Toshiba Satellite A200

From ArchWiki

Jump to: navigation, search

This document covers installation and basic configuration Arch Linux on Toshiba Satellite A200-1GH. In general it should also apply to rest of A200 series.

Feel free to contact me if any problems or suggestions (m4jkel at gmail.com) (English or Polish).

Contents

Specification

lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express PCI Express Root Port (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) SATA IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G72M [Quadro NVS 110M/GeForce Go 7300] (rev a1)
04:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 4965 AG or AGN Network Connection (rev 61)
05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 01)
06:04.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Cardbus Controller
06:04.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments PCIxx12 OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
06:04.2 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments 5-in-1 Multimedia Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/xD)
06:04.3 Generic system peripheral [0805]: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 SDA Standard Compliant SD Host Controller

Installation

This notebook comes with Windows Vista installed. In the beginning there are 3 partitions on the hard disc, which may produce some problems to reorganize. GParted and cfdisk refused even to start because of errors in partition structure. I recommend to rerun Toshiba recovery utillity from DVD and choose to create only one small partition for Windows. Then you'll get much of free space to use for Linux or other NTFS partitions.

Installation itself is easy, just follow official Arch guide.

Graphics

GPU is GeForce Go 7300, so install nvidia package. Then run xorg-conf to create your own xorg.conf file. I don't know what are the correct monitor settings but those work for me:

HorizSync 31.5-64.3
VertRefresh 50-70

NOTE: Set correct resolution which is 1280x800. Using 1280x1024 makes desktop and fonts look awful.

AIGLX and BERYL

Setting up AIGLX and Beryl is easy with this GPU, just install needed packages and add following lines to your xorg.conf. You can find additional information here http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beryl.

Section "Module"
 Load        "glx"
EndSection

Section "Device"
 Driver      "nvidia"

 Option      "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "true"
 Option      "UseEvents"         "false"
 Option      "RenderAccel"       "true"
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
 Option      "Composite"         "enable"
EndSection

Second screen

Laptop has D-SUB port, so you can connect second monitor. Use Fn+F5 buttons to change beetwen screen modes. The easiest way to configure double screen view in X is using NVIDIA X Server Settings and clicking X Server Display Configuration.

Sound

Run alsaconf. If you want MIDI support take a look at http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Timidity

Networking

Ethernet

Works with no effort.

Modem

That's the only thing I didn't managed to run. I tried to connect to /dev/ttySX using minicom, but got no response. It seems to be winmodem.

Wireless

Laptop comes with Intel 4965 AGN, but it's very easy to install. Grab iwlwifi and iwlwifi-4965-ucode from extra repository. It works like a charm with wpa_supplicant and wext driver.

There is official support in Kismet for this chipset.

Bluetooth

Finally I got it working. The solution is to use omnibook module from http://omnibook.sourceforge.net/. The stable version doesn't compile with recent kernel. So I advice to install it from svn. You can do it by hand or use PKGBUILD from AUR.

Then load the module with parameter ectype=12. In dmesg you should receive some information about loaded features which among others will be bluetooth. Then check if hciconfig shows hci0. You should also get new usb device in lsusb. By now bluetooth is ready to use. Anyway, it should. (This no longer works, since the module is no longer mantained (no updates, no webpage) - Edit by Phitherek_)

On the Arch Forum I've found an information about toshset (http://www.schwieters.org/toshset/), another way to run bluetooth on Toshiba laptop. You can try this if you want. (This is OK, but you must recompile your kernel with Toshiba support. - Edit by Phitherek_)

ACPI

First of all start /etc/rc.d/acpid and add it to DAEMONS in rc.conf.

Special buttons

Some special buttons work out-of-box, some not. Here is the list:

Button                    Comment
Power                     Recognized by ACPI, add event to /etc/acpi/events, see below
Web                       Works (xbindkeys)
Music (?)                 Doesn't work
Play                      Works (xbindkeys)
Stop                      Works (xbindkeys)
Rev                       Works (xbindkeys)
Ffd                       Works (xbindkeys)

Fn+Esc (Mute)             Works (xbindkeys)
Lock                      Works (xbindkeys)
Magnify                   Doesn't work
Suspend to RAM            Doesn't work
Suspend to disc           Doesn't work
VGA switch                Works out-of-box
Brightness                Works, module "video"
WIFI                      Doesn't work (there is a switch, so what for?)
Touchpad on/off           Doesn't work
Num Lock/Scroll Lock      Work

Volume knob               Works (xbindkeys)

This makes power button operational. Create /etc/acpi/events/power and add as following:

event=button[ /]power.*[02468ace]$
action=/opt/kde/bin/dcop --all-users --all-sessions ksmserver ksmserver logout 0 2 0

This action is useful if you use KDE. You can change it to action=poweroff.

CPU frequency scaling

Cpu scalling works great, choose from many different utilities to handle it (I use cpudyn).

Suspend2

Suspend2 works fine both to RAM and to disc. I still test this feature, so this paragraph may change. Kernel patching is required. You can obtain dedicated suspend2 kernel, but there are no iwliwifi package for this kernel. I built my own kernel with suspend2 patch using ABS.

Configuration is covered in http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Suspend2. You may come across problems trying to hibernate desktop with Beryl. If so, try to uncheck Sync with VBlack in Beryl settings (General Options).

To make laptop hibernating to RAM after closing the screen add those lines to /etc/acpi/events/lid:

event=button[ /]lid.*
action=/usr/sbin/hibernate -F /etc/hibernate/ram.conf

Camera

In versions 2.6.26.2+ of the kernel there's builtin support for the webcam so no need install extra drivers.

Unexpectedly it works.

  • get linux-unv-svn from AUR and build it using ABS
  • do depmod -ae.
  • download luvcview and compile it. There is such PKGBUILD in AUR but it produced an error during compilation. I'll check it later.
  • to see yourself in the camera run luvcview -f yuv -w

Optical drive

CD/DVD reading works fine. I watch DVD films with mplayer. Burning with no problems using k3b.

Multimedia card reader

Card reader is 5-in-1 Texas Instrument device. There is kernel driver (tifm), but now there are only MMC/SD card supported. It should change in the future.

Touchpad

Touchpad works right after installation, but if you want some additional features like scrolling, use synaptics driver. http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Touchpad_Synaptics

Express Card

Works.

There are no many Express Card devices on the market now. I tested out Merlin XU870, which is wireless 3G, HSDPA, GPRS modem. In fact it appears as an USB device. AFAIR Express Card devices should use either PCI Express or USB bus, so there will be no problems with Express Card slot itself under Linux.

Firewire

Unknown

Personal tools