Monday, April 9, 2007

Installation of Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 7.04 beta

WARNING: Click HERE if you want information on installing Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn FINAL.


How does Ubuntu 7.04 beta behave on an Amilo SI1520?

Hardware Information

Screen & Monitors

Screen: Works
Correct resolution: Yes (after installing package 915resolution)
Correct refresh rate: Yes
3D Acceleration: Yes
External monitor works: Untested
External monitor - mirrors: Untested
External monitor - extend desktop: Untested

Power Management
Battery detected: Yes
Hibernates: Yes
Sleep: Yes (1)
Dim monitor on battery: No
Blank monitor on inactivity: Yes
Lid Close: Yes
Cpu frequency scaling: Untested

Sound
Sound works? Yes
Correct volume? Yes (Although volume is pretty low)
Hardware volume switch: N/A (but Fn buttons to control volume work)
Headphone jack: Works
Mic jack: Does not work (I Couldn't manage to make it work)

Networking
Wired NIC: Works
Wireless NIC: Works
PCMCIA NIC: Untested
Firewire: Untested (Should work)
Bluetooth: Untested (Should work)
Modem: Untested
Infrared: N/A

Touchpad & Mice
Touchpad: Works
Touchpad - Doubletap = double click: Works
Touchpad - Scroll down side: Works
Touchpad - turned off while typing: Does not work
External mouse - USB: Works
External mouse - Serial: Untested

Other Hardware
CD/DVD Burner: Works (Couldn't make it burn at speed >2x)
4-in-1 Card Reader: Works (2)

NOTES:
(1) Suspend to RAM works only with BIOS version 1.10. Later versions have something wrong and this feature will not work properly. You can downgrade to v1.10 if your laptop does NOT mount an Intel Core Duo (Yonah) D0 stepping processor (which basically means those CPUs coded T2x00). Check here for more detailed information.


(2) The built-in Card Reader works with kernel 2.6.20-12-generic and 2.6.20-15-generic. Booting with other kernels will result in not being able to use the card reader.

10 comments:

Unknown said...

i've never bought a laptop b4 actually, and it just goes to shows what a minefield linux on laptops is... maybe i should wait for dell to support linux :)

Sciamano said...

AFAIK, more or less every laptop has problems with linux. The main problem is that if you buy a very recent model, it's more than probable that some of its hardware components are still unsupported. But things should get better in time, as the programmers add support for more recent hardware.
Therefore, IMO, either you buy an "old" laptop with more linux support, or you choose a bleeding edge laptop with limited linux support but with significant bigger lifespan.

Benjamin Drung said...

"Sleep: Yes (but after a resume the touchpad won't work anymore)"

This problem appears if you are using BIOS version 1.19 or 1.20. If you take version 1.10 everything is working fine. If you don't have an Intel Core Duo (Yonah) D0 stepping processor you can go back to BIOS version 1.10.

Sciamano said...

@Skipper: Really? My CPU is a C2D T7200 @2GHz, which means it is a "Merom".
I could try to degrade my BIOS version to see if this works. Are you sure this won't affect any other feature?

Sciamano said...

I guess I'll have to wait before trying to modify my BIOS version, since Fujitsu-Siemens' support site is having problems right now:

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80040e14'

[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]The log file for database 'Statistik' is full. Back up the transaction log for the database to free up some log space.

/download/ShowFiles.asp, line 8

:-(

david said...

Hi,
I've an Amilo 1520 too and i'm trying to use feisty on it but wireless card isn't working.
Did you do something to configure it? I mean, i recive an advise wich says that restrictive modules are being used, but i try iwconfig and it doesn't show anything.
Any idea?

david said...

Ohhhh, sorry, my fault, the wireless card was just not powered on ;)
"First think, then speak"

Sciamano said...

No problem David! All's well that ends well! :)

Camões said...

Mic Jack: Works. (after a more recent updates, I think. ) It had been one of my biggest disapontments in the beginning but more recently it got fixed.
The problem now is that after just 7 months it caught a nasty badsectors cold...

Sciamano said...

Unfortunately that's a common problem with laptops. :(