Laptop_Guide_Template_II

Hardware

14,1 inch display @ 1280x800 or 1440x900 (D630)
15,4 inch display @ 1280x800 or 1680x1050 or 1920x1200 (D830)
Intel Core 2 Duo processors
Intel 965GM chipset (ICH8M)
Up to 4 GB RAM  	
Intel GMA X3100 or NVIDIA Quadro NVS 135M
ALPS GlidePoint touchpad and trackpoint
hard drive
DVD+/-RW optical drive
Broadcom NetXtreme BCM5755M Gigabit Ethernet
Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG / 4965AGN or Dell Wireless 1390 / 1490 / 1505 wifi
Dell Wireless 360 bluetooth
Connexcant modem
Dell Wireless 5520 HSDPA or Dell Wireless 5720 EVDO card
Intel High Definition Audio and built-in microphone
USB 2.0
O2 Micro OZ601/6912/711E0 PC-Card controller
O2 Micro Firewire controller
O2 Micro CCID smartcard reader
SGS Thomson Microelectronics fingerpint sensor
serial connector
docking station connector

Order hints / linux compatibility

When you order this model, some hints on some of the available components:

• Graphic card:
  • Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100: It offers basic 3D acceleration. There is an opensource drivers integrated into Xorg: xf86-video-i810.
  • NVIDIA Quadro NVS 135M: This is a dedicated graphic card and offers advanced 3D acceleration. There is a proprietary driver available: nvidia-drivers.
• WLAN card:
  • Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g: This card is supported by the kernel driver b43.
  • Dell Wireless 1490 802.11a/g: This card is supported by the kernel driver b43.
  • Dell Wireless 1505 Draft 802.11n: There is basic support by ndiswrapper.
  • Intel 3945 802.11a/g: This card is supported by the kernel driver iwl3945.
  • Intel 4965 802.11a/g/n: This card is supported by the kernel driver iwl4965.
• Modem: is supported by a proprietary driver: hsfmodem.

All other hardware devices are fully supported.

Hardware Status Overview

	Device	Working	Driver	Comments
Processor	Processor
Drives and Storage	Hard Drive		ahci
	Optical Drive		ata_piix
	Firewire		ohci1394
USB	USB		uhci, ehci
Graphics	Intel		i915, intel
	ATI		fglrx, radeon, radeonhd
	NVIDIA		nvidia
Input Devices	Keyboard		keyboard
	Touchpad		synaptics
	Trackstick		evdev
	Functions Keys
Networking	Ethernet		sky2
	WLAN: Intel		iwlwifi
	WLAN: Dell		b43, ndiswrapper	For Dell Wireless 1390 see Troubleshooting
	Modem		hsfmodem
	Bluetooth		hci_usb
	IrDA	unknown
Sound	Sound		snd_intel_hda	See Troubleshooting
Other	PC Card		yenta_socket
	ExpressCard		pciehp
	SD and MMC card readers		sdhci
	Memory Stick reader
	xD card reader
	Smartcard Reader
	Fingerprint Readers		fprint
	Hardware Sensors
	Suspend to RAM
	Suspend to Disk

Dell Laptop guides

Dell specific laptop guides:

• Dell Function Keys
• Dell Hardware Sensors
• Dell BIOS Upgrade
• Dell Utility / System Restore / MediaDirect
• Dell Docking Station

Generic Laptop guides

Some generic laptop guides:

• ACPI
• Power Management

Troubleshooting

Clock

Change /etc/conf.d/clock:

 CLOCK_OPTS="--directisa"
 

WLAN: Dell Wireless 1390

lspci

0c:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI (rev 01)

lspci -n

0c:00.0 0200: 14e4:4311 (rev 01)

There are kernel drivers for this device, but they are still in development. Most people report the best results with ndiswrapper. Step-by-step instructions are provided in this HowTo.

If you want to use the older BCM43xx drivers, see this HowTo.

The newer driver is the b43 driver, which is included in kernels starting with 2.6.24. For more information see http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43.

You may find it necessary to use an older version of the FW extractor software. To use the b43-fwcutter-009 instead of the b43-fwcutter-011 firmware extractor mentioned in the article and the Dell Inspiron 1520 How-TO

Download, extract the b43-fwcutter-009 tarball and build it per the instructions at http://www.linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43.

The tarball is locate here:

wget http://bu3sch.de/b43/fwcutter/b43-fwcutter-009.tar.bz2

Sound

To activate the microphone you have to enable all Capture and Mux channels (left and right) and also set Input Source to Front Mic.

ACPI

The ACPI DSDT table is broken. However, the stated goal of the Linux ACPI project today is that Linux should run on unmodified firmware. (see Linux/ACPI project). If you have problems you should report them upstream to get them fixed.

Alternatively you find a fixed (by dev_zero) dsdt.asl here.

To hardcompile your new DSDT into the kernel, follow these steps:

• Download the dsdt and extract it:

# gunzip Dell-Latitude-D630-A03.asl.gz

• Then install iasl.

# emerge -v iasl

You'll need iasl (Intel ASL compiler) to compile the ASL source you get from http://acpi.sourceforge.net .

• Then to compile your newly aquired DSDT, do:

# iasl -ic Dell-Latitude-D630-A03.asl

And now, this isn't essential, but I copied the Dell-Latitude-D630-A03.h into the kernel source.

# cp Dell-Latitude-D630-A03.h /usr/src/linux/include/acpi/dsdt.h

• Time for some kernel configuration:

Make sure you uncheck "Select only drivers that don't need compile-time external firmware", under "Device Drivers" -> "Generic Driver Options".

Device Drivers  --->
    Generic Driver Options  --->
        [ ] Select only drivers that don't need compile-time external firmware"

This makes the "Custom DSDT Table file to include" option appear under, "Power management options" -> "ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) Support". Fill in the path to where you copied/compiled your DSDT's headerfile.

Power management options  --->
    ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) Support  --->
        [*] Include Custom DSDT
        (/usr/src/linux/include/acpi/dsdt.h) Custom DSDT Table file to include

Only thing left now is to do some make-magic and copy the kernel image inplace and reboot.

NOTE: If while compiling the kernel you get and error about "amlcode" try to compile the asl file with -

# iasl -tc /path-to-.asl file/filename.asl

This will create a ".hex" file in the path you compiled it in I wrote the full path and file name of this hex file in the kernel and it worked for me.