wach-o-witz.de - Linux, Installation SUSE 9.1 ASUS L3D

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Installationreport of SUSE 9.1 on the ASUS L3500D
Last Update: 2004-06-28

2004-04-23

My SUSE 9.1 arrived today. To be honest, I'm really, really keen to install it right away. But then again, it's friday, 04:00 PM. And that means, we'll have a BBQ tonight with lots of beer an fun. And as we all know, alcohol and root rights don't mix very well. So my new toy has to wait 'till tomorrow.

If you have questions or comments regarding the installation, feel free to contact me at: uli at wach hyphen o hyphen witz dot de

2004-04-24

Despite the heavy abuse of Flensburger image extlink

, I'll try to install the new toy.
Details about the hardware can be found here where I described the installation of SUSE 8.2.

Ok, here we go. I've started the installation with DVD 1. As usual with SUSE, it went quite and smooth. To my surprise everything worked right out of the box. And I mean everything ;-) (at least everything that is important to me).

The complete hardware was recognized and configured, including:

Graphiccard
Soundcard
USB
Firewire
Touchpad
Network
Infrared (Irda)
TV Out
PAL / NTSC
SVHS / RCA
ACPI
-> UPDATE <-

Let's have a look at some details:

Graphiccard
Just have a look at my XF86Config

Soundcard
working

USB
working

Firewire
working

Touchpad
The Synaptics Touchpad is now known by the kernel out of the box.
So there is no need for external drivers as in 8.2

Network
working

IrDA
You have to edit '/etc/pcmcia/config.opts' to exclude the IRQs which should NOT be used by PCMCIA. Otherwise IRQ 3 will be used for the first PCMCIA card. As PCMCIA is started at boottime before IrDA, IRQ 3 will not be available for IrDA so 'ttyS1' (the IrDA port) will not be accessible.

So your 'config.opts' should look like this:
```
		# First built-in serial port
		exclude irq 4
		# Second built-in serial port (IrDA)
		exclude irq 3
		
```
Modem
~~Not working~~
Well, this seems to be a caveat of the 2.6 kernel. There is an article (only in german) about this in SUSEs sdb:
http://portal.suse.com/sdb/de/2004/04/thallma_winmodem_91.html

Let me summarize:
----
At the time of assembling the 9.1 there was no winmodem-driver for the 2.6 kernel. There is only the 'SmartLink' driver (which is included) and the one from Lucent ('ltmodem', also included).
Right now there is no solution because without drivers which support the 2.6 kernel there is no way of supporting winmodems.
Also, there is no winmodem support for the 64bit version in general.
----

I hope this clarifies it.

-> UPDATE (modem IS working) <-

ACPI
Well, this was the point I was really, really keen about
- Powersaving is working right out of the box:
  There are three predefined profiles:
  1. Performance
    Scheme optimized for running the machine on maximum power
  2. Accoustic
    Scheme optimized to let the machine run as quite as possible
  3. Powersave
    Scheme optimized to let maximum power savings take place.
    The CPU is dynamicly throttled.
- When running on battery, Powersave is activated, when on AC-power, Performance is activated. And this without any hacking or interference from me ;-)
  So I can forget all my dirty tricks I had to use with 8.2.
- Standby
  Standby can be activated manually by entering 'powersave --standby'.
  Indeed my machine enters the standby mode, but on resume the display stays black. I'll have to look into this later.
- Suspend
  Suspend is working by entering 'powersave --suspend'.
  The machine suspends, it resumes, what else do I need?
  
  OTOH, do I need suspend? Not really!
  Either I'm working with my machine or not. If the latter, why should it suspend?
  I simply switch it off.
  
  Nonetheless, if you think you need it, read ahead.
  
  All you have to do is to edit '/etc/powersave.conf'. Right at the end there are two lines:
  
  POWERSAVED_DISABLE_USER_SUSPEND=yes
  POWERSAVED_DISABLE_USER_STANDBY=yes
  
  Change the 'yes' to 'no' and you can do some experiments yourselve.
  I'll leave it to your imagination how to integrate this into your system.
  HINT: 'xautolock' and 'Powerbutton'.
  
  -> UPDATE <-
- Some hints:
  - 'acpi4asus' is now included in the kernel. Just load the module 'acpi_asus' and you can use it as described here.
    You must be aware that SUSE 9.1 does NOT use 'acpid' but 'powersaved' instead. So to get the module loaded during startup, you'll have to edit the file '/etc/sysconfig/powersave/common'.
    
    Search for the definition of 'POWERSAVE_ACPI_MODULES' and add 'acpi_asus'.
    Same goes for 'POWERSAVE_ACPI_MODULES_NOT_TO_UNLOAD'
  - Make sure to edit '/etc/sysconfig/powersave/common' and enter the correct module for cpufrequence scaling. Mine looks like this:
    
    POWERSAVE_CPUFREQD_MODULE="powernow-k7"

2004-04-25

§$&%?!

I don't know why, but suddenly 'powersave --suspend' stopped working. I have no clue why, but here is a short description of the problem:

The machine suspends as it should, but on resume, it loads the image from disk, and reboots.
This is an ever ongoing loop. There is no chance of entering the system. The only rescue was to boot with knoppix and to remove the 'resume' option from 'boot.lst'. One could also boot the 'Failsafe' variation.

Anyway, without this option a suspend is not possible. We'll see......

2004-04-25 (The same day, some hours later)

Now it's getting weird. The suspend-problem is caused by the module 'sis_agp' (Thanks to Stefan Seyfried for this tip). As long as this module is loaded, the machine will react as described above. As this module can't be unloaded, I have to blacklist it in '/etc/hotplug/blacklist'. I've simply made an entry 'sis-agp' to prevent this module from beeing loaded at boottime. Of course, without this module, there will be no 3d support anymore. As I don't use my notebook for games etc. I couldn't care less.

Right now 'suspend' is working and thats for that......

2004-04-26 Suspend

Well, here are some more infos regarding the suspend problem: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/199869/match=

How-To

You have to install the kernel sources
apply this patch
recompile
remove 'sis-agp' from '/etc/hotplug/blacklist' if you put it there
reboot

For me, it's working. Suspending and resuming WITH loaded 'sis_agp'

How to apply the patch:

> cd /usr/src/linux
> patch -p1 < /tmp/patch1
> zcat /proc/config.gz > .config
> make all modules_install install

-> UPDATE <-

2004-04-29 ACPI Fn-Keys

Another nice thing I've found working are the function 'Fn' keys.At least for 'brightness' and 'suspend'. Simply edit '/etc/sysconfig/powersave/common' to get the actions you need.

My 'events' section looks like this:

## Path: System/Powermanagement/Powersave/Events
## Type: string(notify,wm_shutdown,wm_logout,standby,suspend,screen_saver,ignore)
#
# Button events. What functions of the proxy should be
# triggered if a ACPI button is pressed?
#
POWERSAVE_EVENT_BUTTON_POWER="wm_shutdown"
POWERSAVE_EVENT_BUTTON_SLEEP="suspend"
POWERSAVE_EVENT_BUTTON_LID_OPEN="switch_vt"
POWERSAVE_EVENT_BUTTON_LID_CLOSED="screen_saver"

Also working are the 'Fn' keys for the switching between 'LCD' and 'CRT'. Same goes for the TV-OUT. If ie. a TV is connected when starting the X-server, the TV-OUT is activated regarding the settings in the BIOS (NTS/PAL).

For getting all the other ACPI-keys (like volume and the 4 silver buttons beside the power button) I use Stefan Seyfrieds script which can be found in the documentation at '/usr/share/doc/packages/powersave/contrib/acpi_hotkeys_ASUS_L2400D'. I rewrote it a bit as I only wanted the volume keys. After that I enabled this script in '/etc/powersave.conf' to handle all 'other' events.

2004-05-10 Kernel Update

SUSE released a new kernel this weekend. The new kernel is '2.6.4-54.5'. With this update the above mentioned patch is no longer necessary. On the contrary, after installing the new kernel with YOU my system was fubar ;-)

As this was no surprise (do I have to refer to the mentioned patch?) I simply started from DVD, chose 'Installation/Repair installed system' and all was fine again. Now 'suspend' works without blacklisting 'sis_agp' with an original SUSE kernel ;-)

2004-05-30 Modem

I've received a very helpfull hint from Federico Dami. He's got the modem working. Here's what he did:

install 'smartlink-softmodem' which is included in the distribution
activate in YASTs 'Runlevel Editor' the service 'slmodemd' (to be executed at boot)
with YAST, configure the modem as '/dev/ttySL0'

Thats it. Now the modem is accessible as 'ttySL0'. All further configuration (kinternet, wvdial, etc) depends on you system and I'll leave it up to your imagination. Be aware that you don't hear the modem dialing, nonetheless, it works.

OK, that's it for now. I'm sure i'll find some more things to tweak. Anyway, I'll keep you informed