LG_LW20

Overview

Current support status under kernel gentoo-sources-2.6.17-r4 and xorg-x11-7.1:

Legend:

Harddisk

Is a 60GB SATA harddisk identified as /dev/sda.

WLAN

See this guide.

Graphic Card

See this HowTo.

Volume Buttons

The volume and mute buttons can be used for their purpose (or something else if you wish). Running xev shows that the buttons have keycodes 174, 176 and 160, for -, + and mute, respectively.

Add the following lines to ~/.Xmodmap

keycode 174 = XF86AudioLowerVolume
keycode 176 = XF86AudioRaiseVolume
keycode 160 = XF86AudioMute

and (requires kdm)

/usr/bin/xmodmap $HOME/.Xmodmap

Then emerge kmilo and go to Control Center -> KDE Components -> KDE Services and Start KMilo.

See also: HOWTO Use Multimedia Keys, Samsung X20#Volume hotkeys

Ethernet

See this guide.

Sound

The sound driver hda-intel included in kernel 2.6.17 includes support for this laptop, so its no longer necessary to emerge alsa-driver. In older kernels it is necessary to emerge alsa-driver. alsa-driver-1.0.11 has specific suport for this laptop. Run emerge alsa-driver then alsaconf and its done.

Suspend to RAM and suspend to disk

Using suspend2-sources and hibernate-script from portage makes it possible to use suspend to RAM and to disk using the commands hibernate-ram and hibernate. Follow HOWTO Software Suspend v2 and Gentoo Power Management Guide to configure it.

Using acpid makes it possible to catch lid and power-button events to suspend to RAM and to disk. If you wish this functionality, edit /etc/acpi/default.sh and make it similar to the following script:

#!/bin/sh
set $*

group=${1/\/*/}
action=${1/*\//}

case "$group" in
	button)
		case "$action" in
			power)	/usr/sbin/hibernate &
				;;
			lid)	/usr/sbin/hibernate-ram &
				;;
			*)	logger "ACPI action $action is not defined"
				;;
		esac
		;;

	*)
		logger "ACPI group $group / action $action is not defined"
		;;
esac

Card Reader (SD/MMC/xD/MS/MS Pro)

Supported in kernel 2.6.17. Please see SD and MMC card readers for instructions. You also have to select the correct interface on boot, so add the following line to /etc/conf.d/local.start:

 setpci -s 06:00.3 4c=0x22

For more information about the driver, please see [1] and [2]

Battery

You can run on batteries for more than 4h, but that is not really useful since that duration is only achieved if you are not using the laptop for any real work.

Running cat /proc/acpi/battery/CMB0/info I'm informed that the battery has a design capacity of 4800 mAh, and after using the laptop for 3 months the present capacity is 4339 mAh. (A couple of full charge/discharge cycles can increase the battery capacity.)

The following table shows some results collected by cat /proc/acpi/battery/CMB0/state in different conditions. While this information is not very accurate, it still gives an idea of the autonomy for each usage situation.

Freq.	LCD	WiFi	KDE	mA	Activity
2000	Max	On	Yes	3170	kernel compilation
2000	Max	On	Yes	2010	Idle
800	Max	On	Yes	1530	Idle
800	Min	On	Yes	1260	Idle
800	Min	Off	Yes	1150	Idle
800	Min	Off	No	1100	Idle

Running at a minimum I'll get 4h approx, while at a maximum only 1h22m. I usually run at 800 MHz, LCD=Med, Wifi=On, KDE and mostly typing, surfing, and occasional cpu intensive processing, which tipically gives 3h autonomy.

Suspending to RAM will consume 18.8 mA approximately, which should be enough for 9 days.

Pay attention that batteries will fail if they run at high temperatures (I already killed mine...). So it is wise to use cpufreqd to run the laptop as cool as possible.

External Links

• This document is listed at the TuxMobil Linux laptop and notebook installation guides survey (LG Electronics).