After spending a good part of the last 2 days getting Slackware 13 x64 set up on my laptop, I thought I'd document my troubles (I mean adventure!) which I hope, may save time for others. The laptop is an HP Pavilion DV7-1130us -> AMD Turion x2 with an ATI Radeon HD3200 integrated, video chipset. I bought the laptop in January and its been a minor challenge getting it set up with any Linux distribution. Surprisingly, I had most of my better results with Slack 12.2 with the remaining problems centering around the video driver choice and suspend/resume to RAM. But, Slack 13 x64, with a little tweaking on the setup, yields the best results so far. To set up multilib, you'll need a Slackware 13.0 x86 (32 bit) Install DVD.
1. Install Slack 13 x64 as normal. Reboot
2. Run "xorgsetup". This will setup xorg to use the open source radeon driver. We'll do some additional configuration with xorg later.
3. Insert your Slack 13 x64 DVD. It'll likely show up under /media/SlackDVD. Install everything in the kde3-compat and wicd subfolders. The kde3-compat packages will allow you to build guarddog.
4. Download and setup multilib per Alien Bob's instructions here:
http://alien.slackbook.org/dokuwiki/...kware:multilib
A note: When it came time to run the massconvert32.sh script, I tried various ways of using a Slackware mirror via ftp similar to the example provided. I wasn't able to get it to work. I kept getting an error of it not being able find the files or something to that effect. So, I inserted the Slack 13.0 x86 (32 bit) DVD and used
Code:
massconvert32.sh -i /media/SlackDVD/slackware
out of the /usr/local/compat32 directory (I had created).
Note 2: I set up multilib in order to compile Grub. I did this in order to use kernel 2.6.30.5 (under /testing on the SlackDVD) to enable direct rendering with the radeon or radeonhd drivers (drm is supported by kernels 2.6.30 and above). I ran into an error with Lilo which I couldn't resolve (the 'can't sync VFS' error). I'm not sure if this is a Lilo bug or if its my lack of familiarity with it. I've used Grub for years and am familiar with configuring it. If you're a Lilo guru, you can probably skip this step.
4b. Copy or download, and install all the grub files in /extra/source/grub. There's a few patch files present and the SlackBuild script is setup to use them. Note that if you setup Slackware with an ext4 partition, there's another patch you'll have to download and install. Mine is formatted with the xfs filesystem, so, I didn't have to go find the patch (which isn't included in /extra/source/grub). Again, if you know all there is to know about Lilo, you can skip this.
5. Again, from the Slack 13.0 x64 dvd, bring up pkgtool and install all of the 2.6.30.5 kernel packages from /testing/packages/linux-2.6.30.5. Remember to make an initrd. I did mine as follows:
Code:
mkinitrd -c -k 2.6.30.5 -m xfs -o initrd-2.6.30.5.gz
from the /boot directory. Add it to your lilo.conf or (grub) menu.lst files as applicable.
5b. Add the following to your kernel boot lines:
i8042.reset
vga=0
- The above are carryovers from Zenwalk Gnome 6.01 to get suspend/resume to ram working semi-correctly with the open source radeon driver. The suspend-to-ram which comes with Slack 13 works almost perfectly out of the box and I don't know if those kernel parameters are still needed.
I also add init 4 and quiet to mine.
Code:
# Linux bootable partition config begins
title Slackware Linux 13 x64 kernel-2.6.30.5 on (/dev/sda3)
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-generic-2.6.30.5 root=/dev/sda3 ro vga=0 i8042.reset init 4 quiet
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.30.5.gz
# Linux bootable partition config ends
6. Sound doesn't work out of the box. Using aplay or speaker-test; it looks and acts if its playing, but, there's no sound. Open up /etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf and add the following line:
Code:
options snd-hda-intel model=dell-m4-2 enable_msi=1
Reboot, run alsamixer, turn up your "PCM" and "front" volumes, and you should have sound.
7. Edit /etc/rc.d/rc.modules-2.6.30.5. Many of the options for this laptop - powernow_k8, cpufreq_ondemand, are already uncommented. You'll need to uncomment the following for additional functionality:
ac
button
thermal
fan
processor
video
7b. Comment out the following line, so it looks like:
Code:
# /sbin/modprobe agpgart 2> /dev/null
You don't need it for this laptop. It didn't load automatically on mine, anyway.
Add the following lines:
Code:
/sbin/modprobe radeon
/sbin/modprobe drm
This will load the applicable kernel modules for direct rendering.
8. Final Video Config
- I've had mixed success with the ATI proprietary Catalyst drivers in the last two Slack distributions. The latest release, 9.8, didn't work. The fglrx modules build correctly, but, all I get is a blank, backlit screen in run level 4. The open source radeon and radeonhd drivers are very, very good with the 2.6.30.5 kernel's radeon and drm modules. There's no tearing and these are good, trouble-free choices.
Open up xorg.conf and add or change the "Driver" and "Option" lines in the "Device" section to look like this:
Code:
Identifier "Card0"
Driver "radeonhd"
VendorName "Unknown Vendor"
BoardName "Unknown Board"
BusID "PCI:1:5:0"
Option "AccelMethod" "exa" # <str>
Option "DRI" "True" # [<bool>]
EndSection
You can use the "radeon" (should already be specified if you used "xorgsetup", earlier) or "radeonhd" driver. The main difference is the ability to supposedly use HD audio with the "radeonhd" driver, but, I haven't been able to get this feature to work. So, for now, it doesn't make any difference.
At the bottom of the file, add the following section for DRI:
Code:
Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection
I think you have to leave a blank line between the "Screen" EndSection and the "DRI" section.
That's it, so far.
The machine suspends to ram and resumes 99% fine. The one, nagging issue I have is that WICD doesn't show any networks after resuming. I have to stop WICD, manually unload - then reload the ath9k and mac80211 modules, then restart WICD after resuming.
