Installing Slackware 12.1 on Toshiba Satellite A55-S306

Last updated: 05 November 2008

This laptop is operating under Kernel version 2.6.27.2 (Slackware 12.1).
Basic Installation of Slackware 12.1:

* Why use Slackware? I prefer Slackware for its customize-ability, stability, security, and speed. However, Mandriva Linux will install just fine, and I recommend Mandriva for those who are new to Linux. Still, Slackware works very good.
* Obtaining Slackware 12.1: get it here.
* Installing: This laptop comes, obviously, with Windows taking up all space on the hard drive. It is necessary to re-size the Windows partition to make room for Linux. Usually I just inserted Mandrake Linux CD #1 and used their resizing tool to do it. You can also go to GParted Live CD Be warned, however, that the factory Windows restore DVD is a Norton Ghost restore, basically a "paint your hard drive Windows" DVD. If you use it, it will destroy everything you have and make your hard drive like it came from the factory. Those who actually need Windows might consider making a (LEGAL!) copy of Windows XP Home from a friend, since they legally own a license for it, but might not enjoy losing all their data using Toshiba's restore DVD. I highly recommend that the user also learn how to make that Windows XP Home CD include service packs 1 and 2 "slip-streamed". Remember, by the way, that if yours comes with Windows XP Home, you own rights to the Home version of XP, and not to XP Pro. And yes, I obey the law: copyright is the law. Don't like it? Use Linux! :)
* Post-Install modifications/tweaks: see here and see below. Most of this is not specific to this laptop: it's customizations that I do to my Slackware Linux installation.

Setting up additional features for Slackware 12.1:

* Getting Suspend and Hibernate to operate correctly: I prefer not to use KDE's klaptop daemon. Just "echo disk > /sys/power/state" for Hibernate and "echo mem > /sys/power/state" for Suspend. As of writing this right now, I had done no configuration. Suspend to Memory (Suspend) didn't work because some device (I guess) is preventing that. However, Suspend to Disk (Hibernate) works great, and it seems like nothing is broken so far. Thanks to rworkman from FreeNode ##slackware, my acpi_handler.sh script below also includes logic to automatically call Suspend to Disk when your battery is low. NEW: use pm-utils from rlworkman.net. It works great for suspend and hibernate. On my machine, suspend results in losing your DHCP session for your wireless, but otherwise it works great.
* Touch-pad: Linux Kernel 2.6.12 first included several ALPS touch-pad fixes. I prefer to compile psmouse as a module so that you can specify "options psmouse proto=exps resetafter=1" in /etc/modprobe.d/psmouse, or inline in /etc/rc.d/rc.modules as "/sbin/modprobe psmouse proto=exps resetafter=1" (if you blacklist it from auto-loading). The first way to do it is my preferred method.
* LCD contrast configuration for fonts in X.org: mainly I specify my laptop's LCD viewing area as "DisplaySize 304 228", which is the viewable size in millimeters. While you can find it by measuring, it's possible to use algebra to find it if you don't have a ruler. First, viewable size is measured diagonally by manufacturers. Second, the sides of the screen form 90 degree angles (a rectangle), so you can use Pythagorus's theorum: C² = A² + B², where C is the diagonal screen size of our virtual triangle, and A and B are two sides. Since you know the ratio of A to B (1024:768 is 4:3), you can substitute A=4X B=3X and then solve out, resulting in 12" by 9", then convert to millimeters.
* General Video comments: As for the rest of the configuration, I prefer to use "xorgsetup" program to make me one. Mine is here. As for other things in my configuration, you'll notice the Option "DPMS" lines, which are to tell X that it can use the power saving features of this card. Then there's the DRI section, which allows everyone to use hardware acceleration. The Intel 855GM isn't a very good 3D Accelerated card, but this can at least improve some of DVD playback and 3D rendering. On mine, I get approximately 112 frames per second in glxgears (maximized), which isn't too shabby. I recommend passing the argument (see my configuration) to tell the driver how much the AGP aperture is (128MB).
* KERNEL CONFIG FOR INTEL 855GM: As of 05 November 2008, the default Slackware generic kernel config (see the CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT file) works for moving to and from Virtual Terminals while in X (i.e. ctrl+alt+F5 and F7 respectively). The Gentoo WikiHow used to include information on this card, recommending that the graphical options be compiled into the kernel rather than being configured as modules. Also, notice that Slackware does not load the i915 nor DRM modules (Intel 915 series video and direct acceleration, respectively) so you may need to add these to /etc/rc.d/rc.modules to load them. Assuming you use the options found in my xorg.conf, you should have direct rendering on this graphics card also.
* LILO recommendation (NEW): use "vga = 792" for 1024x768 or 788 for 800x600. Both of these are at 16k colors. This card only supports up to 24k color mode, and only in X: intelfb framebuffer only supports 16k or 32k colors. Obviously this means 16k color is what you should use. if you want a mode that works for boot up. Otherwise use "vga = normal" if you want it to look like the old-school DOS. If using "vga = normal" gives you a small portion of the screen to use, reboot into the BIOS configuration and tell it to stretch the video mode (so it looks more like old-school VGA while not in X). Some people like it with small text ("vga = 792"), some do not ("vga = normal"). I have yet to try "vga = normal" using frame buffer but I'll get back to it.
* Wireless: As of Slackware 12.1, the firmware for the Intel IPW2200 module (my wireless) is included with Slackware. Wireless works out of the box.
* ACPI: This computer needs ACPI support to work properly, in the sense of hardware devices. This means you should be installing Slackware from an ACPI kernel like the generic kernel. Most modern Linux distributions support ACPI by default, but it's worth noting.
* In terms of acpid "chatter", this laptop does have a LID switch that gets recognized, as well as what state the processor, fan, and battery are in and when they change states. New: check out a copy of my /etc/acpi/acpi_handler.sh . Mine sets the CPU Speedstep to "powersave" (or slowest speed) when the laptop is unplugged, and back to "ondemand" when plugged in. New: thanks to rworkman from FreeNode ##slackware, my acpi_handler.sh script below also includes logic to automatically call Suspend to Disk when your battery is low.
* CPU: works as advertised.
* Speed-step: This computer has Speed-step capabilities (i.e. CPU frequency scaling). Only kernels 2.6.x and following will have it. It works great! Be sure to include the "ondemand" scaling governor, and set /etc/rc.d/rc.local to automatically enter this mode ("echo ondemand > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor"), since it's the most logical guess at boot time. Note: as of recent (2.6.26.x kernel) the ACPI scheduler is the proper SpeedStep scheduler in the kernel, not the original speedstep-centrino. Read the kernel before you start using it. Anyways, speedstep has saved me quite a bit of battery power when I've went roaming. However, another governor you might want to use while unplugged is "powersave" (setting it is the same as above, basically), which keeps the CPU at the slowest possible speed and saves the most battery. I have a preliminary rc.cpufreq script that can run this at boot time just like any other Slackware init script. As of Slackware
* Battery: works great. I achieve the advertised battery time of 4 hours, so long as I'm being power-conscious. Remember, things like listening to music at high volume levels, burning CDs, etc, will drain the battery faster. Of course, over time batteries lose their advertised life as they wear out. Take care of it and it will reward you.
* Sound: works great. In the past, you had to make sure to blacklist the snd-intel8x0m module ("echo snd-intel8x0m >> /etc/hotplug/blacklist") because it causes problems (it's the modem sound module). As of Slackware 11.0, Pat does it for you, but it is worth knowing. The default Slackware generic kernel module works fine with my sound card and also with my USB Altec Lansing XT1 speakers.
* LCD back-light: works fine. It automatically shuts itself off / turns itself on based on LCD display lid position, so you don't have to set up Linux to do it. However, remember that going to hibernate mode is not automatic, i.e. the hardware does not do it for you. In Windows, the default configuration was to go to hibernate mode when you closed the lid. You can still do this if you want. Just know that this isn't a bug, it's an automatic windows feature.

Only issue:

* Modem doesn't work, but I never bothered to get it working. Not supported directly in the Linux kernel yet, due to being a "winmodem". However, would probably work fine using an emulator. I physically uninstalled my modem from my laptop.

Configuration Files:

* /etc/X11/xorg.conf
* Kernel configuration for this machine

I installed Mandriva 2009 Free Edition (Gnome). This was very easy. I won't bother going over the installation process because it was very easy.

Post-install, I only had to tweak a few things.

What worked fine:
On this laptop, everything not specifically listed below worked fine in
my experience. You can see any specifics in my Slackware 12.1 review.

Mouse:
This laptop has an ALPS Touchpad. The mouse is incorrectly detected on an ISA bus (this machine has no ISA bus). The mouse driver had weird tap zones for switching virtual desktop. I could not find where to disable this. The mouse driver also didn't recognize double-tap-and-drag that I am used to. What I did was recompile the kernel with a known good kernel config (http://www.puresimplicity.net/~twinreverb/config) from Slackware, making psmouse a module, and putting the following in /etc/modprobe.d/psmouse

This solved the problem.

PC Speaker:
See various bug reports and ALSA/Linux documentation. If you have an onboard sound card (which this laptop does), you should blacklist the PC Speaker module (pcspkr) in my opinion. No need to use it as an ALSA output device. However, this module did not cause me problems on Mandriva. I only bring it up because of past experiences with this specific kernel module.

Lag and Bloat:
While Mandriva is designed to work on everyone's computer for every possible use, all these features can load down a machine. For me, most of the streamlining needed was recompiling the kernel. Believe it or not, this was actually extremely easy: much easier than past Mandriva releases I had experienced.

First, you go get the source code. See this link for a good explanation of what kernels are available via Mandriva's package repositories. I grabbed the vanilla source code using this command:

Then I simply changed directory to /usr/src/kernel-linus-2.6.27.2-1mdv
and started the normal compile process I'm used to with Slackware, using the same exact kernel config I used on Slackware. Once built, I copied the bzImage over, added a kernel config line to /etc/lilo.conf and re-ran LILO.

LILO Gotchas
For some reason, on this Mandriva release, hard drives are all referenced as /dev/sdaX (i.e. /dev/sda, /dev/sda2, etc) rather than /dev/hdaX. This at first alarmed me, thinking Mandriva had accidentally mis-detected and/or mis-configured my onboard hard drives. But I didn't notice any difference in how the new kernel ran. However, you must make sure that you change all references to /dev/sdaX to /dev/hdaX entries if you run a vanilla kernel config. I had LILO refuse to boot twice due to this. I don't know if the other kernels will, in hind sight, run properly using /dev/hdaX rather than sdaX and UUID=@#$ type boot/root entries in /etc/lilo.conf, but my new kernel runs so well I don't know if I'll bother trying them to see if they work or not this way.

Suspend and Hibernate:
On Mandriva, even with my custom (non-bloat) kernel config, suspend and hibernate modes work correctly. This is different than on Slackware, but since Slackware's philosophy is "you configure it" rather than "we configure it for you", I can't hold that against Slackware. I mention it only to point out that it works on this laptop, for those who need suspend and hibernate to work.

Onboard Modem:
There is no linux distribution I've yet tried where my onboard 56k modem works. This is because it is a winmodem (i.e. software modem). I would recommend not to bother trying to install it. In fact, if you really care about the small amount of memory this PCI device uses, simply power off the laptop, flip it over, remove the cover, and remove the modem card. In this day and age, if you use only Linux, especially if you have wireless and ethernet available for use, you might as well remove it, just for the heck of it.

Mandriva Linux is a very sharp and well-put-together distribution this time around, and I'm pleasantly surprised. I have used Mandrake/Mandriva off and on since around the release of RH9 and Slackware 9. If you want a decent distribution that requires minimal work, and has lots of available software, this is what you want.

Installing Slackware 12.2 on Toshiba Satellite A55-S306

Last updated: 28 December 2008.

General Hardware Specifications of Toshiba Satellite A55-S306:
Hardware Components Status under Linux Notes
Pentium M processor, 1.5 GHz Works
15 inch XGA LCD screen Works
Intel 855GM video 32 MB (shared) Works See below.
256 MB DDR333 RAM Works, upgradable to 1GB. See below.
40 GB Hard Drive UATA133 Works
Intel 2200 series Ethernet Works
Toshiba Internal 56k Modem Does not work.
Did not attempt
Toshiba DVD/CD-RW drive Works See below.
Intel PRO/Wireless 802.11a/b/g Works See below.
Lithium Ion 4400mAh 6 cell battery Works See below.
Intel 82801DB sound (AC97) Works See below.
Intel 82801DB USB (four ports)
Works
Texas Instruments TSB43AB21 Firewire (iControl)
Works
Toshiba PCMCIA slot
Works

This laptop is operating under Kernel version 2.6.28 (Slackware 12.2).
Install Process:

You can get Slackware Linux here. In my case, I downloaded the install DVD and used this to install. I chose to install on three primary partitions (hda1 / hda2 swap hda3 /home). Slackware 12.2 supports LVM out of the box, and if you follow README_LVM.TXT, you can install Slackware this way. I have done this before, but this time, I opted not to use LVM. I won't go over the whole install process, but it's very easy. Just follow the directions.

After Installing But Before Rebooting:
I like to do some of my system configuration right before I reboot. It's optional, but I prefer to do it. The Slackware Linux installer does most of this, but I am a tweaker by nature. Before you reboot, your system is mounted to /mnt by the installer, therefore you can configure a lot of things before you reboot. Remember that you must either use /mnt in front of all the file locations, or chroot /mnt. Anyways, here's all the things I do before rebooting:

* Edit lilo.conf first. If I was using an LVM, this would become necessary, because you need an initrd. First, I delete the symlinks in /boot (config, vmlinuz, System.map) because I go edit lilo.conf and put an entry for both hugesmp.s ("Failsafe") and generic-smp ("Stock") and make an initrd for generic-smp so that my filesystem ("xfs") gets loaded at boot.
* Edit the /etc/logrotate.conf file, telling logrotate to compress the files. This saves disk space.
* Edit /etc/updatedb.conf, adding /mnt and /media to the list of directories it is not to catalog.
* Edit /etc/hosts.deny and /etc/hosts.allow so that I am protected.
* Add an /etc/rc.d/rc.local_shutdown script that basically tries to unload all loaded modules when you tell your computer to reboot or to poweroff.
* Move /etc/rc.d/rc.gpm_sample to rc.gpm but then disable it (chmod -x).
* Move /etc/rc.d/rc.font.new to rc.font so that it runs at boot.
* Disable /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless (I prefer manual mode).

After First Boot:
Now I have a chance to create my user account, so I do that. Once created, I copy my data from my backups over to /home. I had to do it this time because I went from using LVM to not using LVM, so I had to recreate the hard drive. LVM is nice, but I was only trying it out.
At this point I also start building a new Linux kernel. This is because now the kernel modules for my Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000 are included in the kernel. This camera works right out of the box, by the way, provided it's in the kernel; otherwise you'd simply have to compile the add-ons.
I then install all the software I have either built or downloaded, including OpenOffice, BibleTime, KMyMoney2, and FreeCiv. Right after installation, only 3.3 GB of space was used by Slackware, and now after software installation it's 4.2 GB.
Another important thing to do is have a backup for your information. This is critical no matter who you are. With Slackware, it's easy: just create a backup script like this one and place it in /etc/cron.daily/.
I also add a line to my /etc/profile to prevent fork bombs: by adding "ulimit -u 150" at the end of it, this prevents users from launching over 150 processes. Another edit I do to /etc/profile is to make VISUAL=nano, not vi or emacs, because I usually don't even install vi or emacs.
Wireless
Right out of the box, my wireless card (Intel 2200) works, because Slackware 12.2 comes with the firmware for this card. Just be sure that you install it during the install process. I usually blacklist this module only because I do not want it to be loaded at boot time. I usually set up /etc/modprobe.d/ipw2200 to "options ipw2200 associate=0 auto_create=0" so that it does not automatically latch on to an access point and does not automatically create an ad-hoc network.

My Video Card
I then copy over my xorg.conf. If you read this, you notice that I specify my screen size. From my old page:

* LCD contrast configuration for fonts in X.org: mainly I specify my laptop's LCD viewing area as "DisplaySize 304 228", which is the viewable size in millimeters. While you can find it by measuring, it's possible to use algebra to find it if you don't have a ruler. First, viewable size is measured diagonally by manufacturers. Second, the sides of the screen form 90 degree angles (a rectangle), so you can use Pythagorus's theorum: C² = A² + B², where C is the diagonal screen size of our virtual triangle, and A and B are two sides. Since you know the ratio of A to B (1024:768 is 4:3), you can substitute A=4X B=3X and then solve out, resulting in 12" by 9", then convert to millimeters.

With the Intel 855GM video card, you must recompile the Linux kernel provided or a new one. If you want good support, you should use the intelfb framebuffer module. However, with the stock Slackware Linux kernel, the vesafb module is built in, and this will "take over" the framebuffer device at boot. Your video will not be as fast as it could be, and you will also have difficulty switching to and from virtual terminals while using Xorg. Solution: compile in agpgart, intel-agp, and intelfb. Also, in the kernel build tree, see Documentation/fb/intelfb.txt for the append statement you need to include in LILO. Just be sure to use "nohwcursor" rather than "hwcursor" if you want to see where you are typing. By the way, this card uses the i915 DRM module in the kernel, but make DRM and i915 as modules (<M>).
And for an append statement in LILO, use vga=792 for 1024x768 framebuffer or vga=788 for 800x600 framebuffer.
As for the VGA output, I could never, with any distribution of Linux, get it to run two separate displays. What the VGA output does is display the same thing on the external monitor. You don't need to do anything to get this to work, too: just reboot with an external monitor connected and it works. Just be sure you are careful with Xorg options as to screen size and that you experiment a bit with the external monitor.
My Sound
My sound card "just worked" (tm). I did not need to run alsaconf, nor even add a user to the audio group.
Tweaking Xorg "For Greater Justice" (tm)
I read on either a Sun or other Xorg user group that one can make Xorg more efficient with fonts and memory use in general by using only a handfull of fonts. I tried setting all applications to use one of the Liberation family of fonts (Liberation Mono, Liberation Sans, Liberation Serif) and all themes to use these fonts as well. The difference in appearance in Xfce was not much, but the difference in response and memory consumption was noticeable. I include this as an idea to those who would like to tweak it.
Recompiling Linux Kernel
I needed to do this due to my video card, but in general, I used the opportunity to make the kernel specific to my computer, which reduces its size and memory consumption. My config is available for you to look at. I used the Slackware Linux 12.2 generic-smp kernel as a starting reference. Once I rebooted and it worked, I uninstalled the other two kernels (do not uninstall the kernel-firmware or kernel-headers packages).
CPUFREQ
My computer uses the ACPI P-States module, in the kernel. I compile it right in, with the conservative governor, and ACPI's processor module. This greatly improves battery life.
Sensors
This machine uses ACPI, and the BIOS may try to "hide" the sensors. If you read the I2C modules and such in the kernel and build in the right modules, however, these sensors should get detected and work.
Ethernet
My ethernet works perfectly with the e100 kernel module.
Firewire
The Linux kernel has the firewire modules for my machine. However, I can't say if it works because I do not own any firewire devices.
Modem
The internal modem on this machine never worked, and with phone internet becoming increasingly scarse, I removed it from my laptop.
LCD Backlight
Just a note for those who are used to other brands and makes of laptop. With this laptop, you will not need to tell the LCD to blank when the lid is closed, or set up a script: it already works properly.
Fans
Just a note for those whose laptops need something to tell the fans to turn on and off. This laptop does this automatically, so do not fear. The fans are controlled by the BIOS and by ACPI, and even if you don't have ACPI enabled in the kernel, they will continue to run. Have no fear :)
CD Burner
This laptop has a CD burner, and it works properly with Slackware Linux 12.2 using K3B.
Touchpad
This laptop has an ALPS touchpad device, not a Synaptics. I recommend using the following options to /etc/modprobe.d/psmouse: "options psmouse proto=exps resetafter=1".

Output Of /sbin/lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller (rev 02)
00:00.1 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller (rev 02)
00:00.3 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller (rev 02)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device (rev 02)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-M) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 83)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 03)
01:05.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2200BG [Calexico2] Network Connection (rev 05)
01:07.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB43AB21 IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link)
01:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB PRO/100 VE (MOB) Ethernet Controller (rev 83)
01:0b.0 CardBus bridge: Toshiba America Info Systems ToPIC100 PCI to Cardbus Bridge with ZV Support (rev 33)

Assorted Specifications
Yes, I read the Intel specifications sheet for the 82801DB chipset (i.e. this laptop). This is provided just in case you're like me and want to try and enable all of the features this laptop comes with. A couple of terms used to refer to this chipset is ICH4 or just "ICH". In general, the following are supported (this is a brief summary):

* APIC and I/O APIC for uniprocessors (i.e. not dual core).
* GPIO (although I don't know what hardware is used that is GPIO)
* I2C (i.e. sensors)
* 8254 Timers (i.e. do not enable HPET Timers)
* Watchdog Timer Support: Intel TCO Timer / Watchdog
* RTC (real time clock, but the chipset is by Motorola, so use the CMOS one)
* SMBus 2.0
* Intel EHCI 2.0 USB and UHCI USB controllers (and the spec sheet says that routing is automatic to the hubs).