Linux on the Panasonic W2 Toughbook
Summary
This gives my experiences installing linux (mostly Debian) on the
Panasonic W2 toughbook. It's a nice machine and most of it will work under
linux. The biggest pain is power management, which I can't get functioning
very well..
Once you get the basic system running you'll need
to mess around with the kernel and bits and pieces. This is not particularly
hard. At the bottom are some links that might be
useful.
Here is my current .config file for the 2.6-test11
kernel (as usual use at your own risk).
- Partitioning
- Ran the recovery DVD and created 2 partitions (system and data)
reinstaling the XP on the system partition
- Booting up linux
- Create a minimal bootable CD ala: http://people.debian.org/~dwhedon/boot-floppies/
boot off the CD and off you go for a network instalation (use the
Realtek driver for the network)
- Partitioning
hda1 XP 10G (keep XP around, might be useful one day...)
hda2 /dos 1G (a buffer to transfer files to XP)
hda3 / 2G (just kernel and bits and pieces)
hda5 swap 1G
hda6 /usr 6G
hda7 /usr/local 6G
hda8 /home 5G
hda9 /disk 8G (The rest of it)
- Base System
- Install basic system first, just enough to get things going. Then
switch to debian unstable branch and upgrade, and tinker ...
- New Kernel
- Now the fun begins ...
dmidecode: Phoenix Technologies K.K. BIOS V1.00L13, supported:
APM,ACPI,Smart battery,Function key-initiated network boot,Boot from CD
Tried 2.6.{0t9,0t11,1} and 2.4.22, played around with lots of configurations....
ACPI seems nicer as you get more info and can adjust the processor better,
not being able to control the screen / switch to external screen is a real
pain though.
ACPI
This is with kernel 2.6.1 which has much better support for it.
What works:
- CPU throtling works
- suspend to disk (S4) sometimes works
- Lid events detected
- AC on/off detected
- CPU temp and battery reported
- CPU frequency control (via sysfs) works
What doesn't:
APM
Used kernel 2.4.22 for this since we can patch it for swsusp
What works:
- suspend to disk (S4) works (with swsusp patch)
- AC on/off detected
- battery level reported
- screen brightness controls work
- switching to external screen works
What doesn't:
- apm -s seems to go through all the steps and then immediately
reawakens. Plugging in a USB drive after this will completely lock up the
computer: Kernel Bug 1879
- no temperature data?
- seems to get hotter under APM than ACPI. Bear in mind there is no fan
in the machine.
XP DMI: Intel 855GM
dmidecode: Intel 855GM
- Debian unstable uses xfree86 v 4.2.1. - The generic VESA driver will
work, but it is unaccellerated so you won't get full screen DVDs. An
external screen will run at 1280x1024 OK.
- xfree86 v 4.3.0 has had much work added for the intel 855 chip, in
particullar HW acelleration and so you can play full screen DVDs.
However, the video modes are set by the BIOS and at the moment the BIOS
only thinks it has ~1Mb of memory so it's no go for a higher res external
monitor or true color. The snapshop versions of X have apparently fixed
this. I use an external screen a lot so I've gone back to v 4.2.1 and
will wait for v 4.4
- OK, I didn't wait and I bit the bullet and compiled XFree86 v 4.3.99.16
(use the i810 driver), Now I can get true color with hardware
acceleration. Screen blanking also works (via xset dpms force
off). Here is my XF86Config-4 file.
Haven't been able to get an external LCD to display at 1280x1024. Also suspend to
disk seems to hang the machine with the i810 driver (works most of the time with the
vesa driver)
Other possibilities:
- Accelerated X (comercial server, get it here).
Seems to support the card well, and be able to drive at high
resolution/color/speed. Nice features for having dual-head displays. You
can trial the X server for about 20min then have to restart it, buying
the license switches off the timer. I found the out-of-the-box synaptics
touchpad driver a bit fo a pain (seems overly sensitive). No X drivers
available for kernel 2.6 yet. xset dpms force off works to switch
off the screen, so does switching between internal and external screen
(neither works under xfree86 4.2.1)
- Intel supplied driver - haven't tried this and can't remember the
link.
XP DMI: Realtek 8139DL Fast Ethernet
dmidecode: Realtek 8139DL Fast Ethernet
CDRW / DVD
- Make sure you have SCSI emulation support compiled in and generic SCSI
drivers in kernel
- add the following to lilo.conf:
append="hdc=scsi"
- ln -s /dev/scd0 /dev/cdrom ; ln -s /dev/scd0 /dev/dvd
- Can't remember what I did for DVD, just select any sensible options in
the kernel
- CD burning works fine.
Synaptics touchpad with multi-finger and palm detection
- At a basic level it just works (PS2 device)
- Grab and install the driver from here - it gives
you much more cabability (eg two finger tap as 2nd mouse button etc).
Also add support for the synaptics driver in the kernel (2.6)
- There's no support for the circular scrolling feature at the moment but
you can get the wheel effect by moving your finger up and down the right
side of the trackpad. On the otherhand the synaptics driver doesn't look
too bad to patch to get the circular scrolling going, might have a go at
this.
- I've written a patch to provide the circular scrolling under linux. The
patch applies to version 0.12.3 of the synaptics driver from here.
See the XF86Config-4 for parameters that work
nicely on the W2. At the moment it assumes that you have a rectangular
touchpad, this is not a problem since once the scrolling starts you can
use any part of the touchpad.
XP DMI: Intel 855GM
dmidecode: Sigmatel 9753
- Used the OSS kernel modules (loopback MIDI and 100% Sound Blaster). Not
sure if this is the optimal choice.
- I got the trial version of the Linuxant drivers
installed. Has worked smoothly whenever I have used it. I've now bought
the license (a whopping $20 ;-)
- NdisWrapper is a free
project that does much the same thing as the linuxant driver. The driver
compiles and installs, but I haven't had a chance to test it on a
network.
XP: Panasonic V.92 MDC Modem
lspci: 00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corp.: Unknown device 24c6 (rev 03)
XP DMI: Panasonic CF-VZSU27, Lithium-ion, 48840mWh, 7400mV
This battery is simply amazing, lasts for ages. Got more than 5 hours out
of it under load and no optimisation (I forgot to turn the power on at the
wall ;). The levels are reported OK under both ACPI and APM
I haven't tried this. There is support for them for the Zaurus handheld,
but I don't know if this has spilt over to other architectures.
