Friday, May 7, 2010

Arch Linux on a DELL Studio 1558 Notebook

Ive switched to Arch from Ubuntu for the moment. For a couple reasons; I wanted a more configurable system from the start but mostly Im getting a little bored of Ubuntu. No other reason than that. I went with the 64bit version.

Before I get any further, the following things are working:

  • Wireless
  • Network Card
  • ATI Graphics card (Propritary driver)
  • Web Cam
  • Sound

Untested

  • HDMI Port
  • Card Reader

Whats not working

  • Media Buttons (*)
  • CD-ROM Eject Button(**)

* Seems to work but crashes the computer
** You can still right click in gnome and eject the cd. This comes up in dmessg.


dell-wmi: Unknown key 0 pressed


Product Description

This is what is described on the receipt from dell.

- DELL Studio 1558 Notebook-OCQT
- Intel(R)Core(TM)i7-620M(2.66GHz,4 Threads,turbo boost up to 3.33GHz,4M cache)
- 15.6 " Full HD(1080p)WLED (1920 x 1080)Display with True
- ATI Mobility Radeon 5470 1GB
- Dell(TM) Wireless 365 Bluetooth Module
- Dell(TM) Wireless 1520 802.11n Mini-Card
- 640GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
- 4GB Dual-channel 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM (2 x 2GB)
- Bezel with Integrated 2.0MP Web Cam


lspci



00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor DRAM Controller (rev 12)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor PCI Express x16 Root Port (rev 12)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset HECI Controller (rev 06)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset USB2 Enhanced Host Controller (rev 06)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset High Definition Audio (rev 06)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev 06)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev 06)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev 06)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 5 (rev 06)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 6 (rev 06)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset USB2 Enhanced Host Controller (rev 06)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev a6)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 5 Series Chipset LPC Interface Controller (rev 06)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset 4 port SATA AHCI Controller (rev 06)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset SMBus Controller (rev 06)
00:1f.6 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset Thermal Subsystem (rev 06)
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Device 68e0
02:00.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc Device aa68
04:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation Device 4353 (rev 01)
07:00.0 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd Device e822 (rev 01)
07:00.1 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd Device e230 (rev 01)
07:00.2 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd Device e852 (rev 01)
07:00.3 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd Device e832 (rev 01)
09:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 03)
ff:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QuickPath Architecture Generic Non-core Registers (rev 02)
ff:00.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QuickPath Architecture System Address Decoder (rev 02)
ff:02.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QPI Link 0 (rev 02)
ff:02.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QPI Physical 0 (rev 02)
ff:02.2 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor Reserved (rev 02)
ff:02.3 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor Reserved (rev 02)


lsusb



Bus 001 Device 006: ID 413c:8162 Dell Computer Corp.
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 413c:8161 Dell Computer Corp.
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0c45:6417 Microdia
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0a5c:4500 Broadcom Corp. BCM2046B1 USB 2.0 Hub (part of BCM2046 Bluetooth)
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0020 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0020 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub


Installation


I had some issues with partitions. I wanted to keep the inital Windows 7 install and have another partition for Arch (Well two, / and swap). My inital solution was to resize the partitions using gparted with Ubuntu's live cd. This worked; I created some free space, and restarted with the Arch installation cd. When it changed to the disk resizing tool, cfdisk (when using manually set up partitions) I got this error message:


FATAL ERROR: Bad primary partition 3: Partition ends after end-of-disk
Press any key to exit cfdisk

Everywhere on the web seemed to suggest that I had to remove all the partitions and start again. This isn't the case; use fdisk, remove the parititions that were created in Ubuntu, create two new blank partitions, and write the partition table to disk. When you restart the installer, you should be able to format and select your new partitions without error.

Wireless


First thing I fixed was wireless. The wireless card requires the broadcom-wl driver, which is only available from yaourt. Append the yaourt repo to you pacman configuration file.

/etc/pacman.conf

[archlinuxfr]
Server = http://repo.archlinux.fr/x86_64

Install it.


pacman -Sy yaourt
pacman -S base-devel
yaourt -S broadcom-wl
modprobe wl

Now, eth0 or eth1 should be your wireless card.

dmesg:

eth0: Broadcom BCM4353 802.11 Hybrid Wireless Controller 5.60.48.36


I install wicd. Its, in my opinion the easiest way to connect to wireless internet. Sure, there are more lightweight options but this allows you to easily find, connect, and create profiles very easily.

pacman -S wicd

Fix for eth0 and eth1 swapping


Sometimes eth0 and eth1 swap, which is a bit of a pain when using wicd as you have to keep changing the settings. You can fix this by creating/editing the following file, and assigning the appropriate ATTR parameter to your wifi cards mac address.

File: /etc/udev/rules.d/10-network.rules

SUBSYSTEM=="net", ATTR{address}=="ff:ee:dd:cc:bb:aa", NAME="wlan0"



Graphics Card


I tried using the standard radeon driver (radeonhd does not work with this card). It worked ok, but the graphics card was going full speed all the time. This isn't very good when running on battery, but installing the propriety driver (now also in yaourt) fixed this.


# Note, you only have to run the first two commands if you currently have the open source
# driver installed.

# pacman -Rd libgl
# pacman -Rd xf86-video-ati

yaourt catalyst


Now, just follow the instructions as copied directly from yaourt.


You can use the tool 'aticonfig' to generate an xorg.conf file.
Remember to add fglrx to the MODULES list in /etc/rc.conf.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Add nomodeset to your kernel line in /boot/grub/menu.lst , ie.:
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/1aa731c0-f626-3d01-a551-8eed1c2a34f3 ro nomodeset
--------------------------------------------------------------


Sound


Note, I did not install pulseaudio. All i installed alsautil, and added alsa to the DAEMONS line in rc.conf.


pacman -S alsautils


ls -l /sys/module/snd/holders


lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 May 6 13:08 snd_hda_codec -> ../../snd_hda_codec
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 May 6 13:08 snd_hda_codec_idt -> ../../snd_hda_codec_idt
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 May 6 13:08 snd_hda_intel -> ../../snd_hda_intel
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 May 6 13:08 snd_hwdep -> ../../snd_hwdep
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 May 6 13:08 snd_mixer_oss -> ../../snd_mixer_oss
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 May 6 13:08 snd_pcm -> ../../snd_pcm
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 May 6 13:08 snd_pcm_oss -> ../../snd_pcm_oss
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 May 6 13:08 snd_seq -> ../../snd_seq
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 May 6 13:08 snd_seq_device -> ../../snd_seq_device
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 May 6 13:08 snd_seq_oss -> ../../snd_seq_oss
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 May 6 13:08 snd_timer -> ../../snd_timer


The module required for this sound card is snd_hda_intel.

As per the instructions on the wiki, I added this line to /etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf

options snd_hda_intel index=0


After restarting or modprobing snd_hda_indel, you aplay -l should look something like this:


card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: STAC92xx Analog [STAC92xx Analog]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: Generic [HD-Audio Generic], device 3: ATI HDMI [ATI HDMI]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0


You can test your sound with this:

aplay -D plughw:0,0 /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav

Add your user to audio group, and restart. Sound should be working.

Webcam


The driver for the webcam is included in the stock kernel. Just modprobe uvcvideo.


modprobe uvcvideo


CPU Frequency Scaling


I set cpu frequency governor to powersave. There are plenty of tutorials on the arch wiki on how to do this. One thing to watch out for though, is that you have to set the governor for EACH core. Setting it for one will not affect the other. I didn't install a daemon, so I have to change between the modules manually (Not a big deal; powersave seems fast enough anyway).
All you need is:


pacman -S cpufrequtils
modprobe acpi-cpufreq


So, add something like the below to a script that gets run on startup, say /etc/rc.local


# set all cores to powersave governer

cpufreq-set -c 0 -g powersave
cpufreq-set -c 1 -g powersave
cpufreq-set -c 2 -g powersave
cpufreq-set -c 3 -g powersave



# add to rc.conf, along with the governors you want to use.


MODULES=(acpi-cpufreq cpufreq_powersave ....)


Upgrading the kernel

After a kernel upgrade its more than likely your wireless and graphics cards will stop working.

When you try and start X11, you'll get:


(EE) unable to load module fglrx


Add this line to your /etc/pacman.conf


[catalyst]
Server = http://catalyst.apocalypsus.net/repo/catalyst/x86_64


Then


pacman -Syu # this should prompt you to upgrade catalyst; if not reinstall it anyway


Your broadcom wireless driver will have to be rebuilt again.


pacman -S base-devel
yaourt -S broadcom-wl


Note, if you get the error


Unable to read PKGBUILD


Try running yaourt as a NON root user (which you should be doing anyway).

Extras


Gnome - "unable to mount DEVICE - not authorized"


This is not an Arch/Dell issue, but something I came across. Making your xinitrc read as below, fixes it.

[~/.xinitrc]

exec ck-launch-session gnome-session


Conclusion


Thats pretty much everything I use my laptop for, so I'm happy with Arch for the moment.
Author: at 1:38 AM
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