Linux Laptop-HOWTO
<wehe@mobilix.org>v2.2a, 3 November 2000
Laptops are different from desktops/towers. They use certain hardware such as PCMCIA cards, infrared ports, batteries, docking stations. Often their hardware is more limited (e.g. disk space, CPU speed), though the performance gap is becoming smaller. In many instances, laptops can become a desktop replacement. Hardware support for Linux (and other operating systems) on laptops is sometimes more limited (e.g. graphic chips, internal modems). Laptops often use specialized hardware, hence finding a driver can be more difficult. Laptops are often used in changing environments, so there is a need for multiple configurations and additional security strategies. Though there are laptop related HOWTOs available already, this HOWTO contains a concise survey of laptop related documents. Also, laptop related Linux features, such as installation methods for laptops (via PCMCIA, without CD drive, etc.), laptop hardware features and configurations for different (network) environments are described. Besides there are some notes on PDAs, Handheld PCs and other mobile computer devices (digital cameras, cellular phones, calculators). And though some caveats Linux is a better choice for laptops, than most other operating systems. Because it supports numerous installation methods, works in many heterogenoues environments and needs smaller resources.
Life is the first gift, love is the second, and understanding is the third. -- Marge Piercy
People like either laptops or desktops. I like to work with laptops rather than with desktops. I like Linux too. My first HOWTO was the Linux/IR-HOWTO about infrared support for Linux. My second is this one and my third the Ecology-HOWTO, about some ways to use Linux in an ecology aware manner.
Also I have written some pages about Linux with certain laptops: Olivetti Echos 133 DM (German) (together with Kurt Saetzler), HP !OmniBook? 800CT, HP !OmniBook? 3100 (together with Friedhelm Kueck) COMPAQ Armada 1592 DT and COMMODORE C286LT.
During the work with the Laptop-HOWTO I have collected some surveys about laptop related hardware: graphic chips, unofficially supported PCMCIA cards, internal modems and infrared chips.
But I don't claim to be a laptop guru, I just had the opportunity to install Linux on some laptops and I simply want to share the information I collected.
Since I don't own a non-Intel based machine, this HOWTO might not contain all the details for non-Intel systems or may contain inaccuracies. Sorry.
This HOWTO is free of charge and free in the sense of the General Public Licence - GPL. Though it requires much work and could gain more quality if I would have some more hardware. So if you have a spare laptop, even an old one or one which requires repair, please let me know. Especially I need one with infrared port, USB port, DVD drive, !WinModem and a non Intel machine. The according chapters need a major rewrite. For the curious, this HOWTO is written on a HP !OmniBook? 800CT 5/100.
Or sponsor a banner ad at my WWW pages MobiliX.
You can hire me for readings or workshops on Linux with Laptops, Repairing of Laptops and other Linux topics, too.
Many times I have mentioned !MetaLab? formerly known as !SunSite. This site carries a heavy load, so do yourself a favor, use one of the
For Debian/GNU Linux the mirror URLs are organized in this scheme 
http://www.<country code, e.g. uk>.debian.org .
This text is included in the LINUX DOCUMENTATION PROJECT - LDP .
Richard Worwood mirrors this HOWTO at
http://www.felch01.demon.co.uk/laptop-howto.html .
Lionel, "trollhunter" Bouchpan-Lerust-Juery, <trollhunter@linuxfr.org> provides a translation into French. You can download or browse it at
http://infonomade.linuxfr.org/portables/ressourcesfr.html#howto . And he mirrors the English version at
http://infonomade.linuxfr.org/portables/ressourcesen.html#howto
He has also written a HOWTO about portables and wearables, please look at his pages
http://infonomade.linuxfr.org/index.html (French version)
http://infonomade.linuxfr.org/indexen.html (English version).
Translations into Japanese (Ryoichi Sato <rsato@ipf.de>), Italian (Alessandro Grillo <Alessandro_Grillo@tivoli.com>), Portuguese (Gledson Evers <pulga_linux@bol.com.br> the translation will be announced at LinuxALL) and Greek (Vassilis Rizopoulos <mscyvr@scs.leeds.ac.uk>) are under construction.
Please contact me before starting a translation to avoid double work. Since a translation is a great amount of work, I recommend to do this work as a group.
Nearly all of the programms I mention are available as Debian/GNU Linux packages, or as RPM packages, look up your favorite RPM server, for instance RUFUS .
The latest version of this document is available in different formats at MobiliX .
This document isn't ready yet. If you like to write a chapter or even a smaller part by yourself, please feel free to contact me. Also your suggestions and recommendations and critics are welcome. But please don't expect me to solve your laptop related problems if the solution is already documented. Please read all according manual pages, HOWTOs and WWW sites first, than you may consider to contact me or the other resources mentioned below.
Since I want to write much more stuff about mobile computing and Linux I'm thinking about turning this HOWTO into a book.
Werner Heuser <wehe@mobilix.org>
Copyright (c) 1999 by Werner Heuser. This document may be distributed under the terms set forth in the LDP license .
This is free documentation. It is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty. The information in this document is correct to the best of my knowledge, but there's a always a chance I've made some mistakes, so don't follow everything too blindly, especially if it seems wrong. Nothing here should have a detrimental effect on your computer, but just in case I take no responsibility for any damages incurred from the use of the information contained herein.
Some laptop manufacturers don't like to see a broken laptop with an operating system other than the one shipped with it, and may reload MS-Windows if you complain of a hardware problem. They may even declare the warranty void. Though IMHO this isn't legal or at least not fair. Always have a backup of both the original configuration and your Linux installation if you have to get your laptop repaired.
Though I hope trademarks will be superfluous sometimes (you may see what I mean at Open Source Definition) : If certain words are trademarks, the context should make it clear to whom they belong. For example "MS Windows NT" implies that "Windows NT" belongs to Microsoft (MS). Mac is a trademark by Apple Computer. All trademarks belong to their respective owners.
Portable computers may be divided into different categories. This is a subjective decision, but I try to do so. My groupings roughly follow the generally accepted marketing categories. The criteria could be:
Most peripheral cables are appallingly heavy. If you get a subnotebook and carry it around with a bunch of external drives, cables, and port expander dongles and power converter, you may be lugging a heavier bag than if it were all in one box. Subnotebooks are useful mainly if you can afford to leave all the other junk behind.
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Weight greater than 4.0 kg (9 lbs). Features like a PC, but in a smaller box and with LCD display. Examples: lunchbox or ruggedized laptops (e.g.,
http://www.bsicomputer.com/)
Weight between 1.7 and 4.0 kg (4 to 9 lbs). Features custom hardware and usually a special CPU. Examples: HP !OmniBook? 3100, COMPAQ Armada 1592DT. The terms laptop and notebook seem equivalent to me.
Weight between 1.3 and 1.7 kg (3 to 4 lbs). Features: external floppy drive, external CD drive. Examples: HP !OmniBook? 800CT, Toshiba Libretto 100, COMPAQ Aero, SONY VAIO 505.
Weight between 0.7 and 1.3 kg (1.5 to 3 lbs). Features: proprietary commercial operating systems. Examples: HP200LX.
Weight below 0.7 kg (1.5 lbs). Features: proprietary commercial operating systems and often non-Intel CPU with commercial operating systems like PalmOS, EPOC32, GEOS, Windows CE. Examples: Newton Message Pad, Palm III (former Pilot), Psion Series 3 and 5, CASIO Z-7000.
Watches, digital pens, calculators, digital cameras, cellular phones and other wearables.
Due to a lack of support by some hardware manufacturers, not every feature of a laptop is always supported or fully operational. The main devices which may cause trouble are: graphic chip, IrDA port, sound card, PCMCIA controller , PnP devices and internal modem. Please try to get as much information about these topics before buying a laptop. But often it isn't quite easy to get the necessary information. Sometimes even the specifications or the hotline of the manufacturer aren't able to provide the information. Therefore I have included a Linux Compatibility Check chapter in the Hardware In Detail sections below.
Depending on your needs, you might investigate one of the vendors that provide laptops pre-loaded with Linux. By purchasing a pre-loaded Linux laptop, much of the guesswork and time spent downloading additional packages could be avoided. See Kenneth E. Harker's page for a list of vendors
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/linux-laptop/.
Besides its Linux features, there often are some main features which have to be considered when buying a laptop. For Linux features please see the Hardware In Detail section below.
Don't underestimate the weight of a laptop. This weight is mainly influenced by:
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Laptops come with one of two types of displays: active matrix (TFT) and passive matrix (DSTN). Active matrix displays have better color and contrast, but usually cost more and use more power. Also consider the screen size. Laptops may be purchased with screens up to 15". A bigger screen weighs more, costs more, and is harder to carry, but is good for a portable desktop replacement.
The available battery types are Lithium Ion (!LiIon?), Nickel Metal Hydride ( NiMH) and Nickel Cadmium (!NiCd?).
Unfortenately most laptops come with a proprietary battery size. So they are not interchangeable between different models.
For details about systems which are supported by the Linux Kernel, see the Linux FAQ . See also Current ports of Linux OS
Linux doesn't support this CPU family yet. But there are some efforts at ELKS. If you like, you may use Minix one of the predecessors of Linux. Minix supports 8088 to 286 with as little as 640K memory. Actually there are some laptops with ELKS around, for instance the Commodore C286LT
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This covers PCs based on Intel-compatible processors, including Intel's 386, 486, Pentium, Pentium Pro and Pentium II, and compatible processors by AMD, Cyrix and others. Most of the currently available laptops use Intel compatible CPUs and have quite good Linux support.
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This covers Amigas and Ataris having a Motorola 680x0 processor for x>=2; with MMU. And the early Apple/Macintosh computers.
There was a long series of Apple !PowerBooks? and other laptops based on the m68k chip. Macintosh Portable (an ugly 16-pound first attempt); !PowerBook? 100, 140, 170, 145, 160, 180c, 165c, 520c, 540c, 550c, 190; Duo 210, 230, 250, 270c, 280. The !PowerBook? Duos were available at the same time as the !PowerBooks?, they were a sort of subnotebook, but were designed so that you could plug them into a base station (a !DuoDock?) with more RAM, peripherals, etcetera, so that they could also act as a desktop computer. The first PowerPC !PowerBooks? were the ill-starred !PowerBook? 5300 (after the 190) and the Duo 2300c.
For a complete list of all Macintosh computers ever made, with specifications, see Apple-History.
Note also that readers should not go to www.linuxppc.org for hardware compatibility with 68k laptops--as the name implies, LinuxPPC is only for PowerPC machines. The proper place to go for information on running Linux on m68k Macintoshes is: linux-m68k.
In particular, their hardware compatibility list is at: linux-m68k-status and it states in regards to laptops:
"Much like laptops of the Intel/Linux world, Mac laptops have generally different setups that can be very hard to figure out. Also, because of a general lack of machines to test, we are only aware of boots on the Powerbook 145, Powerbook 150, Powerbook 170, Powerbook 180, and Powerbook 190. Even if it boots, we currently have no support for Powerbook-style ADB, the APM support, or just about anything else on them. This means the only way to log in is with a terminal hooked up to the serial interface, this has been tested on the 170."
"Several Powerbooks have internal IDE which is supported. PCMCIA drivers will be forthcoming if someone can supply the necessary hardware information to write a driver. As always, an FPU is needed also. Many of the later models have the 68LC040 processor without FPU, and many of these processors are broken with respect to the FPU trap mechanism so they can't run regular Linux binaries even with FPU emulation. Current status on Powerbooks 140, 160, 165, 165c, 180c, 190, 520 and Duos 210, 230, 250, 270c, 280, and 280c is unknown."
Also there are two Atari laptops, for which I don't have enough information. The following quotations are from the Atari Gallery.
"The STacy was released shortly after the Mega ST to provide a portable means of Atari computing. STacy computers were shipped with TOS v1.04.
Designed to replace the STacy as the defacto portable ST computer, the ST Book brought the basic computing power of an ST to a lightweight notebook computer. This machine was only released in Europe and Atari only shipped a very small quantity. The ST Book was shipped with TOS v2.06."
Is there an Amiga notebook?
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Although some driver support present in Intel based Linux is still missing for Linux PPC, it is a fully usable system for Macintosh !PowerBooks?. See LinuxPPC for a current list of supported machines.
BTW: The team at iMac Linux has managed to get the iMac DV to boot Linux to a usable point. You may get information about the iBook there as well.
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These are currently under construction. AFAIK there are only the Tadpole SPARC and ALPHA laptops, and some other ALPHA laptops available. For a current survey look at Kenneth E. Harker's Linux on Laptops without x86 Family Processors at
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/linux-laptop/non-intel.html .
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a very low-power CPU found in Rebel.com's popular !NetWinder? (some kind of mobile computer, too), and actively supported in the Debian project, it is also in several WinCE machines, such as HP's Jornadas. Only the lack of tech specs prevents Linux from being ported to these tiny, long-battery-life machines. A full-scale StrongARM-based laptop would make a superb Linux platform, but none exists yet.
For PDAs with ARM/StrongARM CPU see the PDA chapter below.
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Used in SGI mainframes and Cobalt Micro intranet appliances, chips based on this architecture are used in many Wince machines. Linux has been ported to a few of these, including the lovely little Vadem Clio. Vadem has been admirably cooperative.
More about Linux on Wince boxes may be found at LinuxCE-FAQ.
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At higher speed, a CPU consumes more power and generates more heat. Therefore, in many laptops a special low-power CMOS CPU is used. Usually, this special CPU doesn't use as much power as a similar processor used in a desktop. These special CPUs are also more expensive. As a side effect you may find that laptops with a desktop CPU often have a fan which seems quite loud.
An enormously important issue. Anything based on PPC or Pentium will generate enormous amounts of heat which must be dissipated.Generally, this means either a fan, or a heat sink the size of the case.If it's a fan, the air path had better not ever get blocked, or it will overhead and burn out.This means machines with a fan mounted in the bottom are a big, big mistake: you can't use them on a soft surface.
Though you might use your desktop computer to do longer writings, a good keyboard can save you some headaches and finger-aches. Look especially for the location of special keys like: <ESC>, <TAB>, <Pos1>, <End>, <!PageDown?>, <!PageUp?> and the cursor keys.
Laptops are quite expensive if you compare them with desktops. So you may decide between a brand or no-name product. Though I would like to encourage you to take a no-name product, there are some caveats. I have experienced that laptops break often, so you are better off, when you have an after sales warranty, which is usually only offered with brand products. Or you may decide to take a second hand machine. When I tried this, I discovered that the laptop market is changing quite often. A new generation is released approximately every three months (compared by CPU speed, harddisk capacity, screen size etc.). So laptops become old very quick. But this scheme often isn't followed by the prices for second hand laptops. They seem too expensive to me. Anyway if you plan on purchasing a second hand machine, review my recommendations on checking the machine. For German readers there is an online market place at
http://www.hardware.de, which offers a good survey about current prices for second hand machines.
If you travel abroad pay attention to the voltage levels which are supported by the power supply. Also the power supply is often one of the heavier parts of a laptop.
Specifications, manuals and manufacturer support often are not helpful. Therefore you should retrieve information from other sources too:
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/linux-laptop/ .#
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http://www.debian.org/!OpenHardware/#
http://hardware.doa.org/#
http://www.motherboards.org/build.html
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If you can't find the necessary information through the above mentioned sources, you are on your own. Luckily, Linux provides many means to help. For details see the Hardware on Detail section below. In general you may use:
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http://members.hyperlink.net.au/chart. From 2.1.82 kernels on you may use the lspci command from the pci-utils package.
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If you don't want to install a complete Linux you may retrieve this information by using a micro Linux ( see appendix A). The package muLinux provides even a small systest program and !TomsRtBt? comes with memtest. To use memtest you have to copy it on a floppy dd if=/usr/lib/memtest of=/dev/fd0 and to reboot from this floppy.
If your laptop came with Windows, you may determine a lot of hardware settings from the installation. Boot into DOS or Windows to get the information you need.
Using Windows9x/NT to get hardware settings, basically boot Windows, then Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> System -> Device Manager and write down everything, or make a hardcopy from the display using the <PRINT> key, plus keep a log of settings, hardware, memory, etc.
Using MS-DOS and Windows3.1x you can use the command msd, which is an akronym for !MicroSoft? Diagnostics. Or you might try one of the numerous DOS shareware utilities: CHECK-IT, DR.HARD and others.
Sometimes it's difficult to know what manufacturer has built the machine or parts of it actually. The FCC "Federal Communications Commission On-line Equipment Authorization Database may be used, if you are having problems identifying the manufacturer of a laptop or notebook computer (or other electronic device,) this site lets you search the FCC database based on the FCC ID number you can usually find on the equipment if it was marketed in the United States of America."
The Lothar Project is a Mandrake-related project to provide a GUIed interface to get at hardware configuration information on Linux-based systems. It provides a library for different system informations, too.
Many laptops are no more compatible with Windows than Linux. David Hinds, author of the PCMCIA drivers, points out that Toshiba notebooks use a proprietary Toshiba PCMCIA bridge chip that exhibits the same bugs under Windows as under Linux. IBM Thinkpads have serious BIOS problems that affect delivery of events to the power management daemon apmd. These bugs also affect MS-Windows, and are listed in IBM's documentation as considerations.
Some incompatibilities are temporary, for instance laptops that have Intel's USB chip will probably get full USB support, eventually.
If you encounter a device which is not yet supported by Linux, don't forget it's also possible to write a driver by yourself. You may look at the book from Alessandro Rubini, Andy Oram: Linux Device Drivers.
Some recommendations to check an used laptop, before buying it:
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survey of databases for stolen laptops.
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AFAIK there is no Linux tool like the DOS tools CHECK-IT, DR. HARD, SYSDIAG and others. These tools include many of the tests in one integrated suite. One of the best IMHO is the tool PC Diagnostics 95 made by Craig Hart
http://members.hyperlink.net.au/chart . Despite the 95 in its name it's plain DOS, tiny (76KB programm and 199KB data) reliable and free. Unfortenately it contains no check for the IrDA port.
Please note this quotation from the disclaimer: "This program is written with the target audience being a trained, experienced technician. It is NOT designed to be used by those ignorant of computer servicing. Displays are not pretty but functional. Information is not explained since we are not trying to educate. This software should be considered to be just like any other tool in a tech's toolbox. It is to be applied with care, in the right situation, in order to find answers to specific problems. If you are an end user who is less than confident of dealing with computer hardware, this is probably not a program for you."
Laptop computers, unlike desktop machines, really do get used up. Lithium batteries are good for no more than 400 recharge cycles, sometimes much fewer. Keyboards wear out. LCD screen backlighting grows dim. Mouse buttons fail. Worst of all, connectors get loose as a result of vibration, causing intermittent failures (e.g. only when you hit the <Enter> key). We have heard of a machine used on the table in a train being shaken to unusability in one trip.
It's difficult to give any recommendations for a certain laptop model in general. Your personal needs have to be taken into account. Also the market is changing very quickly. I guess every three months a new generation of laptops (according to harddisk space, CPU speed, display size, etc.) comes into the market. So I don't give any model or brand specific recommendations.
From the Battery-HOWTO I got this recommendation (modified by WH):
A Message to Linux Distributors
If you happen to be a Linux distributor, thank you for reading all this. Laptops are becoming more and more popular, but still most Linux distributions are not very well prepared for portable computing. Please make this section of this document obsolete, and make a few changes in your distribution.
The installation routine should include a configuration, optimized for laptops. The minimal install is often not lean enough. There are a lot of things that a laptop user does not need on the road. Just a few examples. There is no need for three different versions of vi (as found in Suse Linux). Most portable systems do not need printing support (they will never be connected to a printer, printing is usually done with the desktop system at home). Quite a few laptops do not need any network support at all.
Don't forget to describe laptop-specific installation problems, e. g. how to install your distribution without a cd-rom drive or how to setup the plip network driver.
Add better power management and seamless PCMCIA support to your distribution. Add a recompiled kernel and an alternative set of PCMCIA drivers with apm support that the user can install on demand. Include a precompiled apmd package with your distribution.
Add support for dynamically switching network configurations. Most Linux laptops travel between locations with different network settings (e. g. the network at home, the network at the office and the network at the university) and have to change the network ID very often. Changing a Linux system's network ID is a pain with most distributions.
Add a convenient PPP dialer with an address book, that does not try to start multiple copies of the PPP daemon if you click on the button twice (e.g., the !RedHat usernet tool). It would be nice to have the PPP dialer also display the connection speed and some statistics. One nice command line dialer that autodetects modems and PPP services is wvdial from Worldvisions
http://www.worldvisions.ca/wvdial/.
The Debian/GNU Linux has most of the desired features for a laptop installation. The distribution has a quite flexible installation tool. The installation process is well documented, especially concerning the methods which are useful at laptops. All the binaries are tiny, because they are stripped. A mailing list debian-laptop including a searchable archiv is provided. And Debian/GNU Linux is free.
At the end of August 1999 the Debian Laptop Distribution - Proposal was issued. And some more laptop related packages and a Debian meta-package dedicated to laptops are on the way.
Note: I know other Linux distributions work well with laptops, too. I even tried some of them, see my pages about certain laptops mentioned above.
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ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/slink/main/disks-i386/current/install.html
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Partitioning can be done in a very sophisticated way. Currently I have only some first thoughts. I assume that with laptops there are still some reasons (e.g. updating the firmware of PCMCIA cards and BIOS) to share Linux and Windows9x/NT. Depending on your needs and the features of your laptop you could create the following partitions:
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Note this chapter isn't ready yet. Please read the according HOWTOs first.
GNU parted allows you to create, destroy, resize and copy partitions. It currently supports ext2 and fat (fat16 and fat32) filesystems, and MS-DOS disklabels. This program can destroy data, and is not yet safe for general use. parted is currently in its early developement stage.
ext2resize is a program capable of resizing (shrinking and growing) ext2 filesystems. Checks whether the new size the user gave is feasible (i.e. whether the fs isn't too occupied to shrink it), connected to the parted project.
Something was recently published on the <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org> mailing list about a partition recovery program. I have not used this, nor examined it, nor read much about it (except for the HTML page.) It may be useful to some of you if you have problems with FIPS, Ranish Partition Manager/Utility or Partition Magic destroying your partition information. You can find information on this partition-fixer named "fixdisktable" at
http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/people/chaffee/fat32.html . It is quite a ways down in that page. Or look for it via ftp in
Before repartitioning your harddisk take care about the disk layout. Especially look for hidden disk space or certain partitions used for suspend to disk or hibernation mode. Some laptops come with a partition which contains some BIOS programs (e.g. COMPAQ Armada 1592DT). Search the manual carefully for tools like PHDISK.EXE, Suspend to Disk, Diagnostic TOOLS.
Please see chapter DOS Tools to Repartition a Hard Disk, too.
By Nathan Myers from LL - !LinuxLaptops?: "I partitioned a 10G Thinkpad drive last week and then none of fdisk, cfdisk, or sfdisk would read the partition table any more. It turns out I had created a partition that started on cylinder 1024, and there's a bug common to all three programs that makes them fail in that case. (I didn't try Disk Druid.) So, maybe you should add some advice about not starting partitions on that cylinder."
Please see the Different Environments chapter, for information about booting different operating systems from the same harddisk.
From the Battery-HOWTO:"Installing and using Linux on a laptop is usually no problem at all, so go ahead and give it a try. Unlike some other operating systems, Linux still supports and runs well on even very old hardware, so you might give your outdated portable a new purpose in life by installing Linux on it."
One of the great benefits of Linux are its numerous and flexible installation features, which I don't want to describe in detail. Instead I try to focus on laptop specific methods, which are necessary only in certain circumstances.
Most current distributions support installation methods which are useful for laptops, including installation from CD-ROM, via PCMCIA and NFS (or maybe SMB). Please see the documents which are provided with these distributions for further details or take a look at the above mentioned manuals and HOWTOs.
With modern laptops, the usual Linux installation (one Boot Floppy, one Support Floppy, one Packages CD-ROM) should be no problem, if there is are floppy drive and a CD-ROM drive available. Though with certain laptops you might get trouble if you can not simultaneously use the floppy drive and CD-ROM drive , or if the floppy drive is only available as a PCMCIA device, as with the Toshiba Libretto 100. Some laptops support also booting and therefore installation completely from a CD drive, as reported for the SONY VAIO in the VAIO-HOWTO. Note: Check the BIOS for the CD boot option and make sure your Linux distribution comes on a bootable CD.
Certain laptops will only boot zImage kernels. bzImage kernels won't work. This is a known problem with the IBM Thinkpad 600 and Toshiba Tecra series, for instance. Some distributions provide certain boot floppies for these machines or for machines with limited memory resources, Debian/GNU Linux
http://www.debian.org for instance.
This is a short description of how to install from a CD-ROM under DOS without using boot or supplemental floppy diskettes. This is especially useful for notebooks with swappable floppy and CD-ROM components (if both are mutually exclusive) or if they are only available as PCMCIA devices. I have taken this method from "Installing Debian GNU/Linux 2.1 For Intel x86 - Chapter 5 Methods for Installing Debian"
http://www.debian.org :
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This should work for other distributions with similar changes. For !RedHat see How to Install from CD-ROM without Boot and Supplemental Disks .
Some new laptops may be able to boot a Linux distribution on a bootable CD-ROM (e.g., !RedHat). This would allow installation without a floppy disk drive.
Because of their small or non-existent footprint, micro-Linuxes are especially suited to run on laptops, particularly if you use a company-provided laptop running Windows9x/NT. Or for installation purposes using another non Linux machine. There are several micro Linux distributions out there that boot from one or two floppies and run off a ramdisk. See appendix A for a listing of distributions.
I tried the following with muLinux
http://mulinux.firenze.linux.it/ to clone my HP !OmniBook? 800 to a COMPAQ Armada 1592DT. Thanks to Michele Andreoli, maintainer of muLinux for his support. Since muLinux doesn't support PCMCIA yet, you may use !TomsRtBt? instead. In turn !TomsRtBt? doesn't support PPP but provides slip. Note: Since version 7.0 muLinux provides an Add-On with PCMCIA support.
I have described how to copy an already existing partition, but it might be also possible to achieve a customized installation. Note: Usually you would try to achieve an installation via NFS, which is supported by many distributions. Or if your sources are not at a Linux machine you might try the SMB protocol with SAMBA, which is also supported by muLinux .
You need two machines equipped with Linux. With the laptop (client/destination) on which you want to install Linux use the muLinux floppy. The other machine (server/source) may be a usual Linux box or also using muLinux. Though its low transfer rate I use a serial null modem cable because its cheap. You may apply the according method using a PCMCIA network card and a crossover network cable or a HUB, or a parallel "null modem" cable and PLIP. As the basic protocol I used PPP, but you may also use SLIP. For the data-transfer I used nc. Note: this is an abbrevation for netcat, some distributions use this as the program name. You may use ftp, tftp, rsh, ssh, dd, rcp, kermit, NFS, SMB and other programs instead.
Basic requirements are:
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At your source machine issue the following commands (attention: IP address, port number, partition and tty are just examples!):
/dev/ttyS0 115200 passive
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At the destination machine issue:
/dev/ttyS0 115200 passive
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Or do the following (untested): At the destination machine cd into the root directory / and do nc -l -p 5555 | bzip2 -dc | tar xvf -. At the source machine machine cd into the root directory / and do tar cvf - . | bzip2 | nc -w 3 192.168.0.2 5555. This should shorten the time needed for the operation, too. Because only the allocated blocks need to be transfered.
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From Adam Sulmicki adam@cfar.unc.edu I got this hint: Most but not all harddisks in laptops are removable, but this might be not an easy task. You could just buy one of those cheap 2.5" IDE converters/adapters which allow you to connect this harddisk temporarily to a PC with IDE subsystem, and install Linux as usual using that PC. You may do so using the harddisk as the first IDE drive or besides as the second IDE drive. But than you need to be sure that lilo writes to the right partition. Also you have to make sure that you use the same translation style as your laptop is going to use (i.e. LBA vs. LARGE vs. CHS ). You find additional information in the Hard-Disk-Upgrade-mini-HOWTO. You might copy an existing partition, but it is also possible to achieve a customized installation.
Since I don't have a laptop which comes with a PCMCIA floppy drive (for instance Toshiba Libretto 100), I couldn't check this method. Please see the chapter Booting from a PCMCIA Device in the PCMCIA-HOWTO. Also I couldn't check whether booting from a PCMCIA harddisk is possible.
Anyway, when you are able to boot from a floppy and the laptop provides a PCMCIA slot, it should be possible to use different PCMCIA cards to connect to another machine, to an external SCSI device, different external CD and ZIP drives and others. Usually these methods are described in the documentation which is provided with the distribution.
I couldn't check this method by myself, because I don't have such a device. Please check the according Install-From-Zip-mini-HOWTO and CD-HOWTO. Also I don't know how much these installation methods are supported by the Linux distributions or the micro Linuxes. I suppose you have to fiddle around a bit to get this working.
I got this courtesy by Nathan Myers <ncm@cantrip.org>: "Many distributions support installing via a network, using FTP, HTTP, or NFS. It is increasingly common for laptops to have only a single PCMCIA slot, already occupied by the boot floppy drive. Usually the boot floppy image has drivers for neither the floppy drive itself, nor the PCMCIA subsystem. Thus, the only network interface available may be the parallel port.
Installation via the parallel port using the PLIP protocol has been demonstrated on, at least, Red Hat. All you need is a Laplink parallel cable, cheap at any computer store. See the PLIP-mini-HOWTO for details on setting up the connection. Note that (uniquely) the !RedHat installation requires that the other end of the PLIP connection be configured to use ARP (apparently because !RedHat uses the DOS driver in their installer). On the host, either export your CD file system on NFS, or mount it where the ftp or web daemon can find it, as needed for the installation."
The PLIP Install HOWTO by Gilles Lamiral describes how to install the Debian GNU-Linux distribution on a computer without ethernet card, nor cdrom, but just a local floppy drive and a remote nfs server attached by a Null-Modem parallel cable. The nfs server has a cdrom drive mounted and exported.
If you have less than 8MB memory and want to install via NFS you may get the message "fork: out of memory". To handle this problem, use fdisk to make a swap partition (fdisk should be on the install floppy or take one of the mini Linuxes described above). Then try to boot from the install floppy again. Before configuring the NFS connection change to another console (for instance by pressing <ALT><2>) and issue swapon /dev/xxx (xxx = swap partition ). Thanks to Thomas Schmaltz.
With the probe command, which is included in the PCMCIA-CS package by David Hinds you can get the type of the PCMCIA controller. Often this shows also up with cat /proc/pci .
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In the mailing lists where I'm a member, the question "How can I set up PCMCIA support, after the Linux installation?" comes up sometimes. Therefore I try to give a short survey. But the authoritative source for the latest information about the PCMCIA Card Services for Linux, including documentation, files, and generic PCMCIA information is the Linux PCMCIA Information Page . For problems with PCMCIA and APM see the APM chapter.
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Since there are not all cards mentioned I have set up a page PCMCIA Cards "Unofficially" Supported by Linux .
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To get the IrDA port of your laptop working with Linux/IrDA you may use !StandardInfraRed? (SIR) or !FastInfraRed? (FIR).
Up to 115.200bps, the infrared port emulates a serial port like the 16550A UART. This will be detected by the kernel serial driver at boot time, or when you load the serial module. If infrared support is enabled in the BIOS, for most laptops you will get a kernel message like:
Serial driver version 4.25 with no serial options enabled ttyS00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A #first serial port /dev/ttyS0 ttyS01 at 0x3000 (irq = 10) is a 16550A #e.g. infrared port ttyS02 at 0x0300 (irq = 3) is a 16550A #e.g. PCMCIA modem port
If you want to use up to 4Mbps, your machine has to be equipped with a certain FIR chip. You need a certain Linux/IrDA driver to support this chip. Therefore you need exact information about the FIR chip. You may get this information in one of the following ways:
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http://members.hyperlink.net.au/chart . From kernel 2.1.82 on, you may use lspci from the pci-utils package, too.
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http://www.heise.de/ct/ftp/pci.shtml . The information provided by this program is sometimes better than that provided by the Linux tools.#
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If in doubt, always look for the .inf/.vxd drivers for Windows95. Windows95 doesn't ship with ANY FIR drivers. (they are all third party, mostly from Counterpoint, who was assimilated by ESI)."
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http://www.smsc.com/ftppub/chips/appnote/ir_utils.zip . The package contains FINDCHIP.EXE. And includes a FIRSETUP.EXE utility that is supposed to be able to set all values except the chip address. Furthermore it contains BIOSDUMP.EXE, which produces this output:
Example 1 (from a COMPAQ Armada 1592DT)
In current devNode: Size = 78 Handle = 14 ID = 0x1105D041 = 'PNP0511' -- Generic IrDA SIR Types: Base = 0x07, Sub = 0x00, Interface = 0x02 Comm. Device, RS-232, 16550-compatible Attribute = 0x80 CAN be disabled CAN be configured BOTH Static & Dynamic configuration Allocated Resource Descriptor Block TAG's: TAG=0x47, Length=7 I/O Tag, 16-bit Decode Min=0x03E8, Max=0x03E8 Align=0x00, Range=0x08 TAG=0x22, Length=2 IRQ Tag, Mask=0x0010 TAG=0x79, Length=1 END Tag, Data=0x2F
Result 1:
Irq Tag, Mask (bit mapped - ) = 0x0010 = 0000 0000 0000 0001 0000 so, it's IRQ 4. (start at 0, count up ..), so this is a SIR only device, at IRQ=4, IO=x03e8.
Example 2 (from an unknown machine)
In current devNode: Size = 529 Handle = 14 ID = 0x10F0A34D = 'SMCF010' -- SMC IrCC Types: Base = 0x07, Sub = 0x00, Interface = 0x02 Comm. Device, RS-232, 16550-compatible Attribute = 0x80 CAN be disabled CAN be configured BOTH Static & Dynamic configuration Allocated Resource Descriptor Block TAG's: TAG=0x47, Length=7 I/O Tag, 16-bit Decode Min=0x02F8, Max=0x02F8 Align=0x00, Range=0x08 TAG=0x22, Length=2 IRQ Tag, Mask=0x0008 TAG=0x47, Length=7 I/O Tag, 16-bit Decode Min=0x02E8, Max=0x02E8 Align=0x00, Range=0x08 TAG=0x2A, Length=2 DMA Tag, Mask=0x02, Info=0x08 TAG=0x79, Length=1 END Tag, Data=0x00
Result 2:
a) it's a SMC IrCC chip
b) one portion is at 0x02f8, has an io-extent of 8 bytes; irq = 3
c) another portion is at 0x02e8, io-extent of 8 bytes; dma = 1 (0x02 =0000 0010)
Thomas Davis has placed some device information at
http://www.jps.net/tadavis/irda/devids.txt .
WARNING: The package is not intended for the end user, and some of the utilities could be harmful. The only documentation in the package is in M$ Word format. Linux users may read this with catdoc, available at
http://www.fe.msk.ru/vitus/catdoc/ .
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I have made a hardware survey at
http:/www.snafu.de/wehe/ir_misc.html. This list also contains information about infrared capable devices which are not mentioned here (mice, printers, remote control, transceivers, etc.).
To make this list more valuable, it is necessary to collect more information about the infrared devices in different hardware. You can help by sending me a short e-mail containing the exact name of the hardware you have and which type of infrared controller is used.
Please let me know also how well Linux/IrDA worked (at which tty, port and interrupt it works and the corresponding infrared device, e.g. printer, cellular phone).
Also you can help by contributing detailed technological information about some infrared devices, which is necessary for the development of drivers for Linux.
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The Linux infrared support is still experimental, but rapidly improving. I try to describe the installation in a short survey. Please read my Linux/IR-HOWTO for detailed information.
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Linux Remote Control
http://fsinfo.cs.uni-sb.de/columbus/lirc/ is maintained by Christoph Bartelmus. "Lirc is a package that supports receiving and sending IR signals of the most common IR remote controls. It contains a device driver for hardware connected to the serial port, a daemon that decodes and sends IR signals using this device driver, a mouse daemon that translates IR signals to mouse movements and a couple of user programs that allow to control your computer with a remote control." I don't have valid information about how much infrared remote control is working with laptop infrared devices.
The tool !SuperProbe? is part of XFree86 and is able to check many graphic chips. Please read the documentation carefully, because it might crash your hardware. From man !SuperProbe?:
"!SuperProbe? is a a program that will attempt to determine the type of video hardware installed in an EISA/ISA/VLB-bus system by checking for known registers in various combinations at various locations (!MicroChannel? and PCI machines may not be fully supported; many work with the use of the -no_bios option). This is an error-prone process, especially on Unix (which usually has a lot more esoteric hardware installed than MS-DOS system do), so !SuperProbe? may likely need help from the user.
...
At this time, !SuperProbe? can identify MDA, Hercules, CGA, MCGA, EGA, VGA, and an entire horde of SVGA chipsets (see the -info option, below). It can also identify several !HiColor?/True-color RAMDACs in use on SVGA boards, and the amount of video memory installed (for many chipsets). It can identify 8514/A and some derivatives, but not XGA, or PGC (although the author intends to add those capabilities). Nor can it identify other esoteric video hardware (like Targa, TIGA, or Microfield boards).":
For testing reasons start the X server with X 2> <error.msg>. And try to change the resolution by typing <CTL><ALT><+> or <CTL><ALT><->. Note: the + or - sign have to be taken from the numeric pad, which can be emulated at the letter pad by some laptops.
Just watch the display and determine if it works properly. If not, try to enable different video modes at startup time. Setting up X can sometimes be an exercise in trial and error.
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You might discover that some features of your laptop are not supported by XFree86, e.g. high resolutions, accelerated X or an external monitor. Therefore I give a survey of available X servers.
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http://www.xig.com , commercial
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http://www.scitechsoft.com , commercial
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If you can't get an appropriate X server working, but don't want to effort a commercial X server you may try the VGA16 or the mono server included in XFree86.
You may find a survey about X windows resources at Kenneth E. Harker's page Linux on Laptops and a survey about current graphic chips used in laptops at MobiliX.
There are several different methods to activate support for an external monitor: as a BIOS option or during runtime with a keystroke e.g. <Fn>+<F4>. Maybe you have to edit /etc/XF86Config by configuring int_disp and ext_disp. If you can't get this to work with XFree, try a demo version of the commercial X servers mentioned above. Also check with the !RedHat and SuSE WWW sites as they may have new, binary-only, X servers that may work with your laptop.
Sometimes you may encounter a display not working properly in text mode. Currently I don't have any recommendations, please see Keyboard-Console-HOWTO.
Take care of the backlight AFAIK this device can only bear a limited number of uptime circles. So avoid using screensavers too much.
For problems with X windows and APM please see the APM chapter.
The only way I know to check this, is to compile the different sound drivers into the kernel and check whether they are detected or not. The best way to do so, is to compile them as modules because it's easier to load different parameters such as interrupts and IO ports than. For the new 2.2.x kernels, read the /usr/src/linux/Documentation/sound/Introduction document by Wade Hampton. This document may help you get started with sound. Also, you might try one of the commercial sound drivers mentionend below.
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Many new laptops come with 16-bit sound. But MWave and some other sound technologies won't work or are very hard to get working, e.g. booting to DOS, loading a driver, then using the soundcard as a standard SB-PRO. So you might need a commercial sound driver. With the recent announcement of Linux support by IBM, it would be GREAT if IBM supported the MWave under Linux (hint, hint...). As a last ressort you may try the speaker module pcsnd, which tries to emulate a soundcard.
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UNIX Sound System Lite / OSS, commercial or at least non-GPL (since the 2.2.x kernels I'm not sure about the commercial status), also available from
http://www.opensound.com .
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Usually there are no problems with Linux and the keyboard. Though there are two minor caveats: First the setleds program might not work. Second the key mapping might not fit your needs. Some Unix users and vi users expect to find the <CONTROL> key to the left of the <A> key. Many PC-type keyboards have the <CAPS-LOCK> key there. You may use xmodmap or loadkeys to re-map the keyboard. Some laptops (e.g., Toshiba) allow you to swap the <CAPS-LOCK> and <CONTROL> keys. Mark Alexander offered this solution in the linux-laptop mailing list: On !RedHat, it's a one-line patch to /usr/lib/kbd/keytables/us.map , or whatever file is referenced in /etc/sysconfig/keyboard:
*** us.map Tue Oct 31 14:00:07 1995 --- us.map Thu Aug 28 13:36:03 1997 *************** *** 113,119 **** keycode 57 = space space control keycode 57 = nul alt keycode 57 = Meta_space
keycode 59 = F1 F11 Console_13 control keycode 59 = F1 alt keycode 59 = Console_1 --- 113,119 ---- keycode 57 = space space control keycode 57 = nul alt keycode 57 = Meta_space
keycode 59 = F1 F11 Console_13 control keycode 59 = F1 alt keycode 59 = Console_1
A second (or external) keyboard can be attached using the PS/2 port (I suppose this is not possible via the serial port, since there is no keyboard controller for the serial port). Also there is one laptop with a detachable keyboard the Siemens Scenic Mobile 800. This machine uses an infrared connection to the keyboard, but I don't know whether this works with Linux. WARNING: Don't plug the external keyboard in while the laptop is booted, or plug the mouse in the keyboard port and the keyboard in the mouse port. On a Toshiba, this caused one user to have to completely shutdown the laptop, remove the keyboard/mouse, and do a cold reboot.
For PS/2 ports there are so called Y-Cable available, which make it possible to use external mouse and external keyboard at the same time if your laptop supports this feature.
Parport to AUX port adapter In some cases one kbd port and one aux port is not enough and you may want to add another keyboard or mouse. You can use this adapter, together with the parkbd.c module for that.
On some laptops a splitter works to allow both mouse and keyboard to be plugged in; on others it doesn't work at all.If you might want to use both you had better check that it works, or you may find yourself waiting anxiously for USB support.
Sun keyboard to PC serial port adapter: Many people have dreamed having their Sun Type 5 keyboard attached to their Linux box up to now. And with this adapter, it is finally possible. Because the standard Sun keyboards use TTL RS232 at 1200 bps to talk to the Suns, it's very easy to make them talk to any non-Sun computer by converting this to true RS232. All what you need is a MAX232 chip that'll take care about the correct voltage levels, and also some chip to invert the signals (CD4049 in the pic, I've used a 7400 quad-nand myself), since the MAX232 inverts them as well, and we don't need this. This all easily fits into a 25-pin serial connector.
You may check your mouse with the mev command from the GPM package.
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Most of the mice used in laptops are PS/2 mice (actually I don't know one with another mouse protocol). You may communicate with the PS/2 mouse through /dev/psaux or /dev/psmouse. If you use X windows this device and the protocol has to be set in /etc/XF86Config, too. In earlier releases, sometimes the GPM mouse manager and X windows had trouble sharing a mouse when enabled at the same time. But AFAIK this is no problem anymore for the latest versions.
Speaking of Emulate3Buttons, 100ms is usually better than the 50ms allowed in most default setups of /etc/X11/XF86Config.
Section "Pointer" Protocol "PS/2" Device "/dev/psaux" Emulate3Buttons Emulate3Timeout 100
Usually a touchpad works with the PS/2 mouse driver. A tip: I've heard that tipping with one , two or three fingers on the touchpad simultaneously results in pressing the left, middle and respectively the right mouse-button (by Martin Hoffmann <mh@rrz.uni-hamburg.de> for an IPC-Radiance 900).
There is also a dedicated touchpad driver available. The Synaptics Touchpad Linux Driver supports pointing devices used in notebooks by Acer, Compaq, Dell, Gateway, Olivetti, Texas Instruments, Winbook, and others. Other URL N.N..
The recent gpm package ( gpm >=1.8) includes the above mentioned synaptics touchpad device driver. This device driver has been developed by H. Davies <hdavies@ameritech.net>. Instead of using the PS/2 compatibility mode of touchpad devices, you can now use native touchpad mode with some pretty impressive features.
In addition to translating finger motion into mouse motion and supporting the buttons, this support currently has several features (from the README):
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These features can be enabled/disabled and many of them have time and speed parameters which can be adjusted to the taste of the user.
It seems gpm is best known as a console biased tool. This is true, but you may use it as an X input device. gpm is used as a repeater device. In this way you can use both the built-in synaptics touchpad with all the features and at the same time a serial mouse (with three buttons). This all works smoothly together. X reads the mouse events from a named pipe /dev/gpmdata in a protocol it understands, which in my case is Mouse-Systems-Compatible (5bytes). Most 3-button mice use the default protocol. So a simple reconfiguration in XF86Config is all that is required, after starting gpm in an appropriate way, of course.
gpm could be started on your laptop with the following arguments : /usr/bin/gpm -t synps2 -M -t ms -m /dev/ttyS0 . Both touchpad and serial mouse work in console and X mode. You do have to create the named pipe /dev/gpmdata yourself.
Tapping with two fingers simultaneously to simulate a middle mouse button works on Logitech touchpads used in a few machines.
Thanks to Geert Van der Plas for most of the touchpad chapter.
The only laptop I know which includes a touchscreen is the Fujitsu Biblo 112. It may work in PS/2 or serial mouse compatibility mode. But I couldn't check this yet.
The latest version of the Linux Compaq Concerto Pen Driver is available from Joe Pfeiffer's home page.
For better handling, e.g. with a 3 button mouse you may use an external mouse. This usually a serial mouse or a PS/2 mouse, according to the port your laptop offers. Usually this is no problem.
For PS/2 ports there are so called Y-Cable available, which make it possible to use external mouse and external keyboard at the same time if your laptop supports this feature.
WARNING: Don't plug in the external mouse while powered up. If you have separate mouse and keyboard ports, make sure you plug the mouse in the mouse port and the keyboard in the keyboard port. If you don't, you may have to do a hard reboot of the laptop to get it to recover.
From the Battery-Powered-mini-HOWTO " .. for APM to work on any notebook or energy-conscious desktop, the system BIOS ROM in the machine must support the APM Specification standard. Furthermore, for APM to work with the Linux operating system, the system BIOS ROM must support either the 1.0 or 1.1 version of the APM standard, and it must also support 32-bit protected mode connections. A system that supports APM 1.1 is preferred, as it provides more features that the device driver and supporting utilities can take advantage of."
You may get information about the APM version with the dmesg command and in the /proc/apm file.
Features of APM according to Documentation/Configure.help: "The system time will be reset after a USER RESUME operation, the /proc/apm device will provide battery status information, and user-space programs will receive notification of APM events (e.g., battery status change). "
APM support consists of two parts: kernel support and user-land support.
For kernel support, enable the parameters in the corresponding kernel section. Some features need special tweaking with certain machines (e.g. IBM !ThinkPad?) or even don't work, ("TI 4000M !TravelMate? and the ACER 486/DX4/75 because they don't have compliant BIOSes"). Currently all distributions I know don't provide a kernel with APM support enabled. So you usually have to compile your custom kernel. Please see Kernel-HOWTO or distribution manual for details. The available APM options are (please see Documentation/Configure.help in the kernel source tree for more details):
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Joey Hess <joey@kitenet.net> wrote at debian-laptop@lists.debian.org "I just installed kernel 2.2.12 on my laptop, and was having some trouble getting apm working. it said apm disabled on user request at boot time. Well, some grepping the kernel sources found that passing apm=on to the kernel at boot time enables it now. I can't find any record or docs of this change.
The utilities for userland support may be found at
http://worldvisions.ca/apenwarr/apmd/. APMD is a set of programs that control the Advanced Power Management system found in most modern laptop computers. If you run a 2.2.x kernel and want to experiment, Gabor Kuti <seasons@falcon.sch.bme.hu> has made a kernel patch that allows you to hibernate any Linux system to disk, even if your computers APM BIOS doesn't support it directly. IMHO you don't need this features if your laptop provides a function key to invoke suspend mode directly.
When you first install Linux, you will probably have to recompile the kernel. The kernel that came with your distribution probably does not have APM enabled.
Please see the Battery Powered Linux Mini-HOWTO by <kontakt@hanno.de> Hanno Mueller and the page of Kenneth E. Harker for detailed information.
README apmd?:On laptop computers, the APM support provides access to battery status information and may help you to conserve battery power, depending on your laptop and the APM implementation.
Rik Faith <faith@acm.org> has transferred maintenance of the Linux apmd package over to me, Avery Pennarun <apenwarr@worldvisions.ca> and I'm finally getting around to making a release with the many updates we've collected since the last release back in 1996.
Here's what apmd can do:
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Richard Gooch wrote: I'have had a look at the beta version of apmd, and I still don't like it, because:
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Though this topic was discussed controversly Richard Gooch has put together a package suspendd at
http://www.atnf.csiro.au/rgooch/linux/ .
Also, have a look at apmcd (apm based crontab) at
ftp://ftp.binary9.net/pub/linux/ . A tool made by Nicolas J. Leon <nicholas@binary9.net>
http://mrnick.binary9.net/.
Note: I didn't check wether this features are merged into one package (apmd eventually) already.
If you have another operating system preinstalled or use another operating system at the same disk, make sure there is no "hibernation" or "suspend" tool installed, which could severely interfere with Linux, e.g. it might use disk space which is occupied by Linux or vice versa.
If your machine worked with 2.0.x kernels but not with the 2.2.x series, take this advice from Klaus Franken kfr@klaus.franken.de : "The default changed in 2.2. Search in the init-scripts for halt and change it to halt -p or poweroff. See man halt , if you don't have this option you need a newer version of halt." You may find it in the !SysVinit? package.
On some new machines (for instance HP Omnibook 4150 - 366 MHz model) when accessing /proc/apm, you may get a kernel fault general protection fault: f000. Stephen Rothwell <Stephen.Rothwell@canb.auug.org.au>
http://www.canb.auug.org.au/sfr/ explaines: "This is your APM BIOS attempting to use a real mode segment while in protected mode, i.e. it is a bug in your BIOS. .. We have seen a few of these recently, except all the others are in the power off code in the BIOS wher we can work around it by returning to real mode before attempting to power off. Here we cannot do this."
apmd-rhcn-2.4phil-1 by !RedHat
ftp://rhcn.redhat.com/pub/rhcn/ contains an unofficial patch for shutting down the PCMCIA sockets before a suspend and patches for multiple batteries.
According to Documentation/Configure.help: "Some other things you should try when experiencing seemingly random, weird problems:
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PCMCIA Card Services and Advanced Power Management (from the PCMCIA-HOWTO):
"Card Services can be compiled with support for APM (Advanced Power Management) if you've configured your kernel with APM support. ... The PCMCIA modules will automatically be configured for APM if a compatible version is detected on your system. Whether or not APM is configured, you can use cardctl suspend before suspending your laptop, and cardctl resume after resuming, to cleanly shut down and restart your PCMCIA cards. This will not work with a modem that is in use, because the serial driver isn't able to save and restore the modem operating parameters. APM seems to be unstable on some systems. If you experience trouble with APM and PCMCIA on your system, try to narrow down the problem to one package or the other before reporting a bug. Some drivers, notably the PCMCIA SCSI drivers, cannot recover from a suspend/resume cycle. When using a PCMCIA SCSI card, always use cardctl eject prior to suspending the system.".
"Many (most?) BIOSes fail to save and restore display controller chip registers, and X has no protocol to be notified of resume events, so on many systems suspend/resume is more-or-less incompatible with X." Linux Laptops has created a fix for this problem.
Sometimes X windows and APM don't work smoothly together, the machine might even hang. A recommendation from Steve Rader: Some linux systems have their X server hang when doing apm -s. Folks with this affliction might want switch to the console virtual terminal then suspend chvt 1; apm -s as root, or, more appropiately.sudo chvt 1; sudo apm -s. I have these commands in a script, say, my-suspend and then do xapmload --click-command my-suspend .
As far as I remember this is controversly discussed, but I don't remember the URL. It isn't a kernel feature yet.
The new 3.0beta versions add a new feature to apmd: it can run arbitrary commands (like cardctl suspend) when you suspend or resume your system. It also supports BIOS clocks that are set to UTC time.
Lots of BIOSes fail to restore sound chip registers, so you may get a squeal of feedback when you wake up the machine. A script in /etc/apm/event.d can use aumix to save and restore sound mixer settings.
Software suspend enables the possibilty of suspendig machine. It doesn't need APM. You may suspend your machine by either pressing Sysrq-d or with 'swsusp' or 'shutdown -z (patch for sysvinit needed). It creates an image which is saved in your active swaps. By the next booting the kernel detects the saved image, restores the memory from it and then it continues to run as before you've suspended. If you don't want the previous state to continue use the 'noresume' kernel option.
ACPI stands for Advanced Configuration and Power Interface. This is a specification by Toshiba, Intel and Microsoft. Besides many other things it also defines power management. This is why it is often compared to APM.
The ACPI4Linux project has started at the beginning of 1999. The ACPI4Linux project is a kernel driver project aimed at implementing full ACPI support for Linux, including fan control, dock/undock detection and a !WindowMaker dockable temperature meter. You may reach it at ACPI4Linux.
For information about available battery types, take a look at the Hardware Features chapter above.
Please see Battery Powered Linux Mini-HOWTO by Hanno Mueller <kontakt@hanno.de>
http://www.hanno.de
Power Supplies for Laptops - (Draft) for further information.
Stephen Rothwell
http://www.canb.auug.org.au/sfr/ is currently integrating a patch that will add multiple battery support to the kernel APM.
From the mobile-update page (modified by WH): Discharge the battery. If your battery runs only for about 20 minutes, you probably suffer from memory effects. Most laptops do not discharge the battery properly. With low powered devices like old computer fans they can be discharged completely. This removes memory effects. You should do so even with !LiIon? batteries, though they don't suffer much from memory effext (the manual of an IBM Thinkpad says to cycle the batteries through a full charge/discharge cycle 3 times every few months or so).
WARNING: Try this at your own risk! Make sure the voltage of the fans is compatible to your battery. It works for me.
In the US, this company has most batteries for anything and can rebuild many that are no longer manufactured: Batteries Plus, 2045 Pleasant Hill Road, Duluth, GA 30096 +1 770 495 1644.
Unfortenately most laptops come with a proprietary memory chips. So they are not interchangeable between different models. But this seems changing.
The Plug and Play driver project for Linux is a project to create support within the Linux kernel (see Linux.Org for more information) for handling Plug and Play (and other semi-PnP) devices in a clean, consistent way. It aims to allow a driver of any type of hardware to have this hardware configured by the PnP driver in the kernel. This driver is then notified when the device is reconfigured, or even removed from the system, so as to allow for graceful action in these circumstances
http://www.io.com/cdb/mirrors/lpsg/pnp-linux.html .
ISA PnP tools is another useful package.
And there is a project at !RedHat
http://www.redhat.com/pnp/overview.html .
The latest PCMCIA driver package (>>3.1.0) has utilities lspnp and setpnp to manipulate PNP settings. Note that in 3.1.0 you may need this patch to compile them:
First some definitions. There is a difference between docking station and port replicator.
I use the term docking station for a box which contains slots to put some interface cards in, and space to put a harddisk, etc. in. This box can be permanently connected to a PC. A port replicator is just a copy of the laptop ports which may be connected permanently to a PC.
I don't use a docking station. They seem really expensive and I can't see any usefulness. OK you have to mess up with some more cables, but is it worth so much money? Docking stations are useful in an office environment when you have a permanent network connection, or need the docking station's SCSI adaptor (e.g., for a CD-R).
Also all docking stations I know are proprietary models, so if you change your laptop you have to change this device, too. I just found one exception a docking station which connects to your laptop via IrDA the IRDocking IR-660 by Tekram
http://www.tekram.com/Hot_Products.asp?Product=IR-660 . It supports these connectors: 10Base-T (RJ-45); PS/2 Keyboard; PS/2 Mouse; 25-Pin Printer Port (LPT); IR Transceiver; Power (6 VDC). So it seems that a VGA port and a port to connect a desktop PC directly are missing. This device should work with Linux/IrDA, though I couldn't check it out.
I would prefer to buy a PC instead and connect it via network to the laptop.
Or use an external display, which usually works well as described above, and an external keyboard and mouse. If your laptop supports an extra PS/2 port you may use a cheap solution a Y cable, which connects the PS/2 port to an external keyboard and an external monitor. Note: Your laptop probably has support for the Y cable feature, e.g. the COMPAQ Armada 1592DT.
AFAIK there are three solutions to connect a laptop to a docking station:
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From Martin J. Evans martin@mjedev.demon.co.uk "The main problem with docking stations is getting the operating system to detect you are docked. Fortunately, if you configure your kernel with the /proc file system (does anyone not do this?) you can examine the devices available and thus detect a docked state. With this in mind a few simple scripts is all you need to get your machine configured correctly in a docked state.
You may want to build support for the docking station hardware as modules instead of putting it directly into the kernel. This will save space in your kernel but your choice probably largely depends on how often you are docked.
1) Supporting additional disks on the docking station SCSI card
To my mind the best way of doing this is to:
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2) Supporting additional network adaptors in the docking station
You can use a similar method to that outlined above for the graphics card. Check the /proc filesystem in your rc scripts to see if you are docked and then set up your network connections appropriately. "
Once you determine this information, you may use a script, similar to the following example, to configure the connection to your docking station at startup. The script is provided by Friedhelm Kueck:
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SOCKETS=`tail -1 /var/run/stab | cut -d ":" -f 1` case "$SOCKETS" in "Socket 3") echo Laptop is in Dockingstation ... echo Disabeling internal LCD Display for X11 echo cp /etc/XF86Config_extern /etc/XF86Config #
# echo echo "Setting up eth0 for use at Network ..." echo /sbin/ifconfig eth0 10.1.9.5 netmask 255.255.0.0 broadcast 10.1.255.255 /sbin/route add -net 10.1.0.0 gw 10.1.9.5 /sbin/route add default gw 10.1.10.1 ;; "Socket 1") echo Laptop is standalone echo Disabling external Monitor for X11 cp /etc/XF86Config_intern /etc/XF86Config echo echo Network device NOT setup ;; esac
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If your laptop supports PCMCIA this is the easiest and fastest way to get network support. Make sure your card is supported before buying one.
Probably the cheapest way to connect your laptop to another computer, but quite slow. You may use PPP or SLIP to start the connection.
Accton Pocket Ethernet and Linux This ethernet adaptor uses a parallel port and delivers approximately 110k Bytes/s throughput for those notebooks that do not have PCMCIA slots.
Linux and Linksys Ethernet Adaptors A short note on the use of the Linksys parallel-port ethernet adaptor under Linux. This is a widely available networking adaptor that doesn't require a PCMCIA slot.
Offers more speed than a serial connection. Some laptops use chipsets that will not work with PLIP. Please see PLIP-HOWTO for details.
I don't have experience with a NIC in a docking station yet.
There are three kinds of modems available: internal, PCMCIA card or external serial port modems. But some internal modems will NOT work with Linux such as the MWave modems (IBM) or if the laptop has a !WinModem. This is caused by non-standard hardware. So you have to use either a PCMCIA card modem or an external modem.
Quotation from the Kernel-FAQ: "9.Why aren't !WinModems? supported? (REG, quoting Edward S. Marshall) The problem is the lack of specifications for this hardware. Most companies producing so-called !WinModems? refuse to provide specifications which would allow non-Microsoft operating systems to use them. The basic issue is that they don't work like a traditional modem; they don't have a DSP, and make the CPU do all the work. Hence, you can't talk to them like a traditional modem, and you -need- to run the modem driver as a realtime task, or you'll have serious data loss issues under any kind of load. They're simply a poor design."
"Win modems are lobotomized modems which expect Windows to do some of their thinking for them. If you do not have Windows, you do not have a connection. "
Anyway, I have set up a page collecting information on laptops with internal modems at
http://mobilix.org/ . Maybe it's possible to run such modems with MS-Windows9x/NT emulators like wine or VMware, but I don't know it.
Recently there is a driver for Lucent !WinModems? (alpha) available at SuSE - Labs and LTModem diagnostic tool.
WARNING: Pay attention to the different kinds of phone lines: analog and ISDN. You can't connect an analog modem to an ISDN port and vice versa. Though there might be hybrid modems available. Connecting to the wrong port may even destroy your modem. Trick: If you are looking for an analog phone port in an office building which is usually wired with ISDN, take a look at the fax lines, they are often analog lines.
For tracking the packets on PPP you may use pppstats. Or pload this provides a graphical view of the traffic (in and out) of the PPP connection. It is based on athena widgets hence is very portable. It also uses very little CPU time. The home of pload is
http://www.engr.utk.edu/mdsmith/pload/ .
If unsure about the right SCSI support, compile a kernel with all available SCSI drivers as modules. Load each module step by step until you get the right one.
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AFAIK there is no laptop yet with a SCSI harddisk. Though there are two models with a built in SCSI port: Texas Instruments TI 4000 and HP !OmniBook? 800. Maybe the !PowerBook? G3 has a SCSI disk, but I didn't check this yet. The old Apple Powerbook Duo models had a SCSI hard disk.
For other models, if you need SCSI support you may get it by using a SCSI-PCMCIA card or via a SCSI adapter in a docking station.
You should get information about the USB controller with cat /proc/pci and about USB devices with cat /proc/bus/usb/devices.
Newer laptops come with the Universal Serial Bus (USB). I haven't tried it on any of my systems because I don't have any USB devices.
Visit
http://www.linux-usb.org for the USB Linux home page. Also I have set up a page collecting information about laptops and USB at
MobiliX .
Usually there are no problems connecting a floppy drive to a Linux laptop. But with a laptop floppy drive you may sometimes not be able to use every feature. I encountered the superformat command (from the fdutils package) couldn't format more than 1.44MB with my HP !OmniBook? 800. You may also have difficulty when the floppy drive and CD drive are mutually exclusive, or when the floppy drive is a PCMCIA device (as with the Toshiba Libretto 100). With older laptops, there might be a minor problem if they use a 720K drive. AFAIK all distributions come with support for 1.44M (and sometimes 1.2M) floppies only. Though it's possible to install Linux anyway. Please see Installation chapter. Please see kernel documentation for boot time parameters concerning certain laptop floppy drives, for instance IBM !ThinkPad?. Or man bootparam .
Most notebooks today come with CD drives. If floppy and CD drive are swappable they are usually mutually exclusive. Sometimes they come as PCMCIA devices. Or as SCSI device (HP !OmniBook? 800). AFAIK there are discmans available which have a port to connect them to a computer or even a SCSI port. I found an article published by Ziff-Davis Publishing Company (September 1996 issue, but missed to note the URL) written by Mitt Jones: "Portable PC Card CD-ROM drives transform laptops into mobile multimedia machines", which listed: Altec Lansing AMC2000 Portable Multimedia CD-ROM Center; Axonix !ProMedia? 6XR; CMS !PlatinumPortable?; EXP CDS420 Multimedia Kit; H45 QuickPCMCIA CD; Liberty 115CD; Panasonic KXL-D740; Sony PRD-250WN CD-ROM Discman.
The Linux Video and DVD Project has made great headway since its start last February. They have just released the source code ( http://livid.on.openprojects.net/css.tgz) so that a DVD decoder card can unlock and read the DVD. Also provided on the site are links to various documents discussing DVD chipset specifications. The Linux Video and DVD Project is avidly seeking help from the opensource community for development.
Universal Disk Format (UDF) Driver: "UDF is a newer CDROM filesystem standard that's required for DVD roms. It's meant to be a replacement for the ISO9660 filesystem used on today's CDROMs, but the immediate impact for most will be DVD. DVD multimedia cdroms use the UDF filesystem to contain MPEG audio and video streams. To access DVD cdroms you would need a DVD cdrom drive, the kernel driver for the cdrom drive, some kind of MPEG video support, and a UDF filesystem driver (like this one). Some DVD cdroms may contain both UDF filesystems and ISO9660 filesystems. In that case, you could get by without UDF support."
Useful programms are hdparm, dmesg, fsck and fdisk .
Be careful when using your laptop abroad. I have heard about some destroyed harddisks due to a magnetic field emitted from the magnetic-holds at the backresttable of the seats in a german railway waggon.
Though I am quite satisfied with the quality of the harddisk in my laptop, when I removed it from the case I unintendedly dropped it, I recommend to be very careful.
AFAIK there is only one form factor for harddisks used in laptops the 2.5" format. This format seems to be available in different heights (Please note I couldn't verify this information yet):
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It might be possible to use a hard disk wich doesn't fit with some case modifications.
Some laptops come with a removable hard disk in a tray, for instance the KAPOK 9600D. There seem to be no SCSI drives for laptops available.
Some high end laptops come with a video or ZV port (NTSC/PAL). Since I don't have a laptop with a ZV or video port yet, I can provide only some URLs
http://roadrunner.swansea.uk.linux.org/v4l.shtml. To collect information about laptops with video port I have setup a page at
http://mobilix.org/ . Alternatively to the ZV port you might use the USB port.
Palmtops and PDAs are currently not much covered in this HOWTO. Anyway it may be useful therefore, too. I just include some links, most of them are from Kenneth E. Harker's page :
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# Newton and Linux Mini-HOWTO .
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# Newtl: Newton/Linux Communications System Newtl allows a Linux machine to communicate with a Newton PDA. Automatically send e-mail, print, and fax outboxes through your Linux machine, and more.
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# PalmVNC is an implementation of the Virtual Network Client architecture that will allow you to use a Linux or other UNIX machine to put up a (tiny) X Window on a 3COM !PalmPilot.
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Hiromu Okada
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VNC .
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Handheld Systems(TM) On-line Archives and a search engine about palmtop related topics Palmtop.Net/ .
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Linux with PDAs and Handheld PCs, too.
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Though in my opinion related to the topic, these devices are not much covered in this text, yet. For general information about Embedded Systems, see
http://www.embedded.com . For Linux information, see
ELKS and the
uCLinux project. See
news:comp.arch.embedded
For NOKIA cellular phones see GNOKII project . And Linux Nserver. This project aim is to produce a GPL replacement for Nokia's Windows Nserver, and maybe improve upon it along the way. Initially it will emulate the Windows 3.1 version (ie. allow backup, restore and install).
openWAP is an open source project for the implementation of the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) for use with browsers, servers and tools. WAP is used by PDA devices, cell phones, pagers and other wireless devices to transmit internet content to these devices. The project is still in its early stages and nothing can be downloaded yet.
GSMLIB is a library to access GSM mobile phones through GSM modems. Features include: modification of phonebooks stored in the mobile phone or on the SIM card, reading and writing of SMS messages stored in the mobile phone, sending and reception of SMS messages. Additionally, some simple command line programs are provided to use these features.
mail2sms converts a (MIME) mail to a short message, allowing search/replace, conditional rules, date/time dependent actions, customizing the output format, etc. The output defaults to 160 characters, which is perfectly suitable for sending the text to a GSM telephone as an SMS message. This software does not include any code for actually sending the text to anything else but another program or stdout.
email2sms is a filter written in Perl which converts an e-mail into a form suitable for sending as an SMS message. Its main advantage over the alternatives is that it uses the CPAN module Lingua::EN::Squeeze to compress the text down to as little as 40% of its original size, so you can get much more of your e-mail into the 160 character limit imposed by SMS. It is fully MIME compatible, and has many configurable options, including removal of quoted text. Ideal for use with procmail. A Perl script for sending the output to a typical e-mail to SMS web gateway is included.
SMSLink implements a client/server gateway to the SMS protocol (short messages on the mobile phones). It requires the use of dedicated hardware though (a serial GSM module). Both SMS emission and reception are supported. The server only runs under Linux at the present time and also supports interactive mode via telnet. The command-line client already exists for Linux, Solaris and HP-UX. A basic web interface is provided. A Win32 client is in the works.
nmsms is a very simple program to announce incoming email to an SMS address (email address) defined at compile time. The original From: and Subject: header are included in each mail announced.
mepl is a software for 3COM/USRobotics Messagemodems to control the self-employed-mode. This program can be used for downloading the messages and saving or mailing them in gsm or fax-format.
For information about cellular phones and digital cameras see some links at my page about Linux with Infrared Devices and my IR-HOWTO.
Newsgroup: rec.photo.digital .
The Flashpath adapter is a diskette like device which is used to transfer data from a digital camera to a computer. See Flashpath for Linux and James Radley's flashpath homepage.
Information about calculators e.g. HP-48 is at HP-Calculator.Org and Keith's HP-48 Page. HP-48 Kermit Hints and Tips shows how to talk to the HP48 via its serial-line Kermit protocol. The HP-48 may also be used as a Linux terminal.
See also at my page about Linux with Infrared Devices.
Backup utility for the CASIO diary. It is a package ported from DOS to allow communication to the CASIO series of hand-held organizers. It allows backup from CASIO to your computer and restore a backup file from your computer to the CASIO. It can also output human readable file from CASIO. Currently supports: phone, calendar, schedule, memo, and reminder. See also http://www.aloha.net/ alank/ http://www.casioworld.com , http://home.t-online.de/home/Milan.Urosevic/ and http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/
Also related to this topic but not covered yet seems wearable computing, see
http://lcs.www.media.mit.edu/projects/wearables/ , the page of Lionel, "trollhunter" Bouchpan-Lerust-Juery,
http://infonomade.linuxfr.org/indexen.html for further information and
http://wearables.blu.org and
http://www.wearcomp.org/.
Sulawesi was developed due to the problems running a desktop GUI on a wearable computer. It has been designed and implemented to tackle what has been considered to be important challenges in a wearable user interface, the ability to accept input from any number of input devices, such as machine vision, speech recognition, portable keyboards, GPS devices, infra-red, etc. and to allow services to manipulate the information and generate a suitable output such as speech generation, graphics using a headmounted display, vibrotactile stimuli, etc. The Gili user interface has been updated, more documentation has been added, and the Spatial Reminder has been introduced.
The datalink library allows sending information to the Timex !DataLink? watches. The original datalink library supports the model 150 and possibly the model 70 watch. This version has been extended to work with the !DataLink? Ironman Triathlon watch. It has been tested with the SVGA output on the Ironman watch only, other output devices and other watches may or may not work, I have no reports either way. The display must be a CRT display (not a LCD).
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For desktops there are PCMCIA slots for ISA and PCI bus available.
Source:
http://www.lapshop.de
With the command cardctl ident you may get information about your card. Put this information into /etc/pcmcia/config.opts if necessary. But this may not be enough to get the card to work, but works sometimes for no-name network cards or modem cards. If you get a card to work or have written a new driver please don't forget to announce this to the developer of the PCMCIA-CS package David Hinds . Look the current issue of his file SUPPORTED.CARDS to get information about supported cards.
Since there are not all cards mentioned I have set up a page PCMCIA Cards "Unofficially" Supported by Linux .
Movement for the Use of Smart Cards in a Linux Environment
The Linux Memory Technology Device project aims to provide a unified subsystem for handling RAM and Flash cards (Memory Technology Devices). It is intended to be compatible with the Linux PCMCIA code, to prevent duplication of code and effort, yet its main target is small embedded systems, so it will be possible to compile the drivers into the kernel for use as a root filesystem, and a close eye will be kept on the memory footprint.
Survey about small mobile printers:
Linux and Infrared Devices #
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AFAIK only the HP and the BJC-80 machine have an infrared port. Pay attention to the supplied voltage of the power supply if you plan to travel abroad. Source:
http://www.lapshop.de
When travelling abroad you might consider to take a set of different power and phone plugs with you. Also, it's useful if you can change the input voltage of the power supply, for instance from 110V in the US to 220V in Germany. There also power supplies for 12V batteries from cars.
Some models of power plugs:
/ () \ _ _ _ frontal view: |() ()| (_)=(_) (_) N.N.
abbrevation.: C13 C8 ?? PS/2 symbol......: ?? ?? -O)- N.N.
Caveats: Though some -O)- plug may seem to be compatible to your laptop, because of the according physical size, take extremely care it uses the same plus-minus voltage scheme, for instance plus for the inner ring and minus for the outer one. Often but not always there are the according symbols near the plug.
You probably wonder, why I include this topic here. But shortly after using my COMPAQ Armada 1592DT I recognized that the rear side of the machine (where the ports are arranged) was slightly damaged. Though I have taken much care when transporting the laptop, this was caused by putting the bag on the floor. It seems that the laptop has so much weight, that it bounces inside the bag on its own rear side. So I decided to put a soft pad into the bag before loading the laptop. A good bag is highly recommended if you take your laptop on trips, or take it home every night.
Laptops computers are frequently demolished in their carrying bag. The two main causes of demolition are poking the LC display and banging the edges.A good case has very stiff sides to spread out pokes, and lots of energy-absorbent padding around the edges to help when you whack it on the door jamb.Few cases actually have either of these features.
More laptops are lost to theft than damage, so camouflage is a wise too. Emerson, Tom # El Monte <TOMEMERSON@ms.globalpay.com> wrote: "I use for a laptop travelling bag: a Pyrex casserole carrier bag. Yup, you might think it odd to use a casserole bag for a laptop, but it turns out it has several advantages:
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Do you use your laptop in different network environments? At home? In the office? At a customers site?
If yes, the small package "netenv" might be useful for you. When booting your laptop it provides you with a simple interface from which you can choose the current network environment. The first time in a new environment, you can enter the basic data and save it for later reuse.
Netenv sets up a file containing variable assignments which describe the current environment. This can be used by the PCMCIA setup scheme, e.g. like the one that comes with Debian/GNU Linux and perhaps others.
The netenv data can be used for things like:
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Netenv is available as Debian/GNU Linux package as well as tarball. It depends on dialog(1) for the menu system. It is developed by Gerd Bavendiek
bav@rw.sni.de you may get it at
http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/portgym/net/netenv.html .
divine is an utility for people who use their machines in different networks all the time. "The idea is this:
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export http_proxy="http://`</etc/proxy`/"
The included perl script edit-netscape-proxy.pl will edit the proxy settings in your Netscape 4 preferences file.
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The point about divine in contrast to other solutions is that other solutions normally use ping or something like that. divine can check a large number of networks instantaneously, assuming that the machines you ping answer within one second (.4 seconds are normal on Ethernets). And pinging an unknown address will do an arp request anyway, so why not do an arp request in the first place?"
From the NET3-4-HOWTO: "The term IP Mobility describes the ability of a host that is able to move its network connection from one point on the Internet to another without changing its IP address or losing connectivity. Usually when an IP host changes its point of connectivity it must also change its IP address. IP Mobility overcomes this problem by allocating a fixed IP address to the mobile host and using IP encapsulation (tunneling) with automatic routing to ensure that datagrams destined for it are routed to the actual IP address it is currently using."
HUT Mobile IP is a dynamical, hierarchical Mobile IP system for Linux operating system. The implementation enables a hierarchical model for IP mobility, thus decreasing the location update times as a mobile host moves. Dynamics system has been designed Wireless LAN technology in mind, and the system has optimized functionality for mobility in WLAN. There is now a mailing list available. You can join it by sending subscribe on the subject line to <dynamics-user-request@cs.hut.fi> - or you can simply check the
mail archive.
# Linux Mobile-IP
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# Linux Mobile IP from HP Labs Bristol by Manuel Rodriacuteguez
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# Mobile IP at NUS
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# Linux Mobile-IP
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# Bay Area Research Wireless Access Network (BARWAN)
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Sources: Kenneth E. Harker and Dag Brattli
DHCP and BootP are also useful for working in different environments. Please see the DHCP-HOWTO and BootP-HOWTO.
The pppd command can be configured via several different files: pppd file /etc/ppp/<your_options> .
You may even choose to do your configuration by editing the /etc/init.d files manually.
How can I have separate PCMCIA device setups for home and work? This is fairly easy using PCMCIA scheme support. Use two configuration schemes, called home and work. For details please read the according chapter in the PCMCIA-HOWTO by David Hinds.
From
http://www.mjedev.demon.co.uk/index.html <Martin J. Evans martin@mjedev.demon.co.uk> I have taken this recommendation: The first point to note is that init will take any arguments of the form name=value as environment variable assignments if they are not recognized as something else. This means you can set environment variables from the LILO boot prompt before your rc scripts run. I set the LOCATION environment variable depending on where I am when I boot Linux. e.g.
LILO: linux LOCATION=home
Or
LILO: linux LOCATION=work
Or simply
LILO: linux
where failing to set LOCATION means the same as LOCATION=home (i.e. my default). Instead of typing LOCATION=place each time you boot you can add an entry to your /etc/lilo.conf file and use the append instruction. e.g.
# image = /vmlinuz root = /dev/hda3 label = linux read-only
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# image = /vmlinuz root = /dev/hda3 label = work read-only append="LOCATION=work"
With the example above you can use "linux" for booting at home and "work" for booting at work.
Armed with the facility above, you can now edit the relevant rc scripts to test ENVIRONMENT before running ifconfig, setting up route etc.
There are several other bootloaders which are often overlooked. Besides LILO, have a look at loadlin, CHooseOS (CHOS) (not GPL), GRand Unified Bootloader (GRUB), System Commander and take a look at
ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/boot/loaders/. The NT boot loader or OS/2 boot loader may even be used.
From Steve <steve@cygnet.co.uk> I got a configuration for X windows with an external monitor: Note that I have introduced a neat trick! For my nice 17" monitor I start X with no options and get the default 16-bit 1152x864 display - but when using the LCD screen I specify a 15-bit display (startx -- -bpp 15) and get the correct 800x600 resolution automatically. This saves having to have two XConfig files.
A short introduction about how to setup email on a laptop used at home (dial-up) and work (ethernet) by Peter Englmaier <ppe@pa.uky.edu>:
As a laptop user, I have special demands for my email setup. The setup described below, enables me to:
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The configuration is based on sendmail, fetchmail, and a remote pop account for email.
This is the most complicated part. Having installed the sendmail-cf package, I created a file named /usr/lib/sendmail-cf/laptop.mc:
divert(-1) include(`../m4/cf.m4') define(`confDEF_USER_ID',8:12) define(`confBIND_OPTS',`-DNSRCH -DEFNAMES') define(`confDOMAIN_NAME',pa.uky.edu) <---- here you define your domain OSTYPE(`linux') undefine(`UUCP_RELAY') undefine(`BITNET_RELAY') define(`SMART_HOST',`server1.pa.uky.edu') <---- there we send outgoing email define(`LUSER_RELAY',`server1.pa.uky.edu') <---- there we send mail to users my laptop does not know MASQUERADE_AS(pa.uky.edu) <---- again the domain, we want to be seen as FEATURE(allmasquerade) FEATURE(nouucp) FEATURE(nodns) FEATURE(nocanonify) FEATURE(redirect) FEATURE(always_add_domain) FEATURE(use_cw_file) FEATURE(local_procmail) MAILER(procmail) MAILER(smtp) HACK(check_mail3,`hash -a@JUNK /etc/mail/deny') HACK(use_ip,`/etc/mail/ip_allow') HACK(use_names,`/etc/mail/name_allow') HACK(use_relayto,`/etc/mail/relay_allow') HACK(check_rcpt4) HACK(check_relay3)
This looks more complicated as it is. All it does is, that it redirectes outbound mail to server1 (SMART_HOST) and also mail for local users which are not known (LUSER_RELAY). That way, I can write email to my colleques without using their full email address. More important: the From line in my email points back to my MASQUARADE_AS domain and not directly to my laptop. If this where not the case, email returned with the reply button might not reach me. You must restart sendmail for changes to take effect. Note: this configuration is for Redhat 5.2 systems. You may have to change some details.
Now, all what is needed is to generate the /etc/sendmail.cf file m4 laptop.mc >/etc/sendmail.cf and to add all possible domain names my laptop should respond to in /etc/sendmail.cw:
laptop laptop.pa.uky.edu 128.17.18.30 guest1 guest1.somewhere.org
It is important to have all aliases in this file, otherwise sendmail will not accept the mail (and will reply we don't relay to the sender). Finally, you must now test the setup by sending email, replying to mail for all possible configurations. Any missconfiguration can result in loss of email.
One method to get the email into your machine is through fetchmail. Fetchmail periodically checks for new email at one or more remote mail servers. I use the following fetchmail configuration file (in my user home directory): fetchmailrc
set postmaster "myusername" set daemon 900 poll pop.uky.edu with proto POP3 user "mypopusername" there with password "mypoppassword" is mylaptopusername here
Fetchmail will just get the the email and send it to sendmail which will it deliver into your /var/spool/mail/$USER file.
On my work station I have the following .forward file:
me@pop.acount.edu,me@server1
Here server1 is the machine where I keep my mailbox. All email is send to the pop account to be picked up later by my laptop (using fetchmail). However, when my laptop is connected via ethernet, I want my email to go directly to the laptop, instead of pop:
me@laptop,me@server1
In both cases, a backup of my email is send to server1 (where I also can read it, in case I cannot get my laptop). I keep/store all email on the laptop.
Switching is done by three script files and a crontab file (on the workstation):
forward_pop
echo "me@pop.acount.edu,me@server1" > ${HOME}/.forward
forward_laptop
echo "ppe@laptop,ppe@server1" > ${HOME}/.forward crontab ${HOME}/mycrontab ${HOME}/utl/check_laptop
check_laptop
if /usr/sbin/ping -c 1 laptop >/dev/null 2>&1 ; then : else
${HOME}/utl/forward_pop sleep 10 if /usr/sbin/ping -c 1 laptop >/dev/null 2>&1 ; then
${HOME}/utl/forward_laptop else
/bin/crontab -l | grep -v check_laptop >${HOME}/tmp/mycrontab.tmp /bin/crontab ${HOME}/tmp/mycrontab.tmp rm -f ${HOME}/tmp/mycrontab.tmp fi fi
mycrontab
0,10,20,30,40,50 * * * * ${HOME}/utl/check_laptop
Each time I connect the laptop to the ethernet, I have to run forward_laptop, and each time I disconnect I run forward_pop. In case I forget to run forward_pop, the crontab job runs it for me less then 10 minutes later. To do all that automatically, I change the network script files on my laptop as follows:
/sbin/ifdown (this script runs, whenever a network device is stopped, new stuff between BEGIN and END)
... fi
mail ppe <<EOF turning off forwarding email device = ${DEVICE} hostname = `hostname` EOF if
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