Linux on the M11x

This thread is about running Linux on the M11x. This post is to be a list with information (lspci, lsusb, links to pastebin for other information) and issues with fixes/workarounds.

Arch Linux issues:

Installing Arch via a usb drive fails. fnord0 has a solution for this here

Ubuntu 9.10 issues:

No sound on startup. You can fix this by manually installing the realtek driver found here

Proprietary NVidia driver crashes computer when it's set to switchable (This isn't installed by default)

No auto-switching of GPU. You must go into the BIOS to change this. Switchable = Intel; Discrete = Nvidia

Brightness cannot be adjusted on intel graphics. You can fix this by changing a grub variable. As root edit /etc/default/grub. change GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset acpi_backlight=vendor"
Save this fiel and then run update-grub. Brightness should work after a reboot.

Hardware Information:

Code:

LSPCI (on switchable):
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Memory Controller Hub (rev 07)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset PCI Express Graphics Port (rev 07)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 93)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation ICH9M-E LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation ICH9M/M-E SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Device 0caf (rev a2)
01:00.1 Audio device: nVidia Corporation Device 0be4 (rev a1)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Attansic Technology Corp. Atheros AR8132 / L1c Gigabit Ethernet Adapter (rev c0)
08:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation Device 4353 (rev 01)
1a:00.0 System peripheral: JMicron Technology Corp. SD/MMC Host Controller
1a:00.3 System peripheral: JMicron Technology Corp. MS Host Controller

Code:

LSUSB:
Bus 005 Device 002: ID 187c:0514 
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 125f:102d A-DATA Technology Co., Ltd.
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 005: ID 413c:8160 Dell Computer Corp.
Bus 003 Device 004: ID 413c:8162 Dell Computer Corp.
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 413c:8161 Dell Computer Corp.
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 0a5c:4500 Broadcom Corp.
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 064e:8101 Suyin Corp.

Pastebin links for more information:

dmesg on Ubuntu 9.10
lspci -vk on Ubuntu 9.10
lsusb -v on Ubuntu 9.10

 

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1403399

Work being done to get AlienFX to Linux. Currently only M15x but it might work on the M11x.

It also looks like Bus 005 Device 002: ID 187c:0514 is for AlienFX.

 

Switchable graphics was/is currently being developed. You need to patch the kernel. Google "graphics card switcheroo" for more info on it. Here's a link to another forum with some info (not sure if it is the most up to date version or not though). We will probably have to alter it to work with our 335m and intel graphics cards.

One question...I was going to install Ubunutu but I can't seem to find a 64-bit version aside from the server version. Is here one, or should I just install the 32-bit version?

*EDIT: Just found the 64-bit version...kinda hidden.

 

Yeah, it looks like switcheroo will be in 2.6.34. I'll test it a bit once an rc comes out.

 

Anyone know how to mount the windows partition in ubunutu (9.10)? I tried NTFS-Config and it only seems to find the recovery partition.

 

I'm using an SSD, so mine is a total reinstall.. in mine if you open Nautilus there's a 52 GB filesystem listed. When you click on it it asks you for your password, then it mounts it as /media/[UID]. In a terminal you can probably just sudo mount /dev/sda3 /mnt the drive, substituting /mnt for wherever you want to mount it. It looks like sda2 is the recovery partition and sda3 is the actual NTFS partition.

 

Keep at it, fellas. I'm really interested in putting Ubuntu on this bad boy.

 

Been working on this for as while and I can't get it to work 100%. For some reason mounting the recovery drive (/dev/sda2) works fine. It gets mounted (by default) to /media/RECOVERY. I created a new folder /media/OS to mount the windows partition (/dev/sda3) to. Here's where the differences are...

The Recovery drive has an icon that is automatically added to the desktop. It also shows up under the Places menu. Both of these work. The mounted Windows partition does not have a desktop icon and the OS listed in the places menu does nothing. Opening "Computer" shows "Filesystem", "RECOVERY", and "500 GB Hard Disk: OS". Clicking on the 500GB icon result in this error:

Unable to mount location
Internal error: No mount object for mounted volume

The part that does work is if I go to /media/OS....but that is more of a hassle than having a nice short cut icons in the 3 places mentioned above (desktop, places menu, and computer).


Any Ideas?

 

These two links may help:

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/mountwindows

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/mountwindowsfstab

Regards,

RD.

 

I've tried all of those methods. Also my wireless doesn't seem to work out of the box...anyone else have this problem?

Btw how did you guy install ubuntu/linux? I was going to make a bootable usb, but then I found a windows installer for ubuntu on their site, made very easy to install.

 

The wireless uses the proprietary STA broadcom driver. You need to enable it using the hardware drivers program under administration .
I created a usb stick using unetbootin

 

So you can access it if you browse to /media/OS? If so, then if you want to create a shortcut on your desktop you can run this in a terminal:

cd Desktop
ln -s /media/OS .

 

damn fine work... I hope to contribute to this thread as well, my m11x should be here in DAYS! thanks so much everyone, especially soleblaze for all the info!

 

So my problem with the windows partition icon was due to the way I installed ubuntu. When I installed it, I didn't realize that wubi (the windows installer I used) doesn't install in a normal fashion of partitioning the hard drive. It actually creates a virtual partition which is a file save on the windows partition. Since I don't like the idea of linux being dependent on windows, I uninstalled that and reinstalled it using a bootable usb and gave it it's own partition. So now the windows partition icon shows up on the desktop and the places menu, and works!

edit: And thanks again soleblaze, that propreiary driver worked for my wireless. Actually it also crashed while activating it the first time and gave me a kernel panic error which lead to my discovery of how wubi installs linux. Next on the list is getting sound to work.

 

I actually had some trouble activating the wireless driver so I dug up the driver on broadcom's site.

Here's the main page: http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php

and here's a direct link to the 64 bit driver: http://www.broadcom.com/docs/linux_sta/hybrid-portsrc-x86_64-v5.60.48.36.tar.gz

Follow the instructions in the readme here: http://www.broadcom.com/docs/linux_sta/README.txt and you should have no trouble installing the driver.

Posting this from my Ubuntu partiton. I'm loving this baby.

 

[redacted to save from triple post]

New question: how did you guys get the sound card to work?

 

Got the sound to work. Looks like it uses a Realtek ALC665 card, which isn't currently in alsa. However, Realtek has alsa drivers on their website here. There's a Readme.txt that has how to manually install the driver in ubuntu. You'll need to install build-essentials if you don't already have it.

 

Interesting... I tried that before but it didn't work. Probably because I was messing with another alsa driver at the same time. I'll give it a whirl when my new hard drive comes.

Thanks, sole.

Edit: two-finger scrolling doesn't work but edge scrolling does. I haven't found a synaptics driver yet but I'll keep looking.

 

mm i don't have ubuntu.. or ever tried installing a linux distro on a laptop( did once on a ps3 o_o yellow dog.. confusing stuff )

but i ran into this .. let me know if it helps you in ubuntu
http://ubuntu-snippets.blogspot.com/2009/03/multi-touch-for-anyall-synaptics.html

 

If you want to make a bootable USB out of your Ubuntu, use this: http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

The best tool ever.

 

got brightness on switchable working:

as root:

edit /etc/default/grub. change GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset acpi_backlight=vendor"

Save that then run update-grub. After that and a reboot you should be able to change the brightness just fine. You have a lot more steps in the brightness than you do in windows.

I have two papers due next week along with finals, so I won't have time this week to mess with this more. Once I'm done I'm going to be looking at seeing if gpu_switcheroo works with this chipset.

 

I'm Looking at powertop and the laptop is pulling ~18W idle. This is the same regardless of using the nvidia or the intel chipsets. This makes me think that both are on by default when it's set to switchable. (I've read that some of them are like this.)

 

Excellent work, sole! A way to turn off the discrete gfx would also be wonderful. Three hour battery life kind of sucks.

I've got two finger scrolling working using this method. Make sure that two finger scrolling is disabled in the Mouse settings first or it won't work. You'll have to do all of the steps (1 through 4). I changed the "7" value to "5" because I have thin fingers.

Edit: I've found that the brightness fix has a glitch for me. If I have "dim screen when idle" set in power management, it dims it even if the computer is active. It's kind of weird. It's nice to be able to turn off the backlight, though.

 

well, lookie there - GIGABIT ethernet adapter
I noticed this when I booted linux myself! wonder if this is truly a gigabit eth adapter?? I've only seen it advertised as 10/100 by alienware/dell.


side note: I am gonna mention this, as it is the most crazy thing in the WORLD (and mind you, that I can reproduce EVERY reboot)!

years ago I bought a 5.25" IDE USB2.0 external enclosure case, (the only identifying sticker I can locate on it is labelled sd-525u2enc-a01 - google found this) that allows one to connect ANY IDE HDD/CD/DVD drive inside the enclosure. looking at it from the back - it has a power cable that connects to a wall, and a USB2.0 interface cable that u connect to a computer or laptop - it also has an "AUDIO OUT" headphone jack port.

when I connect this enclosure case + sony DVD-ROM drive (model#DDU1611) to my M11x lappy via any of the USB2.0 ports, and boot up linux I find that the ETHERNET adapter completely disappears from the computer... no s**t!! an "lspci" no longer shows the ETHERNET adapter! no amount of futzing around fixes it!

I called up alienware tech support, and the guy tried to help me fix the "issue"... but I was unable to get the issue to reproduce at all when he was looking into it because at that time I had no clue it was DIRECTLY RELATED to this external enclosure case/drive. long story short, I ended the tech support call without finding the issue. only later did I find it myself. I wanted to let others know of this, as it seems a pretty esoteric issue, but an issue none the less.

I want to also mention that this external enclosure case/drive has never caused an issue with ANY other computer I've used it in conjunction with... only this m11x?! if I power up the M11x WITHOUT the external drive connect via USB, the ethernet adapter works without issue! but connecting it, the ethernet adapter is non-usable... as I said I can reproduce this EVERY reboot as long as the external case/drive is connected. VERY STRANGE, indeed! heh

thanks all, for everything u do!

 

want to post a "fix" if u will, for HOWTO install arch linux on the m11x.

I am not sure if this is something that only I am facing or not - but this was my fix = http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=724113#p724113

 

Ok, cool. I've added it to the first post. How's arch working on it otherwise? I'm still debating between arch and gentoo for my final setup.

 

nice - thanks. as far as how's arch going.... I'm still configuring it and tweaking things I only just got this bad-boy running a couple hours ago! but I love me some arch linux (also booting back|track 4 final on this thing) so, I am gonna suggest it over gentoo - I just don't think I'm your most subjective user to ask though

I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone ends up doing in linux with this thing, its been a blast so far!

 

Perhaps there is some crazy method in Linux to overclock this thing to more than 1.73 GHz?

 

I have some... not so good (yet) news about VGA_switcheroo and the M11x. meaning, it didn't work for me in its current iteration. I tried arch linux x86_64 (current) with custom-built kernel v2.6.33 (final/stable), with the 0001-vga_switcheroo-initial-implementation-v13 and zen1 patches. I booted into linux with SWITCHABLE in BIOS set. attempting to change to the nvidia discrete video card fails within linux (even logging out, and back in).

of note: I wasn't able to use the the 0002-vga-switch-hi-my-name-is-race-condition patch against linux kernel 2.6.33 (final/stable) as it would error-out... Im wondering if that is a required patch?

as an FYI, I used this post and this post and followed pretty much to a T - except for the part about 0002-vga-switch-hi-my-name-is-race-condition patch, which fails on 2.6.33 as mentioned above.

my next step is to try linux 2.6.34, and or some other approaches. best of luck to all!

UPDATE: I tried 2.6.34-rc1 (mainline), and I am still unable to switch cards, as soon as u issue the change you get a kernel dump =( I will continue to work on this, as the drivers/kernel matures!

 

It looks like Dave Airlie didn't have access to any nvidia hardware to test. I wonder how hard it would be to get it to work if one of us offers to help.

 

Finally got around to installing Arch last night. (Started on Gentoo, then decided I don't want to put that much time into it.) I haven't setup X yet, but I did get 2.6.34-rc3 on there. If you have both nouveu and the intel drivers enabled in the kernel and not as modules than it says it switches and doesn't give a kernel dump.. However, if I had nouveu as a module than it gave me a screen of errors and logged me off. If I had both installed as modules it would just get a black screen when it enabled them.

I'll be trying it with X tonight. I have a feeling it's not actually switching. After that I'll send Airlied an email about it.

 

good 2 hear from ya soleblaze! glad to hear u went with arch, as I love this distro! best of luck with everything, hope we can get some progress on the linux front! keep us posted

 

Yeah, it's not switching properly. Also was able to get it to crash while both are built into the kernel. I've emailed Arlied my dmesg.

 

good, good ( EDIT: well, good that u contacted the man, not good its not switching properly!) I found this page = linux-hybrid-graphics.blogspot.com ... at the top of the page, the following is posted ::

so I did just that = subscribed to the hybrid graphics linux mailing list, and submitted my m11x's DSDT.dsl information as a bug report @ bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg-server/+bug/312756

then @ this site = launchpad.net/~hybrid-graphics-linux I saw the request go out for ::

soo I joined that team as well, and filled out the " doodle", then sent the hybrid-graphics-linux launchpad.net's mailing list my bug report(s)... hoping by sharing this info, it will get others to lend their support too PRIME may or may not benefit m11x directly, but still by sharing multi-gpu info, maybe this could contribute to getting the multi-gpu switching capability in xorg?!

for now, I've been working on implementing a script on my archlinux install to allow me to have BOTH nvidia + intel drivers living together happily ala' this guys setup, but decidedly more arch-style like our french brethren

the american arch forums have some good suggestions too (script-wise)::
bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=78565
bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=92530

keep us all posted
btw, I cant get the one realtek driver u linked to work with 2.6.33 arch, gotta try and locate a possibly newer driver, or tweak with the current? lemme know what u do with that please

 

haha, I was about to ask you if you've gotten audio working. There's one in AUR, but it fails on a gameport section. Not sure if the alsa drivers on the alsa website work for this card..I'll take a look at that and see if the ones in 2.6.34-rc3 work. (Not currently running that since the broadcom sta won't compile on it)

Thanks for sending out those bug reports. Probably the proper way to do it ;D I'll have to subscribe to those mailing lists.

EDIT:

Looks like sound works in 2.6.34. I'm still trying to get alsa-driver 1.0.22.1 to compile with 2.6.33.

 

Ok, the alsa driver snapshot works.

Download the latest snapshot from: http://www.alsa-project.org/snapshot/

tarjxvf it then cd to the directory. run:

./configure --with-cards=hda-intel
make
make install

and reboot. I also ran alsaconf (I have alsa-utils installed) but I don't think that's neccessary.

 

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=ODE1OQ Looks like alsa 1.0.23 was just released. Should be able to install this instead of the snapshot. (Although I'd be surprised if much is different if you installed the snapshot last night. I'm not going to bother to upgrade right now)

 

good call soleblaze... I just went ahead and manually re-built all the alsa-* packages that were upgraded to 1.0.23, and specifically built the alsa-driver-1.0.23 as u suggested, and the audio is working in 2.6.33!

figured I'd post my version of the detectgpu script I decided to go with on the latest arch x86_64, I will probably use this setup until we get vga_switcheroo working for the m11x ::

Code:

[B]/etc/rc.d/detectgpu[/B]

#!/bin/bash
VIDEO=`/usr/sbin/lspci|grep -c Intel`
if [ "$VIDEO" == 16 ]; then
   echo NVidia GPU detected
   ln -sf /etc/X11/xorg.nvidia.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf
   OPENGL_DEJA_INSTALL=`pacman -Q libgl 2>/dev/null|grep -c libgl`
   if [ "$OPENGL_DEJA_INSTALL" == 1 ]; then
   echo Switching OpenGL implementation to nvidia-utils
   pacman -Rd libgl 2>/dev/null
   pacman -Rd lib32-libgl 2>/dev/null
   echo y|pacman -S nvidia-utils 2>/dev/null
   echo y|pacman -S lib32-nvidia-utils 2>/dev/null
   fi
else
echo Intel GPU detected
ln -sf /etc/X11/xorg.intel.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf
OPENGL=`pacman -Q libgl 2>/dev/null|grep -c libgl`
if [  $OPENGL != 1 ]; then
   pacman -Rd nvidia-utils 2>/dev/null
   pacman -Rd lib32-nvidia-utils 2>/dev/null
   echo y|pacman -S libgl 2>/dev/null
   echo y|pacman -S lib32-libgl 2>/dev/null
fi
fi

just make that script /etc/rc.d/detectgpu executable

Code:

chmod +x /etc/rc.d/detectgpu

and lastly, update /etc/rc.conf, and add the following to your DAEMONS=() section

Code:

@detectgpu

using this script, whenever you boot linux with discrete or switchable selected in BIOS, arch will already have the proper libgl files ready for xorg. I can live with it for now, and hope other arch linux users may find this helpful too =)

PS: if u use this script, u should have 2 xorg.conf files in /etc/X11 - 1 named xorg.nvidia.conf and the other named xorg.intel.conf with the correct config for each. the detectgpu
script will automatically create a symlink for /etc/X11/xorg.conf => to point to the proper xorg.XXXXX.conf file, depending on which card is active at boot time.

 

just small update, I went ahead and created an Alienware M11x wiki page over at the archwiki - anyone should feel free to contribute.

BTW, this is the 1st Alienware laptop listed there - congrats! =)

 

Nifty, good idea. Also thanks for posting the script. I'm running with it set on discrete right now, since I wasn't able to change the brightness while on intel. The most it says I can get is about 4 and a half hours, but I haven't timed it to see how much battery life I actually get.

 

Got BatBoy to move this thread out of the old "Side Topics" because I'm just no getting ready to Install Ubuntu 10.04 to a 40GB SSD.

To me you guys sounds like you speaking (typing ) a foreign language. Hopefully I'll learn a little but about this system.

 

best of luck DR650SE! I've been meaning to give 2.6.34-rc6 a try and see if vga_switcheroo works yet with the m11x. let us know how things go for you and feel free to ask questions. thanks for resurrecting this post, its very useful.

for others out there looking to test out .34-rc6, roberto martinez -- of ASUSM51Ta & Linux: HowTo compile Kernel + switcheroo fame -- has just updated his site for using vga-switcheroo with the rc6 kernel. neat-o stuff!
(be aware the directions on his page currently are for fedora 13 beta, but anyone should be able to use the information presented, and apply it to their own distro in use. ymmv and all)

 

Thanks, I've gotten it installed, and thats pretty much where I'm at. Any suggestions on what I need to do to get the wireless going? At this point i'm confused with terms like tar. I know (think) i have to complile the driver(kernal?). I have a lot of reading to do lol

Me===> lol I'm stuborn so eventually I'll figure it out

 

Is it just me who thinks it's somewhat daft to install a non-gaming operating system on a gaming laptop? :S

 

I'm around where DR650SE's at -- dazed and confused, if I can use the reference. My respect for linux nerds has shot up enormously as a result

 

No its not. Who ever said you need to use a gaming laptop top game? I use my M15x for programming and running multiple virtual machines (for testing usually). Also, the eye candy I get from compiz is not only really nice, but also adds to the usability. Non-gaming laptops usually dont have the same performance.

 

Wattos, since I'm new to the scene, can you explain what Compiz is?

And I agree, what makes it a "gaming laptop" is the hardware capabilities. You don't neccessarily need to game just because you can.

 

Compiz is a Desktop Manager which uses OpenGL. You can say that it is the equivalent of Aero, but that would be a huge understatement.

Here is a sample video:

YouTube - Compiz Fusion: A Quick Demonstration

its installed by default on ubuntu as long as you have the correct driver installed for your nvidia card. For that go to Admin->Hardware Drivers and activate the nvidia driver.

Also, make sure you install the compizconfig-manager which allows you to customize the effects. To enable compiz by hand do:

Preferences -> Appearance -> Effects (the tab) and do either default or extra.

Also, make sure you get gnome-do. To get gnome do, type into the terminal:

sudo apt-get install gnome-do

or alternatively open synaptic package (in admin) manager and search for gnome-do. Its a very handy tool to open programs

 

Ahh, thanks for the help, now if I can only get the wireless working lol.

 

whats wrong? does it not work at all?