| Rev | Author | # | Line |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | PerryLorier | 1 | The A531 is a laptop made by ECS (Elite Group). It is a low cost laptop, using a Transmeta TM5800 [CPU]. |
| 1 | JohnMcPherson | 2 | |
| 3 | Manufacturer's website about these: http://www.ecs.com.tw/products/a531.htm. | ||
| 4 | |||
| 5 | These are for sale in NewZealand: for example, [DSE] has them (calling it a "TM5800 Laptop") for [$NZ 1499|http://www.dse.co.nz/cgi-bin/dse.storefront/en/product/XC3394], and the online store Ascent has them slightly cheaper ([$NZ 1432|http://www.ascent.co.nz/mn-product-spec.asp?pid=121317] at time of writing). | ||
| 6 | |||
| 7 | Helpful pages on the very similar A530 model (using a TM5600 CPU): | ||
| 8 | * http://islay.dyndns.org/droopy/A530.html | ||
| 9 | * http://research.indocisc.com/~andika/ecs/ | ||
| 10 | |||
| 11 | ---- | ||
| 12 | !!Summary | ||
| 13 | |||
| 14 | * The machines are sold without an OperatingSystem installed. | ||
| 15 | * Built-in network card, combined [DVD] Reader / CD Writer drive. | ||
| 16 | * Upgradability may be a problem for some people; it comes with 4 [USB] ports but no FireWire or [PCMCIA] slots. | ||
| 17 | * No floppy disk drive (but that isn't really much of a loss) | ||
| 18 | * Considering it uses a low-power Transmeta CPU, the battery should last much more than a mere 2 hours per charge. | ||
| 19 | * Mostly works fine with standard Linux distributions. Specific problems included: | ||
| 20 | ** The mixer (ie changing the volume) | ||
| 21 | ** Using a graphics driver other than the plain [VESA] driver. | ||
| 22 | ** The scroll buttons on the touchpad required a separate (but open sourced) driver. | ||
| 23 | ---- | ||
| 24 | !!Technical Details | ||
| 25 | |||
| 2 | JohnMcPherson | 26 | I installed Debian Testing on this laptop, after booting up with [Knoppix]. I also installed [LinuxKernel2.6], so some of my experiences may be due to that. |
| 1 | JohnMcPherson | 27 | |
| 28 | * [ACPI] power management support, no [APM] support. | ||
| 29 | * No IO-APIC. | ||
| 30 | |||
| 31 | |||
| 32 | !Network | ||
| 33 | The built in [Ethernet] network card uses a Realtek 8139C chip. The standard "8139too" support of the kernel works fine. | ||
| 34 | |||
| 35 | The kernel config parameter is called "CONFIG_8139TOO" | ||
| 36 | |||
| 37 | !!Modem | ||
| 38 | Since I use Ethernet, I didn't need to use the modem. Apparently it can only be used under linux with a closed-source driver. | ||
| 39 | |||
| 40 | !!USB | ||
| 41 | Kernel options "CONFIG_USB_EHCI_HCD" and "CONFIG_USB_OHCI_HCD". | ||
| 42 | The "lspci" command claimed that 3 of the 4 ports were USB1.1 OHCI ports, and 1 was a USB2.0 EHCI port.) | ||
| 43 | |||
| 44 | !!Video | ||
| 45 | The graphics chipset is an SiS 315. From what I can determine, the "sis" driver in [XFree86] version 4.2 (the version in Debian Testing) and version 4.3 does not support this chipset, so I used the "vesa" driver. | ||
| 46 | |||
| 47 | The laptop also had an Svideo out (eg for a TV), but I didn't try or test this. | ||
| 48 | |||
| 49 | !!Touchpad | ||
| 50 | The touchpad will work fine as a PS/2 mouse, but the 4 scroll buttons will not work (by default). (Obviously you need "CONFIG_INPUT_PS2" support in the kernel). | ||
| 51 | |||
| 52 | I downloaded the [GPL]'d Synaptic touchpad driver (from http://w1.894.telia.com/~u89404340/touchpad/) and compiled it (this needs development tools and libraries installed, eg xlibs-dev), installed it into /usr/X11R6/lib/drivers, and then changed my mouse section in /etc/X11/XF86Config to have: | ||
| 53 | |||
| 54 | Section "!InputDevice" | ||
| 55 | Identifier "Mouse0" | ||
| 56 | Driver "synaptics" | ||
| 57 | Option "Device" "/dev/psaux" | ||
| 58 | Option "Protocol" "auto-dev" | ||
| 59 | # settings for speed | ||
| 60 | Option "!MinSpeed" "0.06" | ||
| 61 | Option "!MaxSpeed" "0.12" | ||
| 62 | Option "!AccelFactor" "0.0010" | ||
| 63 | # Option "SHMConfig" "on" # shared mem for "synclient" cmdline | ||
| 64 | |||
| 65 | This driver requires the kernel to have "CONFIG_INPUT_EVDEV" support for the "generic input event" devices. You also need to make sure that the /dev/input/event* files exist (but don't do this if using the [Deprecated] devfs support): | ||
| 66 | cd /dev && ./MAKEDEV input # run this command as root | ||
| 67 | |||
| 68 | !!Sound | ||
| 69 | The card identifies itself as "ALi M5451", and apparently uses a CMedia "CMI 9739" chip. | ||
| 70 | |||
| 71 | Kernel 2.6 [ALSA] drivers have direct support for this card ("CONFIG_SND_ALI5451" Sound -> ALSA -> PCI Devices -> ALi PCI Audio M5451). If using [OSS] instead of the recommended ALSA, the driver to choose says "Trident 4DWave DX/NX, SiS 7018 or ALi 5451 PCI Audio Core". | ||
| 72 | |||
| 73 | As mentioned on the other pages linked to at the top of the page, the Mixer volume was ignored, other than complete muting. | ||
| 5 | JohnMcPherson | 74 | |
| 6 | JohnMcPherson | 75 | The card (and the [ALSA] drivers) support hardware mixing of multiple audio streams, so I didn't need to fiddle around with setting up software mixing for apps. |
| 1 | JohnMcPherson | 76 | |
| 77 | !!Sensors | ||
| 78 | The [lmsensors] package in Debian Testing didn't work with 2.6 kernels, so I didn't bother trying too hard to get this working. But the specific kernel support you need is: | ||
| 79 | |||
| 80 | Char devices -> I2C Support -> Hardware Bus Support -> ALI 1535 ("CONFIG_I2C_ALI1535") | ||
| 81 | and | ||
| 82 | I2C -> Hardware Sensors Chip support ("CONFIG_SENSORS_ADM1021") | ||
| 83 | |||
| 84 | as well as the generic "-dev" and "bit-banging algorithms" I2C stuff required for lm-sensors. | ||
| 85 | |||
| 86 | |||
| 87 | |||
| 88 | ---- | ||
| 89 | CategoryLaptopNotes |
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