Preamble:This
is a living document describing my struggles with getting Linux on
Compaq's line of Presario 900 notebooks. This is to help others
with this notebook not waste as much time as I have getting a decent
OS running. Many thanks to those on the
LinuxPresario900
Mailing List. No thanks to Compaq/HP. This will be
Red Hat specific when needed (to fill
the void), for other distros see
Mandrake
(by Olivier Ricordeau),
Debian (by
Vicente Aguilar), and
Slackware (by Carlo
Sogono) specific pages. I've had Gentoo, Mandrake, and Debian
distros running, but I prefer RH for historical reasons.
Hardware: AMD Athlon
XP 1800+, 256MB DDR 266, 15" Display, ATI Mobility U1, 40 GB HDD,
DVD/CDRW 8/24/24, RealTek 8139 10/100 NIC, Conextant (win)Modem, 2 USB,
1 PS/2, Parallel, S-Video, VGA, headphone and mic ports, 1 PCMCIA
Type II slot, ALi 5145 Sound.
Component
|
Status
|
Comments
|
| Mobile AMD Athlon XP 1800+
(1.533GHz) |
ACPI patch works well |
|
ATI Mobility U1
|
Works, XFree86 4.3 |
Upgrade to XFree 4.3 and stop
wasting time with the old ones
|
DVD/CDRW
|
Both work
|
See the CD-writing HOWTO
for detail if needed. Make sure you include IDE-SCSI emulation,
generic SCSI support, SCSI CDrom support in your kernel. Add
hdc=ide-scsi to your kernel options. (see howto for details)
|
RealTek NIC
|
Working, 8139too or 8139cp
module.
|
8139cp is recommended (newer),
but some distro's don't have it by default
|
Conextant Modem
|
Works, without a preemtive
kernel.
|
Get drivers here.
|
USB
|
OHCI, Working with my Logitech
Mouse and Sony DSC-S85 |
HDD stops responding when
usb-ohci module is loaded in < 2.4.20, followed by kernel panic.
Use > 2.4.20.
|
PCMCIA
|
working, not tested with card
yet
|
...
|
TouchPAD
|
Works, with up/down
|
Get drivers here
|
Multimedia Keys
|
Works
|
Get following software: Hotkeys Deps: db3, xosd, libxosd
My Config: /etc/hotkeys.conf /usr/share/hotkeys/pres900.def
More info here
|
ALi 5154 Sound
|
Working with patch (small fix)
to module code, OSS trident and ALSA ali5145 modules
|
Read about the trident
and ali5145fixes.
PATCHES NOW MERGED INTO KERNEL.
|
Multiport 802.11b Wireless Lan W200
|
No drivers
|
The W100 was a Prism2_usb chipset, but the W200
is not. Rumors have it that it is an Atmel or Orinoco chipset...
If someone knows spread the word, if someone has this working please
tell me.
|
Getting Red
Hat 8.0/9 installed:
- Boot from the CD, at the install prompt type (ie: boot:):linux nomce
ide=nodma pci=biosirq
The nomce
gets you past the MCE error, and the ide=nodma stops hda from not
responding. Standard install procedure from here on.
- Add
the same options to GRUB by selecting the "Advanced Options" at the boot
loader stage of the install.
- After
completing the install, BEFORE logging into GNOME do the following: as
root, remove or comment out the trident driver from /etc/modules.conf. Else
the trident driver is loaded by GNOME and then your hard drive stops
responding as above.
- That's it for getting a running system.. but see the above table
for getting USB, sound, etc. working.. Below
for kernels
Installing 2.4.X-preX-acX-mhp kernel
(includes acpi patch)
- Download and install kernel RPM (below).
- (Optional) Patch and compile your own kernel with my patch
(against 2.4.20), needed for modem.
- Add entry into bootloader
For grub add this to /etc/grub.conf :
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.X-preX-acX-mhp)
root (hd0,5)
kernel
/vmlinuz-2.4.X-preX-acX-mhp ro root=/dev/hda7 hdc=ide-scsi
initrd
/initrd-2.4.X-preX-acX-mhp.img
root(hd0,5): corresponds to /dev/hda6 is my /boot partition --- Yours
may be different
root=/dev/hda7: is my root (/) partition --- Yours may be
different
REFER TO YOUR PREVIOUS ENTRIES
- Installing modem modules for
2.4.X-preX-acX-mhp kernel
- Ensure your kernel source is available.
- Download and install the Generic Binary RPM here
- Remember to run /usr/sbin/hsfconfig after installing
NOTE: Removed kernels that are
vulnerable to the local root ptrace exploit. Use
2.4.21-pre5-ac3-mhp3 or greater.
Gnome Battery Charge
Monitor
I've patched the GNOME Battstat Applet with ACPI
code from the newly released
GNOME
2.2 Battstat Applet.
So now you can get pretty battery status on your
panel. The v2.0 applet uses old acpi code, which has since changed
in the
latest
releases.
If you are running a kernel patched with ACPI, and
RH 8.0, you can install this
gnome-applets RPM.
To install (as root):
> rpm -ihv --force
gnome-applets-2.0.1-6-mhp.i386.rpm
Screenshots:
Discharging Charging Full
Charge
By Popular demand:
AquaX theme
Note: This applet
IS the cause of random system "hangs" (where it is still running
but VERY slow, X and battstat at 100% cpu use). I have stopped
using it and have yet to experience the problem.
The cause appears to be a loop invariant not being
maintained, so progress to termination is not ensured!
Other notes: I'll try to answer any emails as quick
as I can, but school prevents me from replying most of the time.
I'll try to get some more info and files available as soon as I
get the time... hope this helps!
