Laptop AMILO Pi 2550
Hardware & support under Ubuntu 8.10
| Chipset: Intel® 965PM+ICH8-M | OK |
| Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor T8100 (2.1 GHz, 800 MHz, 3 MB L2 cache) | OK |
| 2x1 GB DDR2 (667 MHz) module (Intel® Turbo memory?) | OK |
| HDD (SATA / 5400 rpm): 320 GB SATA hard disk | OK |
| ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 2400 with 256 MB (DDR2) dedicated video RAM | OK, with 3D |
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| ACPI S1, S3, S4, S5 | Suspend-to-RAM: OK Suspend-to-disk: not tested |
| 3x USB 2.0 ports | OK |
| CIR | not tested |
| webcam Chicony - CNF6133 1.3 Mpixel, auto focus, automatic brightness adjustment | OK |
| Intel HDA Realtek ALC883 | OK
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| DVD drive burner with Dual Double Layer support | Write not tested |
| |
| Intel® PRO/Wireless 3945 ABG | OK |
| |
| Realtek RTL8101E PCI Express 10/100 Mbps LAN | not tested |
| Castlenet (Motorola) ML3054 Built-in 56 K, V.92 fax modem | not tested |
| 4-in-1 card reader SD/MS/MMC/MMCPRO | not tested |
| Li-Ion battery, 6 cells: 10.8 V / 4400 mAh | |
| Windows Vista® Home Premium |
Links
Setup
The goal is to keep Vista and install Ubuntu Intrepid 8.10 as dual-boot
Backup
The laptop comes with a Vista not yet really installed, there are 3 partitions that don't fill the entire HD.
I booted on a FCCU v12 liveCD and used partimage to backup the extended MBR (2048x512), sda1, sda2 and sda4 to an external USB drive.
Vista "install"
As the first boot of Vista will change the partitioning of the HD we've to run it now before installing Ubuntu
=> boot on Vista, take one, two, three coffees
Reboot on Fudjitsu-Siemens backup utilities (F8 -> Recover) and burn 3 DVD+R disks, beware that apparently you can only burn them once.
Ubunbu install
I mainly followed this tutorial (fr)
After Vista install, sda1 contains recovery tools as before, sda2 is about 100Gb and contains Vista, sda4 is free and about 200Gb, that's the one we will use for Ubuntu so no need to repartition anything,
Reboot on FCCU v12
Change type of sda4 -> linux (83)
Format it (128 because grub cannot start from 256 partition)
mkfs.ext3 -I 128 /dev/sda4
Reboot on ubuntu CD
Switch to a console to save the new mbr to e.g. a USB stick (I could have done it under FCCU):
ctrl-alt-f2 -> sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/mnt/usbkey bs=512 count=2048
In gpart, choose manual -> sda4 in ext3, NO FORMAT, mount as /
Continue until "ready to install"
-> advanced -> install bootloader on sda4
MBR setup
Grub is on sda4 so we left the Vista MBR on sda, now we'll configure it with EasyBCD
Download EasyBCD and copy it to a USB stick
Reboot on Vista
Install EasyBCD -> add entry linux grub Partition2 -> add -> save (leave "grub isn't installed" disabled)
In "change settings", choose to boot ubuntu by default
Ubuntu tweaks
Freeze at boot & often in console
Especially when booting but also hen in console, the computer freezes until it receives a keyboard interrupt when you press a key.
According to this blog post the solution is to boot with kernel param "hpet=disable"
Edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and append it to the kopt line (leave it commented!)
# kopt=root=UUID=... ro hpet=disable
Then sudo update-grub, this will be effective at next reboot
Webcam
Is "plugged" as USB when you activate it with Fn-F7
Non-free stuffs
Add the following to /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ intrepid free non-free
This repository is signed by a key not known by default apparently, so:
gpg --no-default-keyring --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 0C5A2783
Acrobat Reader:
apt-get install acroread acroread-plugins mozilla-acroread
Flash:
apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree
Mplayer:
apt-get install mplayer w32codecs
Java:
apt-get install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin sun-java6-fonts
Skype:
From the website, Ubuntu Hardy version, requires libqt4
apt-get install libqt4-test dpkg -i skype-debian_2.0.0.72-1_i386.deb
Microphone
It was a bit hard to get them working with all the ALSA settings:
alsamixer -c 0
-> Front Mic, Front Mic Boost, Capture, Capture1, Input Source=Front Mic, Input Source1=Front Mic
Some talked about a driver option: modprobe snd-hda-intel model=6stack-dig, but I think it now works OOB.
ATI drivers
Ubuntu proposed automatically to download non-free ATI drivers, apparently it installed fglrx-kernel-source, xorg-driver-fglrx, fglrx-amdcccle
3D applications
E.g. googleearth flickers quite a lot.
This is the combination of Compiz and 3D applications, to solve it, switch to Metacity
- Temporarily: it's easy to switch it with fusion-icon
apt-get install fusion-icon -> Apps/System Tools/Compiz Fusion Icon
- Permanently: select no 3D enhancements in the Control Center
Useful stuff
Extra sw not installed by default: sshfs, openssh-server, openvpn, thunderbird, thunderbird-dispmua, thunderbird-nostalgy, abiword, psi, stardict-gnome, p7zip, pwsafe, dlocate, dvdrtools, emacs21, exiv2, gphoto2
TODO
- nand
- offlineimap-courier
- iwl3945 glitches, getting new -1 and -2 ucodes from intellinuxwireless.org
- oracle?
- ~/old
- backuppc account & root/.ssh
- Loose kbd when changing volume by Fn => switch to console & back to X