Hi everyone;

I was wondering if anybody installed any linux distro on Toshiba Satellite P30 (17" one) yet ? Mine is a 2.8 Celeron.

However here are my problems with some of them;

There is a recovery CD of Toshiba, so hopefully I can't f.ck things up. Before my debian & gentoo & slackware voyage I just wanted to be sure anyone had done it already?

However here it is; its performance results on Live-CDs;

1 - Slax doesn't recognize the wireless ethernet, (at least I wasn't able to) , it recognized video card but if I change the screen's resolution ; it somehow doesn't work. (It becomes double sided screen; it was unique and fun to watch but impossible to use the computer properly)
2 - Knoppix doesn't recognize the wireless ethernet , (ALIWAT) video card worked quite right; but somehow everything else worked very smoothly and fast.
3 - Mepis didn't recognize the mouse and the keyboard ; so I wasn't able to login and check what is wrong or right.
4 - Suse didn't recognize the video card, the wireless ethernet, and doesn't work properly at all.
5 - FreeBSD Live ; didn't recognize the video card, wireless ethernet.

I know, I'll make shitloads of mistakes and won't be able to install properly with Gentoo, Source Mage, or Linux from Scratch ; Slackware's last updates aren't good in half ; Debian might be a nice choice but probably I'll try it with Ubuntu first ; if works right I'll spend some more time on installing.

Anybody worked on it yet ? Help please ?

I successfully installed Debian Sarge on my Satellite P30 - 118. In my model there is a Pentium 4 hyperthreading processor.

Working things:
- hyperthreading
- xwindow
- sound
- ethernet card
- integrated wireless card integrated (needs madwifi driver, that is not integrated in the official kernel)
- usb
- firewire
- dvd writer
- special toshiba keys (for LCD brightness, ...)
- ...

Problematic things:
- mousepad doesn't work with official kernel. Needs external driver that must be self compiled (and maybe also patched)
- modem (nice useless winmodem)
- special toshiba keys (for cd playing)
- SD card read

I installed mandrake 10.1...

all except multi card reader and wifi worked... some Function keys didn't work

I also am installing slackware 10.1 ... with a lot of difficulty...

I recompiled the kernel twice, first time enable Hyperthreading, second ACPI (mistake, it doesn't power off automatically as hoped and I need to hold the power button 5 seconds instead of just pressing it to close the laptop)

I installed Suse 9.2 on toshiba p30-116 but I still can't get wireless card to work. Any suggestions?

When I type iwconfig:

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

sit0 no wireless extensions.

ath0 IEEE 802.11b ESSID:"home" Nickname:"p30"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.457 GHz Access Point: XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
Bit Rate:1 Mb/s Tx-Power:50 dBm Sensitivity=0/3
Retryff RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption key:"xxxx" Security mode:restricted
Power Managementff
Link Quality=55/94 Signal level=-40 dBm Noise level=-95 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0


When I type dhcpcd ath0 it just hangs and does nothing. I do not know how to install madwifi, it seems to complicated.

What driver are you currently using for your wifi card?

I have written an howto about how to install madwifi for Debian:

http://www.planamente.ch/emidio/page...%20Wifi%20card

The same process for SuSE is a little bit more complicated and I don't know it exactly.

In two words, here what do you have to do:[list=1][*]get madwifi tools and source (you will probably need rpm packages) and install them[*]extract source (for building modules) in /usr/src/[*]compile modules[*]install modules[*]reboot[/list=1]
Before trying dhcpcd ath0 I would try configuring manually your card:

Replace ip and netmask according your lan.

Furthermore, I would try without encryption. Once it works, I would enable it.

Thank you very much for your reply but I got it to work now, finally!

I tried YAST to get several drivers like km_lan. Also tried madwifi but it was too complicated and made me download all the kernel sources for nothing. The only thing that worked was ndiswrapper:

http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/m...ofessional_9.2

with windows driver: net5211.sys


The only thing that does not work now is graphical 3D accelaration. I installed ati linux drivers but there is no ATI Radeon Mobility 9700 in the list of drivers shown by YAST/sax2. Has anybody successfully installed 3D accelaration with ATI Radeon Mobility 9700 on linux?? Please share your experiences.

System:

Toshiba Satellite P30-116
1 Gb RAM
Wireless: Atheros chip (windows shows it as AR5004G, Suse showed it as Atheros 5212 )

I could finally bring to work the alps touchpad on Debian Sarge.

It really seems to require the ALPS driver that has recently been added in the psmouse module in kernel 2.6.11.
I have enhanced my howto with the description about how to bring it to work:
http://www.planamente.ch/emidio/page...p.php#Touchpad

It seems there is a bug using the psmouse module. Take a look at my howto about how to solve it.

Ciao
Emidio

Has anyone found how to use the internal SD card reader?

I have already asked Toshiba it self, but the answer has been: "We support only Micro$oft Windows"!
I will remember it the next time I will buy a laptop!!!

Ciao
Emidio

Anyone knows on how to make the keyboard work of the P30 in gentoo?

This is my first time in gentoo (I'm distro hopping), I just recompilled the kernel, yet again, to include ReiserFS buitin support (I just learnt that you must do that when you have no initrd)

I think I'll try recompilling when I have time and check the core input or input devices in the menuconfig, and add any driver that's missing.

The keyboard is a usb one. This means, in order to bring it to work, you need USB support, USB drivers and input drivers.

The following modules have to be built in or loaded as module:

• CONFIG_INPUT
• CONFIG_INPUT_KEYBOARD
• CONFIG_USB
• CONFIG_USB_EHCI_HCD
• CONFIG_USB_OHCI_HCD
• CONFIG_USB_UHCI_HCD
• CONFIG_USB_HID
• CONFIG_USB_HIDINPUT
• CONFIG_USB_HIDDEV

Actually, I don't rember if the P30 needs OHCI or UHCI, but you will see it trying to load them: only one will have success.

Don't forget to install hotplug. It will automatically load most of them.

Ciao
Emidio

yeah, I got that
now it works

now, for sound. I got a linux friend who's going to walk me through that...
I know that much: it need to use atiixp or something...

Anyone got ACPI working on any distro?

For sound look at http://emidio.planamente.ch/pages/li...ptop.php#Audio

For ACPI look at http://emidio.planamente.ch/pages/li...aptop.php#ACPI

NICE

I got sound by doing emerge hotplug and emerge coldplug, and compilling the sound drivers... can't remember, but I think I compilled them as modules. then I did emerge rexima, to control the volume.

I wish I had a sound file to test it now :P

Anyone knows what are the hsync and vertical sync range?

I'm stuck strying to install the ati-drivers in gentoo...