Howto - Fujitsu Siemens Amilo D 8830 and Linux

Lukas Valle

lukivalle@gmx.ch

home

Version 1.2

18.05.2005

  1. Introduction

    2. 1.1 Preface
    1.2 Copyright
    1.3 The authors
    1.4 Feedback
    1.5 Acknowledgements
  2. Hardware
  3. Installation
  4. Boot-Problem
  5. X11 (KDE3)
  6. 3D-Support
  7. Sound
  8. Network
  9. USB
  10. CD-R and DVD
  11. PCMICA
  12. Printer
  13. Todo
  14. TuxMobil

  1. Introduction

    2. 1.1 Preface

    This document includes my experience to installing Linux on an Amilo D 8830. I thought this information might be useful to the Linux community.

    This information is intended for Linux on the Fujitsu Siemens Amilo D 8830 Notebook. Much of this information may be applicable to Linux on other laptops, but I have no first-hand experience or information about this. The description is based on a SuSE Linux 9.3 Professional with kernel version 2.6.11.4. It should run on most other systems and with any 2.6.x kernel although I haven't tested it.

    1.2 Copyright

    Copyright © 2005 Lukas Valle. Permission to distribute and modify this document is granted under the GNU Free Documentation License

    1.3 The author

    Valle Lukas: I just return from a half year journy through south america. Now I'm looking for a job and I have time to play a little bit with the newest Linux-Features

    1.4 Feedback

    I welcome any feedback, good or bad, on the content of this document. I have done my best to ensure that the instructions and information herein are accurate and reliable. Please let me know if you find any errors or omissions.

    Send comments, corrections and questions to the author at lukivalle@gmx.ch,

    1.5 Acknowledgements

    I would like to thank:

    The KDE Development-Team

    The SuSE-Team

    Many other authors who have wrote usefull linux and laptop howto's.

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  2. Hardware

    3. Laptop: Fujitsu Siemesn Amilo D 8830
    Processor: Intel Pentium4 3GHz
    Memory: 512MB SDRAM
    Harddisk: 40GB
    Atapi: CD-RW/DVD-ROM SBW-241
    Floppy: 1.44MB
    Network: DP83815 (MacPhyter) Ethernet Controller
    Audio: 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Soundcard

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  3. Installation

    4. I've made a normal Standard SuSE installation in a free partition. SuSE can reduce the Windows-Partion and make a new Partion in the free part of the Disk. Windows seems to work well after all that.

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  4. Boot-Problem

    5. During the first reboot linux hung after the following grub message:

    GRUB loading stage
    GRUB loading, please wait...

    The problem was, that grub not was able to read from the new Reiser-FS Partion (why I don't know) on which I installed my Linux. After an other try, I installed SuSE again, but now I formatted the partition with an ext3 Filesystem. With ext3, my Linux System started without any problems.

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  5. X11 (KDE3)

    6. After the installation all the graphic stuff (X11, KDE...) did work without any further modifications.

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  6. 3D-Support

    7. I don't have tested the 3D-Support yet.

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  7. Sound

    8. The soundsystem works well with the alsa drivers, but not before I've started and quit "alsamixer" once in a terminal.

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  8. Network

    9. Ethernet-Adapter: Works well
    Modem: The installed Modem is a PCI-Modem, which needs special drivers from Smart Link which are not working if a smp-kernel is installed, which SuSE normally does, if they are detecting a Pentium 4 processor. You can get all the information you need to get the modem run from the following SuSE Websites:
    http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2004/05/thallma_91_smartlink.html
    http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2004/05/thallma_91_kernelswitch.html

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  9. USB

    10. At the moment I use an USB mouse which does work wihtout any problems.
    To get work the synchronisation of KPilot with my Palm Zire which I can connect over USB I just had to add the users also in the uucp group (Yast User and Group Dialog). Otherwise only root has access to /dev/ttyUSBx

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  10. CD-R and DVD

    11. Buring CD's is working without any problems. Until now, I haven't tried to watch any DVD's

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  11. PCMCIA

    12. not tested

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  12. Printer

    13. The most printers are working without any problem and you can configure them with yast. But the yast way does not working for the Samsung CLP-500 Printer. Samsung has written their own printer driver which you can download from the Samsung website.
    Just download the driver and install it like it is described in the readme. But after starting linux-config you'll not be able to add a new printer. The tool will ask you for a login and a password, but reject all your tries. First you have to generate the cups admin account as described in the SuSE Admin Handbook. Just run as root:
    lppasswd -g sys -a root
    Now try again with the linux-config tool to add the printer. Now you should be able to add new printers. After that the Samsung printer seems to work well with all applications. For smaller installations to use the linux-config tool seems not to as bad, but for bigger installations, I think you should choose an printer which you can integrate better in your standard tools like yast.
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  13. Todo

    14. The following things I don't have tested untli now. Has anybody done it?
    Video-Out
    external Display
    ACPI (Powermanagement)
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  14. TuxMobil

    15. This report is listed at TuxMobil - Linux on laptops, notebooks, PDAs and mobile phones.
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