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Compaq Presario M2223AP

This laptop (in the M2000 series) has a couple of gotchas for Linux support:

Wireless

The wireless chipset (Intel 2200BG) works under linux. See the IPW2x00WirelessChipset page for more details.

Graphics

The graphics controller uses an Intel 915GM chipset, which is supposedly supported by XOrg's i810 driver. However, it doesn't seem to be properly supported by the version of Xorg in Hoary, and graphics didn't work out of the box. (!!) GDM starts and runs but nothing is displayed on the LCD.

If you use Ubuntu 5.04 (Hoary), either use the "vesa" graphics driver, or if you really want to use the i810 driver, you can download a newer snapshot of the driver from http://dri.freedesktop.org/snapshots/. I used the "i915-20050718-linux.i386" which at least got X working with the i810 driver. You'll also need the "common-20050718-linux.i386" to get newer versions of Xorg's libdrm.a and GL modules. (If you install the driver but don't install the "common" package, you'll get an error in your Xorg.0.log file like "libdri version is 4.1.0 but version 5.0.x is needed").

Ubuntu 5.10 aka "Breezy Badger" has these newer versions and you don't need to do anything.

(The difficulty in supporting this chip is described in an xorg thread.)

The graphics card lets you use "Xinerama" (dual head) mode so you can have an extra wide desktop that stretches over two monitors. See our i915-xorg.conf page. (This might possibly require the updated i810/i915 support from above, I didn't test this with the vesa driver).

BlueTooth

The laptop has built-in BlueTooth. It appears to be attached to the USB internal bus, so make sure your kernel has CONFIG_BT_HCIUSB support. The kernel that came with Ubuntu 5.04 had this.

Unfortunately I couldn't get this to work (with a custom 2.6.11 kernel) - every time I got gnome-bluetooth-manager to scan for other devices, I got a

kernel: hci_cmd_task: hci0 command tx timeout

message in dmesg/syslog.

Touchpad

With the default xorg.conf(5x) that Ubuntu (5.04 Hoary) generated, the touchpad generates a middle-click when you tap it, which is very annoying. Changing the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file to have

        Option          "TapButton2"            "0" # 0 = no action

in the synaptics touchpad InputDevice section fixed this, although I'm not sure why it needed "TapButton2" and not "TapButton1".

You can still get a middleclick (mouse button2) by pressing buttons 1 and 3 simultaneously -- this assumes you have the Emulate3Buttons option for the default mouse InputDevice.

6-in-1 Card Reader

I couldn't get the 6-in-1 card reader to work with Ubuntu's 2.6.10 LinuxKernel, or with a custom 2.6.11 kernel. These kernels support some card readers -- CONFIG_MMC found in Device Drivers -> MMC/SD Card -> MMC support) but only those using a WinBond chip (with the wbsd.ko driver). The pci database lists the following devices found by lspci.

Texas Instruments
8033 PCIxx21 Integrated FlashMedia Controller
8034 PCI6411, PCI6421, PCI6611, PCI6621, PCI7411, PCI7421, PCI7611, PCI7621 Secure Digital (SD) Controller

Perhaps more recent kernel versions support the chips use in the card reader in these laptops.

Other

The "Expansion Port 2" slot is only for attaching the laptop to Compaq's docking station.


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