Fedora 4 on Dell 600m
Rob Schutt (junk@viostorm.com)

I recently changed from Windows XP to Fedora 4 on my Dell 600m. I am very happy with the installation and I have about everything working that I need to at this point.

Video
 Works out of box
Sound
 Works with minor fix
Wireless
 Works with some difficulty
CPU Scaling
 Works, but occasionally reverts to previous behavior
Ethernet
 Works out of box
DVD RW
 Works, but I have not tried writing
Suspend/sleep
 I only have suspend to memory working
IRDA
 Not configured
Modem
 Not configured
Touchpad
 Works with some tweaking
Printing
 Works with modification to cupsd.conf

First, let me suggest Larry Reeder's 600m configuration page on Linux on Laptops:

http://linux-laptop.net/hosted/dell-inspiron-600m-fc4.html

I used his page for 95% of my configuration and it was very accurate and everything worked without problems.  To be honest, the only thing I have to offer over his page is the configuration of the touchpad and a few printing hints, but then again those may be only for my network printer, but I thought I'd include them.
 
Hardware configuration
 
Installation

I installed off CD after obtaining the Fedora Core 4 images from http://www.redhat.com/ .  I burned the iso images with a copy of Nero burning rom which I had for windows, there are a few free iso image burners out there although I have not tried them. 

I flogged my entire hard drive so I used the linux, I need to be able to use XP to support my Halo habit so I set it up to dual boot.  Below is my partition table:

Disk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *           1        2550    20482843+   c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hda2            2551        2563      104422+  83  Linux
/dev/hda3            2564        9729    57560895   8e  Linux LVM

I basically have a 10 GB Windows partition first (enough for windows + halo) and I'm using the GRUB bootloader without problems.  To do this I first partitioned in Windows XP, creating the 10GB partition, then installing windows onto it.  I chose to install windows onto a Fat32 not NTFS because I'm not sure if current linux versions read/write NTFS, but it can do Fat32.

After that put the Fedora CD in, and booted to that, I created a 10GB swap partition and the rematining 60 GB drive for Fedora Core 4.  Don't forget to add a mount point for the windows drive when you are configuring your partitions during the installation.  I mounted my windows drive at /winxp .

Some sites suggest you have to be concerned with putting the bootloader at the front of the hard drive due to LBA addressing problems but I did not find this to be necessary, or at least my configuration was sufficent for the 600m.

Let me suggest if this is your first time with linux you choose "Install Everything" not the "typical install".  I orginally tried this but I found many of the nice useful programs lacking, and I had plenty of room on my hard drive.  Things like "nano" (a nice basic text editor were lacking). 

I installed everything without problem from here following the prompts in the installation program.

When you log in for the first time do not forget this step, I banged my head against the wall for two hours with cupsd because  I forgot it:
  1. Edit /etc/selinux/config
  2. Set SELINUX=Disabled
  3. reboot

Video

  1. Go to Desktop-->System Settings-->Display-->Hardware
  2. Select the LCD Panel, 1400x1050 LCD.
  3. Go to Desktop-->Preferences-->Screen Resolution, and set the resolution to 1400x1050
Sound

From Larry Reeder's page: works perfectly for me:

"The Intel on-board soundcard is supported out of the box, but the external speakers were shutoff in alsa-mixer. To turn them on:
  1. Go to Applications-->Sound & Video-->Volume Control-->Edit--Preferences.
  2. Scroll to the bottom, and click the checkbox for External Amplifier
  3. Click on the Switches tab, and click the External Amplifier checkbox."
Wireless

Again, I'll direct you to Larry Reeder's page, although this didn't work exactly as easily as it suggested, I had several reboots involved.  I had to reboot after putting the *.fwfiles in the /lib/firmware directory. DON'T GO AND TRY AND USE THE LINUXANT DRIVERS FOR YOUR WIRELESS NETWORK.  I spent many hours on this, but it turns out the current version of the driver does not work with the Linuxant stuff, and it is a real dead end when compared with the IPW2200 support already in Fedora 4.   Also, their website had some broken links which made it difficult to do the Linuxant stuff.

Note: although it is implied if you are a saavy linux user, this may help some of you who are new, there is a 'network' command that can be used to restart the network configuration, or you can use "Desktop -> System Settings -> Network".  The network command is in /etc/init.d/ directory.  Below is a transcript of restarting the network.  You can just type "./network" to see all the commands available.

[root@tempest init.d]# pwd
/etc/init.d
[root@tempest init.d]# pwd
/etc/init.d
[root@tempest init.d]# ./network restart
Shutting down interface eth1:                              [  OK  ]
Shutting down loopback interface:                          [  OK  ]
Bringing up loopback interface:                            [  OK  ]
Bringing up interface eth0:
Determining IP information for eth0... failed; no link present.  Check cable?
                                                           [FAILED]
Bringing up interface eth1:  Error for wireless request "Set Bit Rate" (8B20) :
    SET failed on device eth1 ; Operation not supported.

Determining IP information for eth1... done.
                                                           [  OK  ]
[root@tempest init.d]#

From Larry Reeder's page:

"FC4 already comes with the ipw2200 modules for the built-in Intel wireless card - you just need to install the proprietary firmware. Here's how to do it:
  1. Get the firmware from http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/firmware.php
  2. Download the 2.2 version of the firmware
  3. Unzip the package, and copy all *.fw files into /lib/firmware
  4. Reload the wireless module with "rmmod ipw2200" and "modprobe ipw2200"
Now you can set up your wireless connection:
  1. Go to Applications-->System Tools-->Internet Configuration Wizard
  2. Select wireless connection
  3. Select wireless card Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2200BG
  4. Put in your wireless settings (don't forget 0x in front of your WEP key if it is a hex key)
  5. Click the green check to activate the card."
CPU Scaling

Now, unless you want your 600m to run at 600 MHZ, you have to do this step.  You will be much happier when your laptop is running at full speed.  My laptop occasionally switches back into 600 MHZ mode and I have to repeat these steps.  This happens when I boot it up on battery only, then switch to power.  I have not found a more elegant solution yet.

By right mouse clicking on your windows equivalent "start menu bar" you can choose "Add to Panel"  then select "CPU Frequency Scaling Monitor"

To get the scaling working I did:

echo 1800000 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq and then /etc/init.d/cpuspeed restart

This is in contrast to Larry Reeder who had a faster CPU who did:

echo 2100000 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq and then /etc/init.d/cpuspeed restart

Just choose the right speed for your CPU.

Because it happens frequently that I need to redo this command I created a script called "cpurestart", you can do this by typing "nano cpurestart" (if you have nano installed).

echo 1800000 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq
/etc/init.d/cpuspeed restart

Then you have to do

[root@tempest rob]# chmod 755 cpurestart

to make it executable.

Whenever I find the scaling isn't working a become root and run the script.  It has always fixed it and works without rebooting.

DVD RW

Works out of box, check out Larry Reeder's page for some software suggestions.


Ethernet

Ethernet - worked ... finally something that I didn't spend hours configuring!!!!


Suspend/Sleep

I followed Larry Reeder's page instructions but I didn't care about the modem so I commented out the Linuxant part by putting # in front of the lines with Linuxant.   See his page for detailed instructions, they worked perfectly for me

This is my sleep.sh

#!/bin/tcsh
# Script to drive the system to S3
# suspend-to-ram
#
# JRA Jan 2005

# Step 1: preparing sleep

if (-e /suspending) then
 wall 'The system is currently in the process of suspending, or stale
lockfile "/suspending" exists. If the system does not suspend in a few
seconds, remove lock file, and try to suspend again'
else
/bin/touch /suspending
/usr/bin/killall -s SIGUSR1 cpuspeed
/usr/bin/chvt 1 # necessary to make DRI work
/sbin/service anacron stop
# USB doesn't suspend without unloading first
/sbin/rmmod ehci_hcd
/sbin/rmmod uhci_hcd
#unload Linuxant modem drivers
#/usr/sbin/hsfstop #if you use the linuxant modem driver
#save the system time
/sbin/hwclock --adjust
/sbin/rmmod wacom # only necessary of you have wacom stylus
/sbin/rmmod -as
/bin/sync
# Step 2: send sleep command via ACPI
echo mem > /sys/power/state

# Step 3: wake-up and reload
/etc/acpi/utils/emu/video_post
/sbin/hwclock --hctosys
#reload Linuxant modem drivers
#/sbin/modprobe /dev/modem #if you use the linuxant modem driver
#/sbin/modprobe ehci_hcd
#/sbin/modprobe uhci_hcd
# initialise X
xinit /bin/false -- :1
/usr/bin/chvt 7
/sbin/service anacron start
/sbin/service cpuspeed restart
rm /suspending
endif



Touchpad

It turns out the defautl configuration for the touchpad is horrible. It makes you jump around all the time when browsing the internet, it is slow and it doesn't seem to allow you to configure it from the menu "Preference -> Mouse"

For more reasonable behavior from the touchpad I edited the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.  There is a section that looks like this:

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier  "Synaptics"
        Driver      "synaptics"
        Option      "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
        Option      "Protocol" "auto-dev"
        Option      "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
        Option      "LeftEdge" "120"
        Option      "RightEdge" "830"
        Option      "TopEdge" "120"
        Option      "BottomEdge" "650"
        Option      "FingerLow" "14"
        Option      "FingerHigh" "15"
        Option      "MaxTapMove" "110"
        Option      "VertScrollDelta" "20"
        Option      "HorizScrollDelta" "20"
        Option      "MinSpeed" "0.3"
        Option      "MaxSpeed" "0.75"
EndSection

I changed it by adding te following parameters and configuring the Max and MinSpeed to be higher values.  There are lots of other parameters and just look around on the net.  These settings seemed helpful and allowed me to use the scrolling feature.  But, it did eliminate double tap which was causing problems in Firefox for me.

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier  "Synaptics"
        Driver      "synaptics"
        Option      "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
        Option      "Protocol" "auto-dev"
        Option      "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
        Option      "LeftEdge" "120"
        Option      "RightEdge" "830"
        Option      "TopEdge" "120"
        Option      "BottomEdge" "650"
        Option      "FingerLow" "14"
        Option      "FingerHigh" "15"
        Option      "MaxTapMove" "110"
        Option      "VertScrollDelta" "20"
        Option      "HorizScrollDelta" "20"
        Option      "MinSpeed" "0.5"
        Option      "MaxSpeed" "0.9"
        Option      "MaxTapTime" "0"
        Option      "MaxDoubleTapTime" "0"
        Option      "CircularScrolling" "1"
EndSection



Printing

Now this is probably just a Fedora thing, I doubt anyone else has a Brother 2070N, but I thought it was worth mentioning.  Cups has this neat configuration utility at http://localhost:631 but you can't log to administrate it in by default in Fedora.  To get my 2070N printing over the network I had to use this utility at http://localhost:631

To solve this I had to edit:

/etc/cups/cupsd.conf

Near the end of the file you will find a section on AuthType, I changed from "basic" to none.

## Anonymous access (default)
AuthType None

AND turn off SELinux

The driver and instructions can be found at:

http://solutions.brother.com/linux/sol/printer/linux/cups_drivers.html

To do this I had to first install the lpd driver, then the cups wrapper.  You have to do the cups wrapper from what I gather, but either way there are RPM's available for your system.  I did not have to do any of the linking with ln that they suggested and everything worked fine

If there are any questions you can email me at:

junk@viostorm.com



 Linux On Laptops