Article for Linux on laptops

I wrote this article a long time ago for linuxonlaptops to document installing (now a very old version of debian) linux on a Compaq Evo N115 laptop. At the time this was the only such description for that particular laptop, however I'm sure much better and more uptodate accounts have been written since.

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When i first started trying to find information out about this model i almost no documentation which is why i started to write this.

First thing i did was repartition the hard drive. since i wanted to keep win xp i used partition magic in windows to resize the ntfs and fat 32 partitions and to add some ext2 partitions.

The distro i used was debian woody but these instructions shouldnt be that different for other distros as long as the distros are fairly new. I use a 2.4.18 kernel but the basic things, including x, work with a 2.2 kernel.

Nothing in here is guaranteed but it seemed to work for me(although the n115s do vary a bit)!


my laptop's specs

network card
The card used on the evo n115 is a nice realtek rtl8139, I had no probs setting this up, the driver is included as standard during setup.

graphics
A bit more difficult. After some research I discovered that the s3 twister k graphics chip uses the 'savage' driver. I needed to install xfree86 4.2.0, binaries for this can be found at: http://www.xfree86.org/4.2.0/Install2.html and instructions to install it can be found at http://www.xfree86.org/4.2.0/Install3.html#3
A copy of my XF86Config file (this should work for any n115 using xfree86 4.2.0)
Don't yet know if its possible to get openGL working though (if anybody does, please let me know!)

sound
This was a pain to set up. The evo n115 uses the soundmax integrated digital audio sound chip. I recompiled the kernel to include sound support and the via82cxxx_audio as modules, these were accepted but no sound was produced when music was played. I didn't include any oss stuff since it didnt seem necessary and I generally don't include it anyway. I tried to use the alsa drivers thinking this might solve the problem of no sound but for some reason I was unable to compile the drivers correctly (problems with unresolved symbols). It was then that I found a very useful web site containing a new ac97_codec which I was told needed to replace the existing one in /usr/src/linux-2.4.18/drivers/sound/ and then rerun make modules and make modules_install. This solved the problem and I had sound. :)
-link to ac97_codec and www.geocities.com/compaq_715us/

power management
The first time I tried to get this working I recompiled the kernel with apm support built in, this caused the halt to actually power off the machine but caused the machine to freeze solid when it tried to suspend itself every now and again. I then tried recompiling the kernel with apm as a module which for some reason stopped the halt/power off function to stop working but that was all. Also the battery power detection doesnt work at all. I have been told that using acpi (another kernel recompile then) with a patch from the site http://sourceforge.net/projects/acpi will make everything good. I have now compiled into the kernel acpi support, with all the extra acpi stuff as modules. I am happy to report that the laptop now shuts down on its own, but thats about it. I am not sure what to do with the stuff from sourceforge but as soon as I sit down and figure it out, I will document it on here.

modem
I've been assured that this can work in linux although I have yet to give it a try. It's a conexant intl HSFi V92 MiniPCI modem which I think is a software modem but the drivers do seem to exist somewhere.

pcmcia
Haven't tried getting this to work at all yet, apparently it uses a texas instruments PCI-1410 cardbus controller

cdrom
I don't have a dvd or cd-rewriter so i dont know how to set them up, but the standard cdrom works fine. Debian required to me create a sym link from it to /dev/cdrom, i achieved this by doing ln -s /dev/hdc /dev/cdrom

usb
I haven't tried this yet but it seems to be set up fine. During setup or recompiling the kernel choose the uhci module.

my laptop specs
duron 1ghz
128 mb ram
20 gb hard disk drive
s3 graphics twister k 16mb shared ram, can be increased to 32mb, 4x agp
Via KT133/KM133 motherboard
USB controller: Via UHCI usb
soundmax intergrated digital audio
mitsumi cdrom sr243t
realtek rtl18139 family pci fast ethernet NIC
conexant intl HSDi V92 MiniPCI modem
texas instruments PCI-1410 cardbus controller