Section "Files"
FontPath "unix/:7100" # local font server
# if the local font server has problems, we can fall back on these
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/CID"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi"
EndSection
Section "Module"
Load "GLcore"
Load "bitmap"
Load "dbe"
Load "ddc"
Load "dri"
Load "extmod"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
Load "int10"
Load "record"
Load "speedo"
Load "type1"
Load "vbe"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "keyboard"
Option "CoreKeyboard"
Option "XkbRules" "xfree86"
Option "XkbModel" "pc104"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "LeftEdge" "1700"
Option "RightEdge" "5300"
Option "TopEdge" "1700"
Option "BottomEdge" "4200"
Option "FingerLow" "25"
Option "FingerHigh" "30"
Option "MaxTapTime" "180"
Option "MaxTapMove" "220"
Option "VertScrollDelta" "100"
Option "MinSpeed" "0.09"
Option "MaxSpeed" "0.18"
Option "AccelFactor" "0.0015"
Option "SHMConfig" "on"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "ATI Technologies, Inc. Rage Mobility P/M"
Driver "ati"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Generic Monitor"
HorizSync 28-49
VertRefresh 43-72
Option "DPMS"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "ATI Technologies, Inc. Rage Mobility P/M"
Monitor "Generic Monitor"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 1
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 4
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Default Screen"
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
InputDevice "Configured Mouse"
EndSection
Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection Module Size Used by ppp_generic 27540 0 slhc 7040 1 ppp_generic apm 19948 1 af_packet 20872 2 ipv6 229892 10 irtty_sir 8320 0 sir_dev 18092 1 irtty_sir irda 167360 2 irtty_sir,sir_dev crc_ccitt 2432 1 irda parport_pc 33348 0 parport 37320 1 parport_pc pcspkr 3816 0 ohci1394 32004 0 ieee1394 100408 1 ohci1394 8139cp 19072 0 snd_intel8x0m 18632 0 snd_intel8x0 33068 1 snd_ac97_codec 59268 2 snd_intel8x0m,snd_intel8x0 snd_pcm_oss 48168 0 snd_mixer_oss 16640 2 snd_pcm_oss snd_pcm 85384 3 snd_intel8x0m,snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm_oss snd_timer 23300 1 snd_pcm snd_page_alloc 11144 3 snd_intel8x0m,snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm gameport 4736 1 snd_intel8x0 snd_mpu401_uart 7296 1 snd_intel8x0 snd_rawmidi 23204 1 snd_mpu401_uart snd_seq_device 7944 1 snd_rawmidi snd 50660 10 snd_intel8x0m,snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_mpu401_uart,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device soundcore 9824 2 snd uhci_hcd 29328 0 usbcore 104164 3 uhci_hcd 8139too 23936 0 mii 4864 2 8139cp,8139too yenta_socket 19200 1 nls_iso8859_1 4352 1 nls_cp437 6016 1 vfat 13184 1 fat 41792 1 vfat tsdev 7168 0 mousedev 9996 0 joydev 9536 0 capability 4872 0 commoncap 7168 1 capability evdev 9088 1 orinoco_cs 9096 1 ds 17796 3 orinoco_cs pcmcia_core 63028 3 yenta_socket,orinoco_cs,ds orinoco 38284 1 orinoco_cs hermes 7936 2 orinoco_cs,orinoco psmouse 17800 0 ide_cd 38176 0 cdrom 35740 1 ide_cd genrtc 9332 0 ext3 109672 1 jbd 54552 1 ext3 ide_generic 1664 0 piix 12448 1 ide_disk 16768 5 ide_core 125028 4 ide_cd,ide_generic,piix,ide_disk unix 26036 96 font 8576 0 vesafb 6688 0 cfbcopyarea 3840 1 vesafb cfbimgblt 3200 1 vesafb cfbfillrect 3712 1 vesafb
0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 82440MX Host Bridge (rev 01) 0000:00:00.1 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corp. 82440MX AC'97 Audio Controller 0000:00:00.2 Modem: Intel Corp. 82440MX AC'97 Modem Controller 0000:00:07.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82440MX ISA Bridge (rev 01) 0000:00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82440MX EIDE Controller 0000:00:07.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82440MX USB Universal Host Controller 0000:00:07.3 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82440MX Power Management Controller 0000:00:08.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1410 PC card Cardbus Controller (rev 01) 0000:00:09.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage Mobility P/M (rev 64) 0000:00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10) 0000:00:0b.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): NEC Corporation IEEE 1394 [OrangeLink] Host Controller (rev 02)
SuSE 8.1 files
/etc/XF86Config (by SaX):
# /.../
# SaX generated XFree86 config file
# Created on: 2002-12-31.
#
# Version: 4.7
# Contact: Marcus Schaefer , 2001
#
# Automatically generated by [ISaX] (4.7)
# PLEASE DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE!
#
Section "Files"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/local"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/URW"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/PEX"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/latin2/misc:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/latin2/75dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/latin2/100dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/latin2/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/latin7/75dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/baekmuk:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/japanese:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/kwintv"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/truetype"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/uni"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/CID"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/ucs/misc"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/ucs/75dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/ucs/100dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/hellas/misc:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/hellas/75dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/hellas/100dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/hellas/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/sgi"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/xtest"
InputDevices "/dev/ttyS0"
InputDevices "/dev/ttyS1"
InputDevices "/dev/ttyS2"
InputDevices "/dev/ttyS3"
InputDevices "/dev/ttyS4"
InputDevices "/dev/ttyS5"
InputDevices "/dev/ttyS6"
InputDevices "/dev/ttyS7"
InputDevices "/dev/ttyS8"
InputDevices "/dev/psaux"
InputDevices "/dev/logibm"
InputDevices "/dev/sunmouse"
InputDevices "/dev/atibm"
InputDevices "/dev/amigamouse"
InputDevices "/dev/atarimouse"
InputDevices "/dev/inportbm"
InputDevices "/dev/gpmdata"
InputDevices "/dev/mouse"
InputDevices "/dev/usbmouse"
InputDevices "/dev/adbmouse"
InputDevices "/dev/input/mice"
InputDevices "/dev/input/event0"
InputDevices "/dev/pointer0"
InputDevices "/dev/pointer1"
InputDevices "/dev/pointer2"
InputDevices "/dev/pointer3"
EndSection
Section "ServerFlags"
Option "AllowMouseOpenFail"
EndSection
Section "Module"
Load "dbe"
Load "type1"
Load "speedo"
Load "freetype"
Load "extmod"
Load "glx"
Load "v4l"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Driver "Keyboard"
Identifier "Keyboard[0]"
Option "MapName" "Generic keyboard [ pc101 ]"
Option "Protocol" "Standard"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
Option "XkbModel" "pc101"
Option "XkbRules" "xfree86"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Driver "mouse"
Identifier "Mouse[1]"
Option "Device" "/dev/mouse"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "on"
Option "Name" "Autodetection"
Option "Protocol" "ps/2"
Option "Vendor" "Sysp"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Option "CalcAlgorithm" "CheckDesktopGeometry"
HorizSync 31-65
Identifier "Monitor[0]"
ModelName "1024X768@70HZ"
VendorName "--> LCD"
VertRefresh 58-78
UseModes "Modes[0]"
EndSection
Section "Modes"
Identifier "Modes[0]"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
DefaultDepth 16
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 32
Modes "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "640x480"
EndSubSection
Device "Device[0]"
Identifier "Screen[0]"
Monitor "Monitor[0]"
EndSection
Section "Device"
BoardName "3D Rage P/M Mobility"
BusID "0:9:0"
Driver "ati"
Identifier "Device[0]"
VendorName "ATI"
EndSection
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Layout[all]"
InputDevice "Keyboard[0]" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse[1]" "CorePointer"
Option "Clone" "off"
Option "Xinerama" "off"
Screen "Screen[0]"
EndSection
Section "DRI"
Group "video"
Mode 0660
EndSection
lsmod:
Module Size Used by Not tainted isa-pnp 29664 0 (unused) ipv6 138964 -1 (autoclean) orinoco_cs 4488 1 orinoco 29912 0 [orinoco_cs] hermes 5700 0 [orinoco_cs orinoco] ds 6436 1 [orinoco_cs] yenta_socket 9536 1 pcmcia_core 40448 0 [orinoco_cs ds yenta_socket] joydev 5600 0 (unused) evdev 4352 0 (unused) input 3168 0 [joydev evdev] usb-uhci 21612 0 (unused) af_packet 12904 1 (autoclean) 8139too 14280 1 mii 1056 0 [8139too] snd-intel8x0 18848 0 snd-pcm 63328 0 [snd-intel8x0] snd-timer 11524 0 [snd-pcm] snd-ac97-codec 26628 0 [snd-intel8x0] snd-mpu401-uart 3296 0 [snd-intel8x0] snd-rawmidi 13920 0 [snd-mpu401-uart] snd-seq-device 4140 0 [snd-rawmidi] snd 31300 0 [snd-intel8x0 snd-pcm snd-timer snd-ac97-codec snd-mpu401-uart snd-rawmidi snd-seq-device] usbcore 56768 1 [usb-uhci snd] soundcore 3396 0 [snd] nls_iso8859-1 2812 1 (autoclean) nls_cp437 4316 1 (autoclean) vfat 9620 1 (autoclean) fat 30584 0 (autoclean) [vfat] lvm-mod 62976 0 (autoclean)
lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 82440MX Host Bridge (rev 01) 00:00.1 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corp. 82440MX AC'97 Audio Controller 00:00.2 Modem: Intel Corp. 82440MX AC'97 Modem Controller 00:07.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82440MX ISA Bridge (rev 01) 00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82440MX EIDE Controller 00:07.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82440MX USB Universal Host Controller 00:07.3 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82440MX Power Management Controller 00:08.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1410 PC card Cardbus Controller (rev 01) 00:09.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage Mobility P/M (rev 64) 00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10) 00:0b.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): NEC Corporation IEEE 1394 [OrangeLink] Host Controller (rev 02)
Document maintained by rgm at fabbnet.net. last update: August 1, 2005