Submitted by j.a.watson on August 27, 2009 - 1:35am
I have just installed the new (8.0.10) distribution on my various notebook and netbook systems. As always, I am pleased and impressed with how smoothly it installs, and how well it works. I ran into one small problem on each of the systems that I installed, so here are a few notes about what the problems are, and how to get around them:
- Fujitsu Lifebook S6510: After installation, the resolution of the laptop display is wrong - 1024x768 rather than 1280x800. I have seen this before with other Linux distributions, and I suspect it is actually caused by confusion over the different internal/external display resolution possibilities with the Intel 965 display controller. I was able to get around it by simply commenting (or removing) all of the Display Mode specifications in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. If you are determined to keep that file as instact as possible for some reason, you can also just add "1280x800" to each of the "Mode" lines, just before the "1024x768".
- HP 2133 Mini-Note: The MEPIS distribution still doesn't include the openchrome drivers for the VIA Chrome 9 display controller. This is not a huge problem, because both the installation process and the installed system use the VESA drivers at 1280x800 resoultion, which is slightly larger than the 1280x768 resolution of the display on my Mini-Note, and then they scroll the entire desktop when the mouse is moved to the top of bottom. That gets a bit tiring, though, and seeing the "clipped" desktop can be irritating. The solution is to download and compile the latest openchrome sources, of course, and there are ample instructions for doing that on the web. The whole thing takes about 5 or 10 minutes, and then it works perfectly.
- ASUS N10J: There is no keyboard layout selection for Swiss German! I was surprised at this, and even more surprised when I saw that there is a Swiss French selection. The problem can be mostly avoided by selecting Swiss French (which should be the same as Swiss German except for three keys) during installation, and then after booting the installed system edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf and changing XKbLayout from "fr_CH" to "ch(de)". However, this only changes the keyboard under the X Window System; if you use any of the text consoles (Ctrl-Alt-F1 etc), the keymap is still wrong there.
jw
Submitted by j.a.watson on June 28, 2009 - 2:30pm
I've been quiet for a while, because everything has been working just fine, and there's not been much to write about. Now I have acquired (assembled, actually) a new system that is worth mentioning.
It is a Dual Atom CPU, which with the Atom Hyperthreading appears to the operating system as FOUR CPUs. I got it on an Intel mini-ITX motherboard, and I bought the appropriate case and power supply, a Gig of memory and 160 GB SATA 2.5" disk, for a total of about 300 Swiss Francs. I have more than enough displays, keyboards and mice around here, so I didn't need to buy those. Of course, because I bought it in pieces and assembled it myself, it came with no operating system - meaning no "Windows Tax", hooray!
I have loaded a variety of Linux distributions on it, including of course MEPIS 8.0.06. There were absolutely no problems and no surprises when loading MEPIS, everything went smoothly. It sees four Atom CPUs, as expected. In addition to the Atom, the motherboard has an Intel 945 chipset, an Intel 950 display controller, and Intel PRO/1000 Gigabit wired ethernet controller. The case came with the usual array of front and back USB ports, six in all, and front panel everything-in-one flash memory card readers (including Compact Flash), all of which were recognized and configured by MEPIS with no trouble.
As usual, once loaded MEPIS boots and runs just fine. It's so nice to have a nice, simple, reliable system, and not have to pay the "Windows Tax" for an operating system that I am just going to overwrite with Linux anyway!
jw 28/6/2009
Submitted by j.a.watson on April 2, 2009 - 5:54am
I haven't had much to say here recently, because everything has been humming along very nicely. I am still extremely satisfied with my HP Mini-Note running MEPIS 8.0; anyone who is considering a netbook could do a lot worse than this combination, that's for certain. In fact, I have recently looked at the "successor" to this model from HP, the Mini 2140. The case is nearly identical, but the screen has been expaned to 10". That would be good news, except the RESOLUTION is only 1024x576! HP is actually very cagy about this, if you go to their web page and look at the specs, it doesn't even say what the resolution is (for good reason, if you ask me...), you have to go to the PDF detailed spec sheet to find the resolution. There is says that there are two, 1024x576 and 1366x768, but as far as I can tell there are none of the higher resolution models available yet. Since writing about mine on here, I have bought a second one, for my partner; when I bought it, I didn't realize that it was a lower resolution than mine, 1024x600 instead of my 1280x768. That turned out not to be a disaster, because although the lower resolution makes for even less display and more scrolling, the display itself is actually brighter and easier to read. But I can't for the life of me imagine why HP would put an even lower resolution on the NEXT generation of the product... I could get one of them here in Switzerland now, for about the price that I paid for mine originally, but I just don't want to deal with that display. Maybe if and when the higher resolution display is available.
Anyway, the reason I am writing now is CPU Frequency Scaling. I recently realized that my Mini-Note wasn't adjusting the CPU frequency, it was running full-speed all the time. That made for a rather hot system, and the cooling fan was running constantly - and of course it was shortening battery life. I found a note in the Ubuntu Wiki that said the 2133 required a special parameter on the kernel boot line, acpi_osi="!Windows 2006". Hmmm. Ubuntu is based on Debian. MEPIS is based on Debian... I didn't just come down with the last rain... so I gave it a try.
First, verify that the CPU frequency is not being changed. Easy enough, add the System Guard applet to the task bar, and then if you don't want to go blind staring at it, right-click and Launch System Guard. Ditch one of the default graphs, and add CPU0/Clock Frequency in its place. Sure enough, it is a constant 1.6 GHz.
Now edit /boot/grub/menu.lst, and on the kernel... line, add the new parameter:
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda1 acpi_osi="!Windows 2006" nomce quiet splash vga=791
Reboot, and that should do the trick! Verify again with System Guard, you should see that the CPU spends most of its time at 800 MHz, moving up to 1 GHz or 1.6 GHz when needed. The cooling fan is running low or not at all most of the time. Good stuff!
One other thing. In the MEPIS System Assistant, under Laptop Power, there is a check box for "Dynamic CPU speed on AC". This has no effect, as far as I can tell. Without the new parameter on the kernel command line, the CPU speed never changes, and with the new parameter it always changes, regardless of whether on AC power or not and regardless of the setting of this check box. No big deal, of course.
As I have said before, the price on these 2133 Mini-Notes keeps going down, especially now that the 2140 is becoming available. If you want a good netbook that works well with MEPIS, look at it.
No, I do not work for HP or their distributors, and I am not on commission.
jw
Submitted by j.a.watson on February 24, 2009 - 6:55am
I have installed 8.0 on all three of my laptops, and I am pleased and impressed.
HP 2133 Mini-Note: This little gem is the best of the bunch, and it seems as though I like it more every day. The final 8.0 release is even better on it than RC3 was, because of a couple of small nits have been fixed. It now installs smoothly and runs extremely well. As with RC3, the initial installation configures X to use the vesa driver at 1280x800, which is at least usable and acceptable, although not really "right". I once again copied over the latest openchrome drivers and edited xorg.conf to use them, and it then came up exactly right at 1280x768. Beyond that, everything seems to work fine right out of the box. The broadcom wireless interface even sees and connects to both 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks from my Netcom and Linksys routers. I've just seen another price drop on the HP 2133 here in Switzerland, it's down to 350 Swiss Francs with SuSE Enterprise preloaded. At that price, this is an unbeatable little netbook.
Fujisu Lifebook S6510: Installed easily, but there are a couple of problems. The audio doesn't work, and I haven't figured out why yet. I've tried the suggestions in the tips and forums, so far to no avail. I'm sure it's no big thing, I'll figure it out when I have time. The wireless interface doesn't seem to work either, but that is at least partly my own fault. I swapped out the Intel 4965 card for an Intel 5300 a while back, and although that works with everything else I have tried, if I can't get it working with MEPIS I might just swap back the 4965 because I didn't get the benefit I wanted from the 5300 anyway. Other than these two things, MEPIS is working great on the S6510. It handles the laptop and external displays just fine, and gets the resolution right on both of them.
Fujitsu-Siemens S2110: Installed ok, but still has the problem with no Swiss German keyboard listed in the initial installation selection. Once the installation is done and it's up and running, I can fix that no problem. I also had to change the setting in the MEPIS Network Assistant to enable the Broadcom 4401 wired ethernet adapter, as before. The Atheros wireless adapter worked just fine from the start, again at both 2.4GHz and 5GHz. I was particularly pleased and impressed that the ATI Radeon 200M graphic adapter was no problem.
The bottom line here is, I can (and do) certainly recommend MEPIS 8.0 for laptop use. I expect that I will be setting up several HP 2133s with it for my friends in the near future.
jw 24/2/2009
Submitted by j.a.watson on February 10, 2009 - 7:58am
I have installed RC3 on my three laptops, with varying results:
- HP 2133 Mini-Note: VIA CPU and associated chips. Installation went very smoothly, and for the most part it works quite well. This system has a Chrome 9 graphic adapter, and there is no openchrome driver in MEPIS, but it runs the same version of X11 as Mandriva 2009, so I was able to lift the drivers from there, and it works great. (For purposes of installation and initial startup the VESA drivers included with MEPIS are adequate.) I still have a problem with sound - there is none - but I haven't made any serious attempt to figure that out yet. According to lspci -v MEPIS sees a VIA VT1708/A Azalia HDAC sound controller, and is using the snd-hda-intel driver for it.
- Fujitsu Lifebook S6510: Intel Core 2 Duo CPU and associated chips. Installation went very smoothly, and MEPIS even got resolution on the external display right. Oddly, however, this laptop also has no sound... very suspicious... and MEPIS says that it is also using the snd-hda-intel driver... Hmmmm.
- Fujitsu-Siemens Lifebook S2110: AMD Turion 64 CPU and associated chips, ATI Radeon display adapter. There is a minor problem in the installation (and subsequent configuration), because there is no Swiss German (de_CH) keyboard map. There is a Swiss French, which is close enough that I can use it, but there really should be a Swiss German. Odd. I was pleased and impressed that the installation got the ATI Radeon 200M display adapter right. Oh, and good news, the sound works on this one! Bad news, though, the Broadcom 4401 wired ethernet adapter doesn't work. Good news, the Atheros AR5413 wireless does work, so I am not left without internet connection while I try to figure the Broadcom out. The Broadcom shows in lspci, but there is no trace of it in the MEPIS Network Assistant. Hmmm... Broadcom 4401... I wonder if the enable/disable Broadcom b43 and b44 drivers in the Network Assistant has to do with this. Sounds likely... change and reboot... Yup, that was it. Hooray! So now the S2110 is completely working... well, except for the Swiss keyboard.
Well done, MEPIS team, I am very pleased and impressed with M8.0
jw 10/2/2009
