This is a summary of how I got Linux to work on various latop-specific features of my system. I wrote it as much to try to clarify my own understanding as to help others with Linux laptop installation. Although these steps worked for me, I can't guarantee they'll work for you, and I won't be held responsible for any damage to your machine or data as a result of following the instructions described here. 

I apologize in advance for the disarray of this document. I recommend reading it from start to finish, as I often do not provide "step-by-step" instructions for specific subsections. It will make more sense, I hope, if you read it in order of presentation. 

I would be glad to respond to any emails. Also, I'd really appreciate corrections and suggestions. I'm sure there are inaccuracies here someone can point out and explain. My e-mail address is jeffreychiu@yahoo.com.

Linux is cool. Have fun. 

NOTE, 3-7-99: Thanks to all who wrote in with comments, suggestions, even questions. I've learned a lot. With 30+ emails and close to 4000 hits since its inception, this page has way surpassed my expectations. 

Hello, Dell, are you paying attention? Linux support, please? Not just servers but desktops and laptops too with Linux-compatible hardware or custom drivers? 

12-19-99: Well, Linux was up-and-coming when I first posted this page, and now it's close to "mainstream." Amazing what can happen in a year's time.
I am no longer actively maintaining this document; I run Linux on a desktop box now, and am devoting my laptop to other uses. I suggest trying the links below if you're seeking out more information on running Linux on a laptop.

• The Linux Laptop Page - Lots of info, plus huge list of links to pages on specific laptop Linux installations. 
• Linux PCMCIA Info - Home of "Card Services for Linux." Get the latest version here, plus great support info.
• Red Hat Linux - Duh. 

Basic specs:

• Pentium II-266
• 13.3" XGA Active Matrix
• 80 MB RAM
• 4 gig IDE HD
• NeoMagic card w/ 2 MB
• Texas Instruments PCI 1131 Cardbus Controller

• Viking Components 56K Modem
• Linksys Combo (10BaseT/2) Ethernet Card

• 2 gig NTFS partition (Windows NT 4.0 Workstation)
• 1 gig FAT partition (extended DOS partition for data)
• 1 gig free

I bought the 3-CD set for $50. You can get Red Hat CDs cheaper on the web; the boxed set comes with some additional software and demos, plus an install manual for newbies which is pretty decent. You also get 90-day installation support, which, thankfully, I didn't have to use. =)

Why Red Hat? Check out this page for more info on that.

Using this to boot the setup program, I selected the CD-ROM installation method. It detected my CD-ROM and copied data just fine. 

Jarrod Smith, however, had a problem with Red Hat 5.2 and a newer Inspiron 3200 that came with a DVD drive, a TORiSAN DRD-N216, and was good enough to e-mail me about it. The installation process would freeze when copying the RPM's, at different points during several attempts There are apparently known problems with RH 5.2 installations from FAT32 partitions; Jarrod ended up installing 5.1 instead. If you are installing RH 5.2 from the hard disk to avoid a DVD problem, check out his page: http://www.users.fast.net/~rodsmith/rhjol-fat32.html

Of the free space, I set aside 80 megs as "swap" and the rest as a native Linux partition at the root mount point "/". For me, this came up as /dev/hda3 (see my disk layout above). After I selected my packages, the setup program set up the file system, copied the files and prepared it for booting.

However, I screwed up the installation on my first attempt with two mistakes: 

1. I didn't install LILO, Linux's boot loader
2. When prompted to make a custom boot disk, I chose "Skip," thinking I could make NT Boot Loader boot the Linux partition somehow. 

NOTE: There is a mini-HOWTO on how to make Windows NT and Linux peacefully co-exist on the same machine. Read through this; it's good, and works well (also, see section below on Dual Booting). There is no need for LILO at installation time; just BE SURE to make the custom boot disk. But again, you need to do at least ONE of these two thing.

I had to redo the installation, this time making a boot disk.

        Starting PCMCIA Services: modules

I've seen two web pages for installing Red Hat on Inspiron 3000's, and neither reported this problem; their cardbus controllers were detected properly. Whether this problem is specific to just MY laptop or to the 3200 series (maybe the 3000 has a different cardbus controller?), I don't know. 

There are two workarounds. (The first is simpler)

1. When you boot using your custom boot disk, type "linux 1" at the boot prompt instead of hitting ENTER. This will put you in runlevel 1 after loading the kernel; no init scripts will be run. Login as root, and at a shell prompt, type:

        cd /etc/sysconfig

This is the directory where the config file pcmcia resides. Using an editor such as vi or pico, change the first line from "PCMCIA=yes" to "PCMCIA=no". Then reboot.
 
2. Make a rescue disk using RAWRITE and rescue.img. Boot with your custom boot disk, type "rescue" at the prompt, then insert the rescue disk when you're told to. You will eventually get a shell prompt. Do the following:

        cd /
        mkdir temp
        mount /dev/hda3 /temp
        cd /temp/etc/sysconfig

(Replace /dev/hda3 with your Linux partition) Use an editor as in option #1 to make the same changes to the pcmcia file.

A look at /var/log/messages revealed that the loadable module i82365.o was causing the machine to lock up when it tried to look for a cardbus controller. See the PCMCIA HOWTO doc for more info on this problem; it diagnoses it as an IRQ scanning issue.

For this part, I had to rely on Windows NT to get some information to fix this. Windows 95 should do the trick too, as well as some system diagnostic tools, although I haven't found any that give cardbus controller information (anyone know of any?). The Dell Diagnostic diskette that ships with the Inspiron may be helpful, I haven't tried it.

In WinNT, Start Menu -> Control Panel -> PCMCIA will display some helpful information. I was able to find out the following:

• My Texas Instruments PCI 1131 cardbus controller (i82365 compat) uses:

I/O port: 3E0-3E1
Memory Range: D0000-D3FFF
• My Viking Components 56k Modem uses:

IRQ 3
I/O port: 2F8-2FF

I edited /etc/sysconfig/pcmcia to read:

        PCMCIA=yes
        PCIC=i82365
        PCIC_OPTS="irq_list=3"
        CORE_OPTS=
        CARDMGR_OPTS=

I also edited /etc/pcmcia/config.opts to look like:

       include port 0x200-0x3ff, memory 0xd8000-0xd4fff
       exclude irq 1
       exclude irq 2
       exclude irq 8 
       exclude irq 12
       exclude irq 13
       exclude irq 14
       exclude irq 15

The next startup executed properly; my modem was detected as /dev/cua1. I tested it, and all was well in the world. Except for a strange message in /var/log/messages: 

kernel: cs: warning: no high memory space available!
kernel: cs: memory probe 0x0d0000-0x0d4fff: clean.

WinNT reports that my Ethernet card uses:

• IO Port: 300
• IRQ: 10

PCIC_OPTS="irq_list=3, 10"

So WinNT could assign IRQ 10 to my network card, but Linux PCMCIA couldn't. Why? I have no clue.

Taking a look at /proc/interrupts, I found:

 0:     139487   timer
 1:       6652   keyboard
 2:          0   cascade
 3:      39466 + serial
 5:          1   sound blaster
 8:          1 + rtc
12:      57073   PS/2 Mouse
13:          1   math error
14:       9512 + ide0
15:          0 + ide1

You can try out each IRQ without rebooting your computer. Issue the following commands at the shell prompt:

     cd /etc/rc.d/init.d
     ./pcmcia stop

     cd /etc/rc.d/init.d
     ./pcmcia start

For me, IRQs 4, 7 and 9 worked. 6 and 11 did NOT; my guess is that they are in use for something although /proc/interrupts doesn't report them as such. 

Thanks to Harvey Platter for dropping me a helpful note about IRQ 6: this seems to be used by the floppy drive. (The Inspiron allows the floppy drive to be connected via parellel port) 

The dmesg output is as follows for successful card loading:

loading device 'eth0'...
eth0: NE2000 Compatible: port 0x300, irq 4, hw_addr 00:E0:98:02:09:03

Interestingly, Paul Rushing had no problems whatsoever with his RH5.2 installation and PCMCIA devices. He booted from the CD-ROM, selected "no PCMCIA support during installation" and edited /etc/sysconfig/pcmcia to read PCMCIA=yes. His two cards, a Linksys 10/100 and Psion Dacom 56k modem, detected without having to fudge with IRQs and addresses.

Laptops complicate things.

XFree86 3.3.2 doesn't come packaged with an X server that works with my NeoMagic card. (Not yet, anyway-- I've read things that suggest it's in development) It picks the plain SVGA one by default, and that comes up in dinky 320x200 mode. Definitely not acceptable. 

There is some information floating around the Internet about how to get a Linux X server for NeoMagic cards. On his web page, Jeff Shorey posted an X server with an implementation that uses the XFree86 link kit; he was able to get: 

• 800x600x8colors
• 800x600x16colors
• 1024x768x8 (with the right tweaking to the XF86Config file)

Happily, Red Hat recently released a binary-only X server specifically for NeoMagic cards! Hooray! You can get it at the Red Hat ftp site. Follow the instructions in the README.neomagic file, and it works perfectly. If you are installing Red Hat 5.2, the NeoMagic X Server should come with it. 

By default, running "startx" gives you 1024x768x8colors. You can fool with XF86Config if you like, but to get 16 colors from the command line, simply type:

        startx -- -bpp 16

Projector Displays: a fellow named Robert DuCharme asked about problems he was having using X with a projector display, then discovered the answer himself. If you're having trouble getting a projector display to work with X, he suggests finding these lines and un-commenting them:

       # Option "intern_disp"
       # Option "extern_disp"

If you installed RH5.1/5.2, or if you ran the sndconfig utility, you probably got the generic Soundblaster Pro emulation to work. On my machine, this produced only 8 bit sound, and my speakers would squawk loudly if a program such as RealAudio Player tried to produce 16 bit output. 

My Inspiron 3200 has a Crystal 4237B sound card, which works with the CS4232 loadable sound module. Use this instead of the Soundblaster/SBPro module. I dug around, and as far as I can tell (could be wrong), the CS4232 module is hard-coded with configuration values. That means you can't just edit a config file; you need to do some re-compiling. 

IMPORTANT: Unless you know what you're doing, you can cripple your system if compile a kernel, install it incorrectly and fail to take measures to insure you can boot an old kernel. Be careful. That said, here we go. 

1. Go into the BIOS setup. Under "Audio", turn off PlugNPlay. You should see some options appear for SB IO Address, IRQ, 1st and 2nd DMA Channels. Adjust if necessary. Then write them down. Then boot Linux.

 
2. You'll need to install the Linux source code package. Consult the RH manual or the Kernel-HOWTO document for instructions on doing this. 

 
3. Run "make menuconfig" from /usr/src/linux. The generic kernel should come with sound support as a loadable module. If it doesn't, change the sound support option to modular instead of static. (If you do this, you will need to recompile the whole kernel as per instructions in the Kernel-HOWTO.) 

 
4. If it's already modular, great! De-select all the sound cards you don't have-- SB, Turtle Beach, etc-- and leave:
• Crystal 4232
• FM Synthesizer Support
• Generic FM Support
• "/dev/dsp" and /dev/audio" support.
Further down the sound menu, there's a place to enter configuration values for the CS4232 module. Enter the values you found in the BIOS. (Note that the SB IO Address is NOT the same as "CS4232 audio I/O base." Leave that as 530.)
 
5. Exit the config program, and save your changes.

 
6. If you changed sound support from static to modular, re-compile the whole kernel; remember to do a "make modules" and "make modules_install" too. Then you're done-- skip the next step.

 
7. If you didn't need to change sound support as above, it's simpler. Go into /usr/src/linux/drivers/sound and type "make". This will build the module file, sound.o. Copy sound.o to /lib/modules/2.x.x (where 2.x.x is your Linux kernel version) and you're done. Reboot.

A cute trick I learned about: you can dump a wav file directly to the sound device to play it. Wheeeeee. Just type:

   cat test.wav > /dev/dsp

One last thing: I've been looking for a good sound application for Linux to mix tracks and songs. If anyone's found one, I'd really appreciate an e-mail about it.

The HOWTO is basically self-explanatory with regard to the steps you need to take to accomplish this. But here is a short overview of the process anyway. 

• Install Linux and make a custom boot disk, as described in the Installation section above. Do NOT install LILO when asked.
• Boot Linux. Edit /etc/lilo.conf to put LILO on the boot sector of your Linux partition, rather than the MBR. Write the changes by running LILO. 
• Dump the boot sector of your Linux partition to a file (ex. bootsect.lnx) using the "dd" program. Copy this to a disk or a FAT partition so NT can read it in the next step. 
• Boot NT. Copy bootsect.lnx to your main NTFS partition. Edit C:\boot.ini to tell NT OS Loader to use bootsect.lnx as a boot option; bootsect.lnx has info on where the Linux partition starts on the physical drive. 
• Reboot. NT OS Loader will now have a menu entry for Linux.

Short Hint on Boot Utilities

I had a utility that came with FreeBSD to dual boot FreeBSD and Win NT prior to getting Linux. This took over my Master Boot Record (MBR), so after following the instructions described above, I had to go through 2 steps to boot Linux: 

FreeBSD's Boot Utility -> Win NT Boot Loader -> Linux. 

Here's an easy way to remove many boot utilities from the MBR (provided they just write over the MBR and don't do anything weird). You need a bootable DOS or Windows 95 disk and the FDISK utility. After you've booted with the floppy, run: 

fdisk /MBR 

        mount -t vfat /dev/hda5 /dospart

The numbering scheme is not sequential for partitions if you have an "extended DOS" type, like I do. Hence, /dev/hda1-/dev/hda4 describe "primary DOS" types, and extended partitions start at /dev/hda5. 

Be sure to unmount when done:

        umount /dospart