Laptop Dell Latitude E6500

After my previous laptop being end-of-lease I got this one in May 2009.
Here is my setup experience of a Debian Squeeze.

Links

• Dell
• Official page
• Linux & E6500
  • Debian squeeze on E6400
  • Latitude E6x00 & Gentoo
• Debian Squeeze
  • ISO
  • Current squeeze kernel is 2.6.26-15 which is good as there was a fix for the touchpad integrated since 2.6.26-13:
    Register DualPoint model found in Dell Latitude E6500 (Closes: #507958)

Hardware

CPU

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo P8600 (2.4GHz, 3M L2 Cache, 1066MHz)
cat /proc/cpuinfo

• vendor_id: GenuineIntel
• cpu family: 6
• model: 23
• model name: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P8600 @ 2.40GHz
• stepping: 10 (800 -> 2400?)
• cache size: 3072 KB
• flags: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon
• bogomips: 4787.96

Misc

• BIOS version A12
• 3072Mb, 800MHz DDR2-800 SDRAM, 2 DIMMS 2048+1024
• Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family)
  • HDA Intel (STAC92xx Analog)
  • PCI bridge: 4 Ports PCI Express, SMBus Controller, ISA bridge: ICH9M-E LPC Interface Controller, 6 USB controllers, 2 USB2 controllers, SATA RAID Controller
  • Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset (rev 07): Memory Controller Hub, Integrated Graphics Controller
• According to the BIOS:
  • video controller Intel GM45 Graphics, bios 1659, 32Mb
  • audio IDT 92HD71
  • SATA is in IRRT mode (Intel Rapid Restore Technology)
• Mobile Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X4500HD
• 15.4in Wide Screen WXGA (1280x800) LED
• CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev ba)
• FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 04)
• SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 21)
• System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C843 MMC Host Controller (rev ff)
• on USB: 0a5c:5800 Broadcom USH (Unified Security Hub)/ Contacted SmartCard
• Intel Corporation 82567LM Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03)
• Intel Corporation Wireless WiFi Link 5100
• 8X DVD+/-RW DU-8A2S
• 160GB Hard Drive Western Digital Scorpio Black WDC WD1600BJKT-7
  • SATA-300 - 7200 RPM - 16 Mo
  • Shock Guard, WhisperDrive, IntelliSeek, SecurePark, Free Fall Sensor
  • 300 Mbytes/s (extern) / 100 Mbytes/s (intern)

Power

• 9-Cell Battery Li-ion type:KY265 11.1V 85Wh
• 2xAC adaptors: 19.5V 90W and 130W
• Docking station

Physical connectors

• left side
  • USB Powershare (allows charging USB devices when system is off)
  • USB/eSATA (for ext HD or E-Mod?)
  • VGA
  • Express slot
  • SD card reader
• back
  • power input
  • DisplayPort Dual Mode plug hole (generates DVI/HDMI signal with a simple line-level conversion dongle)
  • Ethernet plug hole
  • Room for modem plug, but no modem installed
• bottom
  • connector for docking station
  • SIM card slot, empty, hidden behind the battery
• right side
  • 2xUSB
  • smartcard reader
  • mic, headphone
  • 1394
  • wifi catcher button??
  • wifi switch
  • PCMCIA slot
  • DVD +/-RW

not on my setup

but can be found on other E6500 setups:

• no Bluetooth
• no Cellular
• no Fingerprint reader

Drivers as loaded by a USB-bootable Ubuntu

• i915 (Intel Graphics)
• dcdbas (Dell Systems Management Base Driver)
• ricoh_mmc (Ricoh MMC Controller disabling driver)
• snd_hda_intel (Intel HDA driver)
• iwlagn, iwlcore, rfkill, led_class, mac80211, cfg80211
• wmi (ACPI-WMI Mapping Driver)
• intel_agp
• crc_t10dif
• e1000e (Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Driver)

Installing Debian Squeeze

Intent

Let's try the Squeeze daily build for AMD64 architectures by booting on USB Sid Debian Installer

• Sid Debian Installer
• At the moment the latest daily snapshot was of 2009-05-11 for AMD64
• how to preparing the USB stick, especially the flexible way, using syslinux:

default vmlinuz
append initrd=initrd.gz

We can even try the graphical version by using:

default vmlinuz
append initrd=initrd.gz video=vesa:ywrap,mtrr vga=788

This needs a regular daily build of Squeeze netinst CD ISO for AMD64 to be stored on the stick, I got the 2009-05-11_22:00 snapshot.

Booting on the USB stick

The ISO file can even be in a sub-directory but it may take a bit more time to be found.
Apparently Wi-Fi interface could be used for the Netinst but it only supports WEP, no WPA, so I'll use the Ethernet option.
It expects DHCP by default, I'm not sure how you could use static IP
In case of problems you can find a console by pressing CTRL-ALT-F2/ENTER, and find back the graphical installer by pressing ALT-F5 or ALT-F6

Partitioning

As I wanted a special setup I chose the manual mode for partitioning.
Actually I first ran the guided setup with LVM and encryption but this was not what I needed.
So:

• Create part#1, 255MB, ext2, /boot
• Create part#2, 20GB, FAT32, this is in case I'll try Xen one day...
• Create part#3, 30GB, with crypto dm-crypt
• Create part#5, 80GB, not formatted
• Create part#6, 29.8GB, not formatted

dm-crypt actually installs LUKS partitions
Note that for part#5 and #6, simply choose "logical partition", it will create the extended part#4 without showing it.
Then run configure encrypted volumes visible on top of the menu and type passphrases for the encrypted partition. I kept the default aes 256 cbc-essiv:sha256
part#5 and part#6 will also be LUKS partitions but I'll do them later as I want to use XTS block chaining.
Then back to the partitioning screen, now you can configure the content of part#3: sda3_crypt will be /root, formatted as ext3 with user_xattr.
If, like me, you already configured the other encrypted partitions then want to go back and change crypto settings or deleting them, the system will refuse because they're in use. I tried to undo them properly but finally I chose to blank (with dd) the beginning of part#4 then delete part#4 with fdisk from the console to delete the whole extended partition then by going back to the main list of the Installer, and choosing again Partitioning, I could redo them.
With 3GB of RAM I chose to not setup swap (I could still do a file-based swap if needed)

Installing software

I let tasksel picking up its default bunch of packages "Desktop", "Laptop" and "Standard".
Time for a tea cup...

First boot

It boots, but even if the Debian Installer recognized our Wi-Fi adaptor, Squeeze doesn't know it.
And screen resolution is 1024x768.

Setting up Wi-Fi

See http://wiki.debian.org/iwlagn#Squeeze and http://wiki.debian.org/WiFi/HowToUse

Add a "non-free" component to /etc/apt/sources.list, for example:

# Debian Squeeze
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian squeeze main contrib non-free

Add the Debian Kernel Snapshots repository to /etc/apt/sources.list:

# Debian Kernel Snapshots (experimental!)
deb http://kernel-archive.buildserver.net/debian-kernel sid main

Add the Debian Kernel Snapshots repository key:

# wget -q -O - http://kernel-archive.buildserver.net/key | apt-key add -

Update the list of available packages and install the firmware-iwlwifi and wireless-tools packages:

# aptitude update
# aptitude install firmware-iwlwifi wireless-tools

Install a 2.6.28 (or later) kernel image appropriate for your system. For example:

# aptitude install linux-image-2.6.29-2-amd64

Note that if you have more than 3.2Gb of RAM you'd better use a bigmem kernel.
Restart your system and boot with the newly installed kernel.

Now, in Gnome, when clicking on the Network applet you can configure Wi-Fi

Suspend

Suspend-to-RAM seems to work fine, very quick restore
Can be called via the menu or by pressing FN-Moon key, wake up by pressing power button
If you setup Gnome to suspend-to-RAM when LID is closed, then it'll wake up when you open it again
As we don't have a swap partition, no suspend-to-disk!

Video

By default it loaded the generic VESA driver in a panned 1024x768 resolution.
Solution:
Add manually in /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

 Section "Device"
         Identifier     "Configured Video Device"
+        Driver         "intel"
 EndSection

SD Card Reader

Works

PC Card (PCMCIA)

Works

Express slot

Not tested, should work.
Note from Gentoo:

• enable PCI express and hotplugging as modules (pciehp and pci_hotplug)
• load pciehp module with pciehp_force=1 parameter in order to have hotplugging functionality

USB

Works

Firewire

Not tested, should work

eSATA

Not tested, should work

Smartcard reader

aptitude get install pcscd pcsc-tools

Add the reader to libccid conf file
Without fingerprint reader: VendorID=0x0a5c ProductId=0x5800 (with: 0x5801)
Edit /etc/libccid_Info.plist and add lines in ifdVendorID, ifdProductID and ifdFriendlyName arrays

Trying manually

/etc/init.d/pcscd stop
pcscd -f -a -d

FAILED with IFDHCreateChannelByName() failed

We'll try later with a re-compiled version of pcscd using libusb...

Additional software

In Gnome

• add to panel
  • CPU frequency scaling monitor: works fine
  • Deskbar (ALT-F3)
  • Lock screen
  • System monitor

Misc software

aptitude install mc etckeeper htop

Security-related

aptitude install openssh-server

TODO

• video: 3D modes etc, dual screen etc
• restore other encrypted partitions See also my old LUKS notes
• WPA roaming ok? check EAP
• compare with old setup list of packages and list of non-system files
• check all hardware support
• extended keyboard, esp. volume buttons etc
• kill PC beep
• compare loaded drivers with Ubuntu list
• USB Powershare to be activated in BIOS
• Ambient Light Sensor to be activated in BIOS
• Intel Virtualization Technology to be activated in BIOS
• TPM disabled in BIOS, anything interesting there?
• dcdbas & libsmbios
• sensors?
• Bradcom USH (BCM5880) RFID & HID Global iCLASS ?? 1