vostro 1400 change X3100 video ram size

Updated the title about my experience with Fedora 7 x86_64 on Vostro 1400.
See message #6 below. Hope this can be helpful to anybody interested.
I started a new thread put the installation details there.
Cheers!


====================== old message about X3100 ================
Hi,

Does anybody know how to change the allocated memory size for X3100 in vostro 1400?
I couldn't find such an option in BIOS. I think it is only allocating 8MB right now which seems too little. I would like to increase that at least to 64MB. Thanks!

 

It's dynamic, it takes what it needs - up to 384mb, you cannot allocate a certain # of MBs

 

Thanks! I'll see what I can do with Linux.

 

Did you get Linux to run successfully on your Vostro?

 

8MB is the minimum it'll allocate - I believe you can set that to 1MB as well. As eskimochaos, Windows (and other OSes should as well, assuming you have the appropriate driver) will allocated the appropriate amount of system RAM to the video processor.

 

Sorry I haven't checked the forum for a while.

Yes, I have installed Fedora 7 x86_64 successfully. Although it took me a while to
get thing correct. I took some notes during the process. They are kinda rough. In case the notes could be helpful to anybody, here they are.

============ Fedora7OnVostro1400 (64bit version) ============
1. move windows pagefile to recovery partition (D: in Windows)
turn off windows restore on all partitions
disable hibernation just for now (we'll turn it back on after disk shrink)
at command prompt: powercfg -h on|off
well, I don't have permission to issue the command, use disk cleanup to
remove the file. How do I enable it later?
Defragement hard disks, there is no progress indicator anymore (guess how
long it will take?)

2. shrink C: partition from 70GB to 12GB using windows vista disk management
utility
First time: shrink it to 36GB, shutdown and reboot to see if it works
Second time: download Gparted live cd and use mkxf86config.sh to create
xorg.conf so that GParted can run
Windows vista spend a long time (almost 20 minutes) in Startup Repair,
but finally it worked. Just let it work. Since Dell didn't give me
a copy of the Windows Vista Home Basic install DVD, I was really worried
if the partition shrink doesn't work.

3. Now that linux can read and write NTFS with the help of FUSE and ntfs-3g
we can create all windows partitions in NTFS
wait, sda6 will be formated as FAT32 since hard drive will be used as
the installation source for Fedora
Again, all new partions are created with GParted
sda1: 78MB (some unknown partition Dell created)
sda2: D: Dell Recovery, unchanged, 2GB, also put pagefile, and tmpdir
sda3: C: OS, 12GB, vista home basic
sda4: extended partion
sda5: F: Data, 20GB, NTFS
sda6: G: FatData, 4GB, FAT32
sda7: /boot, 100MB
sda8: /usr, 8GB
sda9: /home, 14GB
sda10: /opt, 7GB
sda11: /, 7.9GB
sda12: linux swap, 1GB

4. Download Fedora 7 DVD image and burn
format /dev/sda5, sda6
put a copy of the dvd iso file into G:/fedora7/ dir

5. Install Fedora 7 with source from local hard drive

6. Post Install fixup #1
Get Broadcom Netlink BCM5906M Fast Ethernet PCI Express working
Solution: upgrade kernel to support the card
Run package updater: 160 updates available

7. Post Install fixup #2
Get xorg.conf right: displaysize for 120x120 dpi
7.1 download graphics driver from intellinux, fix src i830_lvds.c
to set pfit_control = 0 even when zooming to remove fuzziness
autogen.sh, configure, make, replace with the new src/.libs/intel_drv.so
Voila! Crisp clear now!
One problem remaining: when loggin off, the intel driver seems unable to
restart and system crashes, try turn off DRI and DRM to see if it helps
To Be Continued: get mesa and 3d stuff working (Beryl and CompizFusion)
For now, just disable all fancy stuff and get X server stable
7.2 forget 7.1, just download the xorg-server rpm from testing/, it will
remove the fuzziness. Don't waste your time configuring and compiling
your own intel driver. This is what I have now, since it is easier
to upgrade and maintain.

8. Get hibernation working so that I can keep the previous work state
8.1 supspend to memory just worked by itself by pulling menu
after wakeup, we need to do ctrl-alt F1 then F7
we can setup the power management scheme to auto-suspend after closing
the lid and auto-wakeup after opening the lid, great!
Actually, this can be fixed nicely, see item 15 later
8.2 hibernate to swap disk
It also worked like a charm from the menu (of power management applet).
So, no need to install kernel-tuxonice from atrpms, then.

9. Post Install fixup #4
Set up the wireless network DELL broadcom 1390 card
rmmod bcm43xx_mac80211 and blacklist this module in /etc/modprobe.d
download and compile ndiswrapper and install 64bit WinXP driver from DELL
Use Inspiron E1501 and WinXP 64 to select driver, unzip .exe file
Test suspend and hibernate with wireless driver, wireless lost after
wakeup, however, it doesn't interfer with suspend, good!
But it seems will interfere with hibernate, which will hang on
"Suspending Consoles". Put SUSPEND_MODULES="ndiswrapper" in
/etc/pm/config.d/suspend_modules and chmod +x suspend_modules
solves the problem.

10. Chinese input
Scim miraculously started working after I login in Chinese once. Now the
repeated sequence would be scim-restart and reload configuration.
I think I figured this one out: you should: Menu->System->Preference->Personal->Input Method
choose use custom input method: scim and log out and back in.
You are good to go. Don't use the system default.

11. Post Install fixup #3
Sound not working
Try driver from GATech,
wget http://www.gtlib.gatech.edu/pub/suse/projects/alsa/snapshot/driver/.tgz
./configure --with-cards=hda-intel
make, make install, reboot
The trick is not tell soundcard-config you cannot hear the sound, instead
you should use a mixer to turn on the digital-1 of STAC9228 mixer because
it is by default muted. I think the first time I configured the sound
card, I can see the mixer, but there is no sound because it is by default
muted. Had I turn it on the first time I configed sound card, I won't go
into so many trouble. I don't know if there is an option to unconfig
soundcard.
However, there is no sound for the speaker. Only the headphone works.
Fixed, in modprobe.conf, add "options snd-hda-intel model=3stack"
and run command "service alsasound restart" to make it into effect.
Now we need to restart alsasound after hibernate, again, let's hack the
/usr/lib/pm-utils/bin/pm-action, No, it doesn't work either. alsasound
refuse to stop in the script. I don't know if anything get locked up.
Oh well, at least we can run "service alsasound restart" manually.

12. Post Install fixup #4
Logout still won't wake up the screen
In that case, maybe we want to turn glx back?
Don't do always restart server, it will interfere with hibernate/suspend
Well, don't logout then, other options are suspend, hibernate, shutdown.
This is my personal laptop, how ofter do I need to logout?
Will see if there is any vbe option that can be tuned in gdm.conf, later.

13. Data and Task Migration from old laptop
- all linux data in home directory
- mail, calendar,
- config firefox (flash, mplayer, mplayerplug-in), xmms, scim, acroread
- config openoffice, terminal, fonts,
- Windows data, and mounting windows partition (fat32 and ntfs), make sure
that linux hibernate will unmount them and remount them to keep
windows file system consistent (details: system/windows/winPartition)
- TODO:
- bookmarks?
- cell sdk
- re-install intel compilers

14. Stuff on Vista side
- Migrate all data from old laptop
- tweak and tune Vista, see system/windows/TweakVista_1.1.pdf
or search tweak guide tweak companion vista online for the website

15. Fixed intel video problem after wake up from suspend using vbetool post
put in /usr/lib/pm-utils/bin/pm-action script
####### Hand tuned by me to fix the video problem ######
CONSOLE=`fgconsole`
chvt 1
####### End hand tuning ######

pm_main "$ACTION" "$REVERSE"

####### Hand tuned by me to fix the video problem ######
/usr/sbin/vbetool post
chvt $CONSOLE
####### End hand tuning ######

16. what else? to be continued...
right now, the state of the Fedora 7 x86_64 on Vostro 1400 is running
great. Mi sa like it.