Linux Support

Has anybody had any success with the latest version of Ubuntu?

If Ubuntu is a not starter can anybody suggest a batter version ??

I am thinking about ordering a M17x R3 with the 3d option, I have checked the NVIDIA DRIVERS 260.19.44 Certified and its its listed as being supported . But there seem to be problems using it?

 

I tried the Alpha 3 of Ubuntu 11.10 and it booted up Didn't have the time to check it out, so not sure if everything works.

 

Saag writes
"tried the Alpha 3 of Ubuntu 11.10 and it booted up "

So did I , works fine, tried to install it and chaos results, mainly ends with a grub error, reporting UUID error :-(

Are there any other disitrubtions that are worth trying?

 

I Just bought an M17x R3 with a GTX 580M, and the 3D bundle. I've tried several distributions, but have landed on Fedora 15. I've got everything working, but not all at the same time.

During install I had to disable the nouveau driver with blacklist=nouveau nomodeset. After installation I changed it to rd.blacklist=nouveau vga=0x31A to give me a higher resolution text mode.

My current issue is that if I after I load the snd_hda_intel module with model=alienware, I start having issues with the re-plugging of my ac adapter.

If I don't load the snd_hda_intel with model=alienware, when I unplug the ac adapter it recognizes that I'm on battery immediately and will go back to ac immediately after I plug it in.

init 3
modprobe -r snd_hda_intel
modprobe snd_hda_intel model=alienware
init 5

Sound now works, but when I unplug the ac adapter, it takes about 5-10 sec to indicate I'm on battery, and will continue to run on battery even after I plug the ac back in. A reboot is required to get the ac back on-line. I have verified alll of this with /proc/acpi/ac_adapter/ACAD/state , and the newer /sys/class/power_supply/ACAD/online

Is anyone else having this issue?

 

I also have the AC adapter issue with Fedora 15 but I didn't make the link with "modprobe snd_hda_intel model=alienware". I'll double-check that.

Thanks for your feedback

 

I'm working on a patch file for the snd_hda_intel module. I've currently got one that makes the speakers work. I've still got a bunch of work todo, but I wanted to post my progress.

This is probably only for an M17x R3.

I have created a patch file that I put in /lib/firmware/alienware-m17x-r3.fw

[codec]
0x111d7675 0x10280490 0

[model]
auto

[pincfg]
0x0a 0x0321101f


I then created a file that I put in /etc/modprobe.d/alienware.conf

options snd-hda-intel patch=alienware-m17x-r3.fw

After rebooting, the speakers work and don't interfere with the AC adapter. I haven't tested everything yet, but I suspect the microphones don't work yet.

I'm starting to figure out what the pincfg stuff does for this particular chipset. The speakers appear to be affected by the 0x0a pin. I coppied the pincfg from the alienware model patch in sound/pci/hda/patch_sigmatel.c. There are 13 pincfg options, but I haven't tested them all out yet.

I hope this helps someone. I'll post more when I know more

 

Hey! I have the 460m + 3d setup. I have tried arch linux , opensuse , ubuntu , fedora . But on all of them after installing the latest nvidia drivers(290.xx) , the backlight control seems to be screwed up. Without the drivers , there is completely no backlight control, but after installing the drivers , I am able to switch between 3 levels of brightness. ANy suggestions??

 

I've been doing extensive work trying to get everything working properly with linux and my M17x R3. So far the biggest hurdle seems to be the newer kernels (3.2ish) with sound, and of course the ATI driver.

What I've found so far is that Ubuntu 11.10 seems to work best, I can get integrated graphics working and sound, everything else seems to work fine as well for the most part. Switching graphics is not working out of the box, and I feel it would take a considerable amount of time invested to figure all of that out as I have heard that the kernel supports it.

Where I am at with it right now is that I am using the modded A08 BIOS and have the IGP disabled, and I am hoping by doing so I will be able to install the ATI drivers from ATI''s website, as the built in Ubuntu Proprietary ATI drivers don't seem to work properly.

I will post back once I get this to work, but I am hoping since this is such an old thread with no new replies, perhaps some of you who had been posting in here earlier will come back with some positive results to share.

 

I try with Ubuntu but don't boot

 

Does this happen after a clean install or?

I've managed to install several distro's (Linux Mint, Fedora, Ubuntu) without problems aside from driver issues. They all install and boot up after a clean install.

 

if live cd or usb don't boot how can i install it? from windows?

First i want try it for check what works or not

Thanks for help

 

Odd that you cant boot to a Live CD or the USB. Have you tried those medias on another PC?

Check the BIOS and make sure everything is set properly in the boot order, etc? I hit F12 to get to the boot menu and force select which device I am trying to boot the media from.

 

I've got Ubuntu 11.10 running quite well with my M17x R3 now.

A few notes.

You have to make a modification to your alsa config file to get the speakers working, otherwise the sound will only work from the headphone jack.
Ubuntu Forums - View Single Post - [ubuntu] NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M on Ubunty 11.10 (Alienware M17xR3)

I also had to disable the IGP in the modded A08 BIOS in order to actually get the ATI discreet graphics driver to load/function.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/626666-modded-a08-bios.html#post8096347

I opt'd to install the latest 12.3 catalyst driver instead of the ubuntu provided proprietary driver, it wasn't hard following the instructions to the letter, it just took some time to install all of the dependent packages.
Ubuntu Oneiric Installation Guide - cchtml.com

Also, the LCD backlight is too dim and requires a modification to the GRUB boot loader to get it to its normal brightness.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=11143672&postcount=28

Most of the function keys work, obviously Alien FX doesn't, but the useful ones do work.

Unfortunately, I tried to install 12.04 and had some problems using the same modification for the speakers that work with 11.10. I assume the newer kernel driver for the sound has changed, but surely it will be figured out soon enough seeing that 12.04 is still in beta and not as widely used as 11.10.

So, yes, linux will work with the power hardware, it just takes some changes.

Disclaimer, if you do opt to do this: Be forwarned about flashing your BIOS, there is always a potential to brick your laptop! You do this at your own risk~

 

alsa config modifcation does not work for me since kernel 3.2+

I am running Fedora 16 with kernel 3.3.0 and added :

Code:

options snd-hda-intel model=alienware

to /etc/modprobe.d/dist-alsa.conf

I also still have problem with ac adapter : system does not detect re-plug

 

Thanks Joe! That will be helpful once I upgrade to the newer kernels.

Have you had any success with ATI switchable graphics? I kept running into kernel boot issues hanging at checking battery state when I had the intel graphics enabled, even though the PEG was set as the primary display.

 

How about using the default/unmodded A08 bios and only the IGP, is that possible? I've read the entire thread, but wanted to be 100% certain.

Also, does the default A08 allow to disable the discrete ATI card? I'd be more than happy to use IGP only, as long as the Radeon doesn't use up energy/heat.

I'd be running Gentoo on that machine.

I'd like to avoid using the modded bios not to give Dell any excuse to void my warranty ;-)

 

Default A08 BIOS will work fine with just the IGP, unfortunately the switchable graphics with the ATI cards is broken, or at least, that's the common conception. Perhaps someone with a lot of knowledge on X11 and such could get it working, but it's honestly a pain not worth dealing with for most people.

The default A08 BIOS also will not allow you to disable the IGP, it runs both at the same time and the graphics cards are controlled from the driver level within Windows, since that's all that Dell offers official support for.

As for the energy and heat from the radeon card, I can't confirm if it uses any or not, but I would suspect that it does, but probably at its lowest power state since it's not being utilized by a driver. This is just a guess!

I tried installing Gentoo and I am so far removed from configuring my own kernel, I abandoned ship once I realized that I was faced with a choice of using the genkernel, with everything else optimized, it just seemed like a wasted effort.

On a side note, I've messed around quite a bit with Fedora 16, and it runs great, with the exception that Gnome and the fglrx ATI drivers don't play well together, gnome-shell crashes like mad. Apparently this is a problem with Gnome that they are failing to address.

I've installed Ubuntu 12.04 LTS since its a little more up-to-date kernel wise than 11.10, and found that all the things I listed in my previous post work with the exception of the sound issue.

To get sound working through the speakers in 12.04, you have to edit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf and add this to the bottom line:

snd-hda-intel model=dell-eq

I haven't tested it thoroughly to see if headphones/mics work, but the speaker sound does.

Also the ubuntu 12.04 built-in drivers for the ATI card install well and work good.

 

That's great news thank you MegaTherion I've also seen this solution, (from thread about Linux and optimus) to turn of the discrete card programatically. It may disable the 6990, though as the author of the module said, these acpi calls might not be the 'proper' way to disable the card, so I'll have yet to think about it.

Anyway next week I hope to be able to say more about Gentoo on m17, if it arrives by then .

 

Hi , i try to boot Google Os Chromium from usb disk , but after some line of script , not gone ahead

 

madpit,

If you want to use IGP only, you can disable radeon with :

Code:

echo OFF > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch

I've been using it for months on Fedora 15/16 and GPU stays cold without fan.

 

The 'line fo script' is probably where error is displayed, hard to say anything without that

I thought the open source 'radeon' driver is needed for 'switcheroo' to work, and IGP enabled might cause problems with installation / module loading of the 'radeon' driver. I read about proprietary one and thought same applies for the open source driver.
But that's great, I'd rather use 'switcheroo' than the acpi calls module I mentioned earlier. Thanks for the info!

 

Ubuntu 12.04 is working pretty well with my current setup, but after reading some of the recent threads about switchable graphics, and 12.3's ATI driver being able to work well with it, I may go back to the regular Dell A08 BIOS and try it again.

Unfortunately there are so many ways to configure these graphics cards, not all methods seem to work the same way LOL Such is life with linux, everything has to be different.

I wish that Gnome and the ATI graphics worked well together, I just cant stand KDE and prefer a more robust desktop management package. Luckily Ubuntu's Unity works well with ATI since it uses Gnome minus the shell and uses the Unity shell instead.

 

Well, it worked like charm in the end (more or less ). Obviously not as easy as 'emerge nvidia-drivers' and 'startx', but IGP works no worse on openbox than my old nvidia 9300m when set up . Kernel mode setting is deffinitely easier to use than a framebuffer (which I tried and both with Vesa and UVesa couldn't get native 1920x1080 to work). KMS automatically set the native fullHD resolution which also worked in X.

I had no luck trying to get '/sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo' to appear in my sysfs with any kernel/driver configuration, so had to use acpi_call kernel module which went surprisingly well. On ~100% screen brightness + an external monitor, wifi etc. 'acpi' command shows ~3H on battery. I haven't yet tested if that's true, but seems so from how fast the battery drained.

Also to get the internal speakers to work I had to build alsa as module instead of my usual way of just including it with the kernel, as only then did the /etc/modprobe.d/alsa.conf file options work. The actual option that worked for me was

Code:

options snd-hda-intel model=auto

Perhaps Ill try later passing the arguments through the bootloader with monolitic kernel.

For AlienFX I used pyAlienFX and despite the rough interface I found it a lot better than the Windows CC (which got uninstalled as a result ).
Only minor inconvenience is that I've turned off touchpad, AW and AlienHead logo backlight, leaving only blue-dimmed light for keyboard and media keys, but the AlienHead seems to turn itself back on after every poweroff (not reboot, not even to windows, but a complete poweroff), so in those cases I have to turn it off again.

Everything else works out of box: media keys, brightness, external monitor through both VGA and HDMI (setting resolution with xrandr) etc., so overall I'd say it works perfectly for my needs And with 8 GB /var/portage ramdisk compilation is incredibly fast, only waiting for an SSD upgrade in future .

 

I got a flashy new M17R3 with 6990M (I've been using envy 15 with 5830 and has been using ATI driver fine with ubuntu) and I have found m17r3 does not just work.

I followed a number of instruction here and there, tried catalyst 12.3 right after fresh install of 12.04 LTS, and everything works fine until reboot and it spits out 'low graphics mode'

I mainly use a 3D simulation in ubuntu which uses OpenGL and IGP driver has some major glitches as well as being slow (polygons got broken a lot) so I'd try installing ATI driver.

Is installing modded A8 bios the only way to install everything? I'm now using A08 bios for SATA3 SSD and bit worried about flashing again.

EDIT: I bit the bullet and reflashed modded A8 bios, disabled IGP and now catalyst driver worked like a charm!!!!!!
Except for one thing - now I cannot change screen brightness at all. Are there any fix for this?

 

+rep might have to try out ubuntu on my alien myself at some point

 

So I have made two ubuntu disk images (I used wubi), one for IGP and one for AMD card. I enable/disable IGP in bios, change the disk name in windows (Hopefully I can make it selected during booting) then I can boot into IGP mode (~3.5hr battery time after turning discrete GPU off), or boot into AMD GPU mode (~1.5hr battery time even at light task)

It is actually quite usable for me as the switching only takes ~5 min and two rebooting. Everything works except for brightness control. If I turn off IGP, I cannot change display brightness either in windows and linux (It is set to maximum value, which is way too bright for me)

Can I set it to like 50% value in GRUB bootloader modification?

 

I also don't have LCD brightness controls under ubuntu 12.04 using the function keys, not a real big deal for me as I am plugged in most of the time, but it would be nice to have that function at some point. I am using the acpi_backlight=vendor line in my /etc/default/grub file to get maximum brightness as the fglrx driver seems to be a bit dim (see my previous post on how to fix that issue). I'm sure that acpi_backlight setting can be adjusted to give you a lower brightness.

I just recently canned my Win7 install completely and am now running linux on my SSD and have my spinner running my /home partition. It is crazy fast. Ubuntu boots up in about 8.5 seconds.

Oh and for those who are considering loading linux onto their SSD, I have to say there are some caveat's worth mentioning. I found this page to be the most useful though I dont know if modern distribution releases are necessary to make every single change.

SSD Optimizations in Linux

The options that you have to do straight out of the box since the installer doesn't pre-configure these for you:

I also opt'd to use a ramdrive for my /tmp directory, so I followed this step:

 

okay guys, so I'm COMPLETELY new to Linux and am very willing to figure this out (I'll need to when I enter the work force, Lord willing, as an engineer; not to mention I'm sick of Windows)...

Here's what I have:

• Alienware M17x R3
• i7-2630QM
• 8GB RAM
• the standard 320Gb hard drive
• nVIDIA GTX 460M

I just (last night) installed Ubuntu 12.04LTS. I now have a dual boot Windows 7 Ult/Ubuntu system. Obviously there are some problems (to be expected given all the other feedback on this thread).

I read as much this thread as I could. I can't make precise sense of what all is going on. Mostly I don't understand the terminology, nor where/how to apply some of the solutions that I've seen posted. I'm truly a newbie to all of this. Here are the problems I'm having right out of the gates:

• Power - as soon as I unplug the AC adapter, the machine shuts down - this is clearly a priority fix for me; this happens in both Windows & Ubuntu
  
  @5:30pm same day this appears to be fixed now. Note appears is the magic word. This was the first attempt at fixing it and it was a total guess. I supposed (not knowing any better) that perhaps there was a fuse-ish thing that had been tripped... I simply did a complete, proper shut down, checked the battery indicator on the battery itself (it was full), and then popped the battery off and put back on. Problem is apparently solved ​
• Web browsers (Chromium & Firefox) - both are running EXCESSIVELY slow in Ubuntu. This ONLY happens when using the wireless connection. Its fine in Windows still - this is a medium priority, but it really is irritating
  
  @5:30pm same day this appears to be fixed now. Same fix as above. The only difference is possibly that I'm on a different network now? ​
• Speakers/headphone jack - not working at all. the system does not detect any problems and shows that everything is working properly. - everything still works in Windows - petty annoyance as I love my music.
  
  This is already fixed @ 2:15pm the same day @madpit: thanks your line worked as advertised. here it is for anybody who has the same problem on the same system:
• Eject button - doesn't work in Ubuntu - again merely an petty annoyance;
• Printer - my office has a shared (wireless) network printer (Canon iR C5030) and I cannot get it to work. Ubuntu detects it but cannot find the driver. I tired canon's site and all they have is the *.exe for installing the driver. I found a *.inf for the printer apparently. I was told that this is usually all I need to get it to work. But how? - again, petty annoyance, I can just switch over to Windows

These are just the first of the issues that I have discovered. Learning how to correct these will help me correct others as I go I suspect. Any help? I saw some apparently very knowledgeable folks and would love some help. Again, I'm willing to learn, but I'm trying to be extremely cautious about just opening up a file and editing it w/out knowing what I'm looking at at the very least.

Peace...

edit: I'm still very willing to learn if I've done something blatantly wrong!

 

I forgot to post my results after I finished extracting the pincfg data from the windows driver. Using the correct pincfg data fixes the ACPI issues with the ac adapter.

My modprobe options look like this

options snd-hda-intel patch=alienware-m17x-r3.fw


The alienware-m17x-r3.fw file goes in /lib/firmware/ The pincfg lines are describing how the individual ports on the 92HD73C chip are wired up to various audio devices and jacks. I suspect that the ACPI issue is related to a powersave mode on an improperly configured input port. I originaly worked out the config data from the 92HD73C spec sheet, but I recently had to do this for another chip, and learned how to extract it from the Windows driver. The only questionable area is the 0x0f line. This is the S/PDIF and HP port. It has two variations

0x0f 0x03211280
0x0f 0x0321121f

The only real difference is the last byte (association and sequence). I decided to use the same last byte as the other two HP ports 0xa, and 0xb. Technically the association and group should be unique per widget, but I have lots of examples where that isn't the case.

For some reason, I couldn't upload the file. So here it is inline.

[codec]
0x111d7675 0x10280490 0

[model]
auto

[pincfg]
0x0a 0x0321121f
0x0b 0x0321121f
0x0c 0x400003f0
0x0d 0x19170110
0x0e 0x03a11230
0x0f 0x0321121f
0x10 0x0381023e
0x11 0x400003f0
0x12 0x400003f0
0x13 0xd5a30160
0x14 0x400003f0
0x22 0x034501b0
0x23 0x400003f0
0x24 0x400003f0