Linux on a Laptop

System Information

Celeron 400MHz (128K L2 cache).
128M RAM (I added another 64M memory chip).
6.4G IDE drive.
2x DVD/20x CDROM drive (Windows software DVD decompression).
Floppy disk driver.
Eraser-mouse. PS/2 port on the side for mouse/keyboard.
14.1" TFT screen.
Trident Cyber9525 video chipset with 2.5M video memory (1024x768 16bpp) SVGA out on the back but no Svideo connector!
Maestro 2E sound chipset (built-in stereo speakers, headphone out, line in, mic in).
Serial port 1 out on back. Parellel port out on back.
Battery life seems to be between 2.5 hours and 3.5 hours, depending on usage. Only ONE battery fits in the Toshiba.
2 Type II (or 1 Type III) PCMCIA slots.
PCMCIA card lock and power button lock.
BIOS: There are a number of fixes that Toshiba released for the BIOS. It is available from the software updates link. The current BIOS version is 8.1 2595XDVD BIOS. I also recommend hitting "ESC" during the Toshiba Logo, and setting the PCMCIA mode (page 2) to "PCIC compatible". I had some trouble with loading the PCMCIA drivers under Linux without this.

Installation

I installed RedHat 6.1 since RedHat offers lots of support on how to install their OS, I'll just give you my list of processes:

Resize the FAT32 partition: I copied FIPS.EXE from the RedHat CDROM and rebooted to DOS mode, and then split 2GB for linux. I want to keep Windows around so I can still play with Windows 98 SE and watch DVDs.
Change the boot device: I hit HW Setup from Control Panel, , and selected the CDROM as the primary boot device. You must log on system as supervisor to change it.
Boot and install RedHat: This was straight forward. I booted off the CDROM, and followed all the regular install steps. Here are some significant installation steps of mine:
- Use Text mode to install the RedHat 6.1 system.
- Choosing a language: English
- Time Zone configuration: US Central
- Choosing a keyboard type: us.
- Choosing an installation methods: CD-ROM.
- Choosing an installation class: I chose to install a workstation.
- Setting up your disk partitions: I set up16M for a boot partition, 128M for a swap partition and the other for the root partition.
- Configuring your mouse: PS/2 mice.
- Setting a host name and root password.
- Creating a boot disk.
- Configuring X Windows: Redhat 6.1 comes with XFree86 3.3.5, it should be straight ahead. However, you are prompted to select the type of video card and monitor sometime. I chose Trident Cyber9525 and LCD 1024x768 16bpp.
- Rebooting your system

Configuration

Setting up LILO: I want to keep Windows 98 SE as my default boot. Here is my LILO file:

boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map: install=/boot/boot.b
prompt: timeout=50
message=/boot/boot.message: default=Windows98; other=/dev/hda1
label=Windows98: table=/dev/hda; image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.12-20
label=linux: root=/dev/hda7
initrd=/boot/initrd.img: append="mem=128M"
read-only: *I edited and put a file named as boot.message in /boot directory to be shown on boot time.

Internal Modem: The internal modem is, of course, a "WinModem". However, it's a Lucent, and the lucent-released drivers work for it. There is open-source development under way though. Check here for linmodem code as it becomes available. Here is how I made the Lucent driver works:
- Initial install: Going to proper directory to run the install script "./ltinst" from the command prompt. To install the modem driver you must be logged on as root.
- Configuring "minicom" for the modem device:
  - Enter "minicom -s" at the command prompt.
  - Choose "Serial Port Setup"
  - For "Serial Device" choose "/dev/modem"
  - Save settings and exit
- mknod /dev/ttyS14 c 62 78
- chgrp uucp /dev/ttyS14
- chmod 0666 /dev/ttyS14
- insmod ltmodem.o (* Kernels that aren't 2.2.12-20 need the "-f" flag for insmod)
- Editing /etc/resolv.conf file to identify one or more DNS servers. These should be supplied to you by your ISP. Here are some examples (the numbers are fictitious):
  
  nameserver 111.11.11.111
  nameserver 222.22.22.222
- Check that the default route from your computer is not yet set. Type the follpwing:
  
  # /sbin/route -n
  If a default route is listed, remove it by typing:
  /sbin/route del default
- Using the configure Modem windows to link the serial port that is connected to your computer to your modem device. From your desktop, type:
  
  modemtool&
  Then from the configure Modem window, select the port (COM1, COM2,COM3, or COM4) to which the modem is connected. Then click OK.
- Open the Network Configurator window (System Menus->AnotherLevel menus->Administration->Network Configuration or type netcfg from a Terminal window as the root user). The Network Configurator window appears.
  - Click Interfaces to see current network interfaces.
  - Click Add. A list of interface types appears.
  - Select PPP, then click OK. The Create PPP Interface pop-up window appears. If it is your first PPP connect, the device should appear as ppp().
  - Type in the following information:
    - Phone number
    - Use PAP authentication
    - PPP login name
    - PPP password
  - Click Customize
  - Change any of the following information, if appropriate:
    - Use hardware flow control and modem lines---ON.
    - Escape control characters---OFF.
    - Abort connection on well-known errors---ON.
    - Allow any user to activate/deactivate---OFF.
    - Line speed----115,200Kbps
    - Modem Port---ttyS14
    - PPP Options---Add any options that are needed to set up the PPP connection.
  - Click Communication.
    - Modem Init String---The default is ATZ.
    - Modem Dial Command---The default is the ATDT command.
    - Phone Number.
    - Debug connection---ON.
    - Expect/Send---These values set chat that goes on between you and the remote PPP server. The format is: ogin: username, ord: password.
  - Click Networking. The Networking page lets you set things such as timeout values and packet sizes.
  - Click PAP. This page lets you add the username and secret information that is needed if you server has you do PAP authentication.
  - Click Done.
  - Click Save to save the current PPP configuration.
  - Click Save on the Network Configurator main window.
- Using the Internet Dialup configuration tool to sett up Internet Connect Interface.
- Using the RH PPP Dialer to connect to the Internet.

Sound: Sound under Windows on the Toshiba is flawless. The speakers are crisp and clear, and the headphone outputs are without interference from RAM, Floppy, HD, or DVD/CDROM. Sound under Linux was not good. When I started this project, only the OSS Commercial driver could provide playback, but the sound quality was terrible. Since then, however, the free version has developed to the point where I think it's surpassed the Windows sound driver. Here are my solution for sound: There is an OSS-style version of the Maestro 2E driver. This module seems to be totally stable now, and I highly recommend it. The driver was added into the 2.2.14 and better kernels. If you take this Makefile and the maestro drivers from the 2.2.14 kernel, you should be able to compile the driver and install it fine. Put the resulting "maestro.o" into /lib/modules/`uname -r`/misc, and add the line "alias sound-slot-0 maestro" to /etc/conf.modules. By the way, you probably need to run sndconfig command to make it work.
Zip Disk Driver: You can go to IOMEGA Web site to download the latest zip disk driver for linux if you use kernel 2.2.14 or later. Otherwise, you can configure your kernel to make your own driver. Here are my steps:
- Change directories to the location of the kernel sources.
  - cd /usr/scr/linux
  - make xconfig
  - Select the following options depending upon which drivers you wish to support [ (m) to support driver as a module, (y) to include the driver as a part of the kernel ]...
    IOMEGA ATAPI devices:
          Block devices
                 Include IDE/ATAPI FLOPPY support
    IOMEGA SCSI devices:
          SCSI support
                 SCSI Low-level drivers
                          Adaptec AHA152X/2825 support
                          Adaptec AIC7xxx support
                          Advansys SCSI support
    IOMEGA Parallel Port devices:
          General setup
                  Parallel port support
                  PC-style support
          SCSI support
                  SCSI low-level drivers
                           IOMEGA parallel port (ppa - old drives)
                           IOMEGA parallel port (imm - newer drives)
    IOMEGA VFAT support: (Always select this option)
          Filesystems
                   DOS FAT fs support
                   VFAT (Windows - 95) fs support
  - Select save and exit and OK
  - make dep; make clean; make bzImage
  - Copy the file of /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage to
    the /boot directory.
  - Add the new image to the file of lilo.conf and to reboot computer with the new image.
- Follow the steps outlined below once the system has been rebooted as above:
  - Make sure you are in the /usr/src/linux directory and then
    type the following:
    make modules;make modules_install;depmod -a
  - Change directories as specified below:
    cd /lib/modules/"kernel_name"
    where "kernel_name" is the kernel in which you just created modules.
  - For each driver shown, type:
    insmod "driver.o"
    where "driver.o" represents the name of each driver module you wish to install.
  - Issue the following command to verify that the modules are installed:
    lsmod
- Mount the devices.
  Examples:
  mount -t vfat /dev/hdd4 /mnt/zip100.0
  mount -t vfat /dev/sda4 /mnt/jaz2g.0
  mount -t vfat /dev/sdb4 /mnt/zip250.1
Fix the mouse speed: There are two ways to set up the mouse speed:
- Use the Gnome configuration tool.
- Use "xset m 5 10" command. Check "man xset" for more details.
Disk Performance: I added the following line to /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit before it mounts all the filesystems:

action "Running hdparm" hdparm -c3 -d1 /dev/hda /dev/hdc

*This kicks on the DMA and 32-bit access for the disk. It seems to GREATLY reduce the system-stalls during heavy disk IO.

New Kernel

If you don't like the default RedHat kernels, you can always recompile with a new one. Some notes, not including the specifics for APM, Frame Buffer support, and PCMCIA support:

Get the kernel: I usually grab my kernels from the US Mirror of ftp.kernel.org. I used the 2.2.12 kernel. If you need help recompiling your Linux kernel, check with the Linux Documentation Project.
- vi Makefile (to comment in the /boot install path)
- vi /etc/lilo.conf (to make a new section for the new image)
- make menuconfig
- make dep
- make modules
- make bzlilo
- make modules_install
Set the Processor correctly: The celeron is a PII-class CPU, so you can use the 686 instruction set.
Strange Thing: after the recompile, you probably will find you lost some previous configuration.

DVD

Well, DVD playing under linux sure is an evil legal subject what with all the CSS troubles. However, the project does go on. The LiViD group has come leaps and bounds towards a functioning DVD player. Right now it works. However, it's still a little top-heavy, and DVDs are unplayable on the laptop: just not enough CPU. However, they're optimizing their code all the time, and hopefully soon, there will be a fully-featured DVD player for linux.

Toshiba Utilities

For fun, you can play with the Linux Toshiba Utilities to turn your fan on and off. The "development" version of this code didn't work for me, but the old (1.1) versions at least let me control the fan on the back of the laptop. I still haven't figured out if the Toshiba BIOS is turning this fan on and off by itself. I don't think so, and since the laptop does get rather hot while running, I just turn the fan on when I boot up (fan -n).

StarOffice5.2

I downloaded StarOffice 5.2 from StarOffice Application Suite. It has been completely satisfying, excepts it takes a little bit longer time to load it compare to load MS Office in Windows98.

Unless you want large binaries cluttering up your /home/ directory, you need to do a "network" installation. I personally want to keep my /home directory as small as possible to speed-up my periodic backups. While logged in as root insert the StarOffice installation disk:

 	mount /mnt/cdrom
 	/mnt/cdrom/linux/office52/setup /net

You will be prompted for an installation directory. I chose /usr/bin/office52. The installation takes around five minutes on this particular machine.

After the "network" installation has been completed you will need to log on as each user and run the setup program located the office52 directory to install a workstation for each user. This places about 2MB of data into the corresponding /home directory of each user.

	/usr/bin/office52/program/setup

Chose the standard workstation installation option (NOT the local option, or you'll have the binaries installed in your /home directory). I chose to make the installation directory "hidden": /home/ /.office52 since I wasn't planning on directly maintaining anything kept there.

I got error messages for Java unsupported (which is fine) and Adabase files not found (which is fine too since I just need a word processor and spreadsheet).

You'll need to restart X. Because it's a user specific installation, you'll find it in the "personal" category on the KDE application launcher. One of the first things you'll probably want to do is change the home documents directory to your /home/[user] directory...otherwise everything will default to a directory withing the Office52 file structure:

	Tools->Options->General->Paths->My Documents

If you need to uninstall StarOffice (see the problem list below), I think all you need to do is delete /usr/bin/office52 and the .office52 directory in your home directory.

Java Programming on Linux

Install the Java? JDK on Linux:
- Download the new version of Java? JDK from Sun company.
- Check the download file size: Depending on the format you selected, check that you have downloaded the full, uncorrupted software bundle:
  
  jdk-1_2_2_007-linux-i386.tar.gz 21,809,132 bytes
- Change to the directory you want to install into: I install it in the /usr/local/java/jdk1.2.2/ directory.
- Extract the contents of the Java 2 SDK:
  
  Depending on the format you downloaded, execute the following command(s) in a shell window to extract the contents of the Linux Java 2 SDK:
  % tar xvzf jdk-1_2_2_007-linux-i386.tar.gz
- Delete the original file you downloaded (Optional): If you want to recover disk space, delete the file (or files) you originally downloaded.
- Update the PATH environment variable: You can run the Java 2 SDK just fine without setting the PATH variable, or you can optionally set it as a convenience. In my case, I edited the profile file ( .bash_profile) as: PATH=/usr/local/java/jdk1.2.2/bin:$PATH
- Start using the Java 2 SDK!
  Your computer system should now be ready to use the Java 2 SDK. In this step, you'll run some simple commands to make sure it is working properly.
  
  You start the compiler, interpreter, or other tool by typing its name at the shell window command line, generally with a filename as an argument. The SDK development tools need to be run from the command line and have no GUI interfaces (except AppletViewer). Double-clicking a tool's file icon, such as java, will not do anything useful.
  You can specify the path to a tool either by typing the path in front of the tool each time, or by adding the path to the system as in the previous step. The following assumes the Java 2 SDK is installed at /usr/local/java/jdk1.2.2, and you have set the path variable. (If you have not, add /usr/local/java/jdk1.2.2 ahead of the javac and appletviewer commands.)
  
  Compiling a Java class - To run the compiler on a file MyClass.java, go to the prompt window and execute this:
```
       % javac MyClass.java
```
  Running Applets - You can run applets in AppletViewer. Here's an example:
  - Use cd to change to the TicTacToe directory that contains the html file example1.html that embeds an applet:
```
    % cd jdk1.2.2/demo/applets/TicTacToe
```
  - Run AppletViewer with the html file:
```
    % appletviewer example1.html
```
    This example lets you interactively play Tic-Tac-Toe.
- Where Do You Go From Here?
  
  At this point, you will probably want to install the documenation bundle, if you have not already done so. Although you can use the SDK tools without installing the documentation, it makes sense to do so if you are going to do any extensive work. You can get the SDK documentation bundle and complete installation instructions from the Java 2 SDK docs download page.
  You can also go to:
  - README -- For a Linux introduction to the Java 2 SDK
  - Hello World application and Hello World applet -- To write and compile a simple class, guided by the Java Tutorial.
  - Documentation for the SDK tools -- For descriptions of the Java 2 SDK tools you used in the previous step to test the installation, as well as the other SDK tools. After you install the documentation bundle, the same document is available at jdk1.2.2/docs/tooldocs/tools.html.
  - Java 2 SDK Documentation -- For a guide to Java 2 SDK documents. After you install the documentation bundle, the same document is available at jdk1.2.2/docs/index.html.