Linux on Compaq v2000z

I just got my new laptop 2days ago. The v2000z features an AMD Turion 64 ML-37 processor, and ATI Xpress 200M video card. I heard about the difficulties to install Linux on R4000. I tried to install Linux X86_64 on it, here is what I did:

1. CentOs 4.1, no problem to install, everything seemed ok. After installation, I found hard drive had a very slow response to any applications, mouse moved very slow whenever I started an application. Video card couldn't be recognized and installation of ATI driver didn't work.

2. Fedora Core 4, no luck here, kernel panic-no syncing rigth after I gave the ftp address of fedora core 4 ( I used FTP installation, not sure if this caused problem)

3. Ubuntu 5.04, installed smoothly, video card is recognized properly as Xpress 200M (very impressive). However, it told me AMD Turion 64 ML-37 processor is known not to be supported, PowerNowd is also not supported, has some problem to control the clockspeed. Besides these, the most serious problem is system freezed when I tried login GNOME. It freezes when I use mouse to select the seesion to be started. Even I don't touch mouse, it will freeze right after I input the username and password and hit enter button.

4. Mandriva 10.2, I am testing this right now and I have seen a problem with installation yet.

I really want to make Ubuntu 5.04 to work on my laptop, I think I am very close to success, what I am wondering is what causes the freezing of GDM (maybe sound card? how to disable sound during login? I don't really need the music when GDM starts). Does anyone have the same experience? I know the laptop is a bit new and Linux won't support all the hardwares at mean time.

CentOs is not a bad choice, but I couldn't figure out what causes the slow response of system to applications.

I have been using Linux for many years and this is the first time it frustrates me.

Try disabling _ALL_ powersaving features in BIOS. I've had some instability problems with them on my own laptop. Also remove all other features you don't need: you can switch them on later.

Also, if the laptop uses shared graphics memory (not likely) enter the amount of Videoram into the xorg.conf or XF86Config-4 manually. I had X instability if Videoram was not specified explicitly.

Originally posted by basileus Try disabling _ALL_ powersaving features in BIOS. I've had some instability problems with them on my own laptop. Also remove all other features you don't need: you can switch them on later. Also, if the laptop uses shared graphics memory (not likely) enter the amount of Videoram into the xorg.conf or XF86Config-4 manually. I had X instability if Videoram was not specified explicitly.

I finally get everything working except Video card (ATI Xpress 200M) which is a know issue to linux distros (Ubuntu works without 3D acceleration but kernel doesn't support IDE DMA mode). I recmpiled kernel on CentOS with kernel-2.6.12.3, looks like everything is fine, I used 1024x768 resolution for VESA driver and 1280x768 is not supported by VESA). I will wait till the new ATI driver is released.

The BIOS on my laptop is barely adjustable, but thanks for your suggestion anyway.

I am actually looking into this PC. Sadly, I will have to keep this one running microsoft (for school) and as it would seem, Linux isnt up to date with some parts of this wardware yet.

hopefully the new release of Ubuntu (breezy) will solve all these problems.

Now I made fglrx driver working, not fully functional (2D accel only). Also fglrxinfo gives:
display: :0.0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: Mesa project: www.mesa3d.org
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa GLX Indirect
OpenGL version string: 1.2 (1.5 Mesa 6.2.1)
direct rendering thus was disabled.
However, at least the driver gives a 1280x768 resolution which looks much better than vesa driver. fglrx driver detects other info correctly, here is the part of the information I got:



ATI Radeon/FireGL: The following chipsets are supported:
RADEON XPRESS 200 (RS400 5A41), RADEON XPRESS 200M (RS400 5A42),
RADEON XPRESS 200 (RC410 5A61), RADEON XPRESS 200M (RC410 5A62),
RADEON XPRESS 200 (RS480 5954), RADEON XPRESS 200M (RS480 5955),
RADEON XPRESS 200 (RS482 5974), RADEON XPRESS 200M (RS482M 5975)
*********************************************************
(II) fglrx(0): initializing int10
(II) fglrx(0): Primary V_BIOS segment is: 0xc000
(**) fglrx(0): Option "mtrr" "off"
(--) fglrx(0): Chipset: "RADEON XPRESS 200M (RS480 5955)" (Chipset = 0x5955)
(--) fglrx(0): (PciSubVendor = 0x103c, PciSubDevice = 0x3091)
(--) fglrx(0): board vendor info: third party grafics adapter - NOT original ATI
(--) fglrx(0): Linear framebuffer (phys) at 0xd4000000
(--) fglrx(0): MMIO registers at 0xd0100000
(--) fglrx(0): ChipExtRevID = 0x00
(--) fglrx(0): ChipIntRevID = 0x02
(--) fglrx(0): VideoRAM: 65536 kByte (64-bit DDR SDRAM)
(WW) fglrx(0): board is an unknown third party board, chipset is supported
**********************************************************

drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card0
drmOpenDevice: open result is -1, (No such device)
drmOpenDevice: open result is -1, (No such device)
drmOpenDevice: Open failed
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card0
drmOpenDevice: open result is -1, (No such device)
drmOpenDevice: open result is -1, (No such device)
drmOpenDevice: Open failed
[drm] failed to load kernel module "fglrx"
(II) fglrx(0): [drm] drmOpen failed
(EE) fglrx(0): DRIScreenInit failed!
(WW) fglrx(0): ***********************************************
(WW) fglrx(0): * DRI initialization failed! *
(WW) fglrx(0): * (maybe driver kernel module missing or bad) *
(WW) fglrx(0): * 2D acceleraton available (MMIO) *
(WW) fglrx(0): * no 3D acceleration available *
(WW) fglrx(0): ********************************************* *
(II) fglrx(0): FBADPhys: 0x1c000000 FBMappedSize: 0x04000000
(II) fglrx(0): FBMM initialized for area (0,0)-(1280,8191)
(II) fglrx(0): FBMM auto alloc for area (0,0)-(1280,768) (front color buffer - assumption)
(==) fglrx(0): Backing store disabled
(==) fglrx(0): Silken mouse enabled
(II) fglrx(0): Using hardware cursor (scanline 768)
(II) fglrx(0): Largest offscreen area available: 1280 x 7419
(**) Option "dpms"
(**) fglrx(0): DPMS enabled
(II) fglrx(0): Using XFree86 Acceleration Architecture (XAA)
Screen to screen bit blits
Solid filled rectangles
Solid Horizontal and Vertical Lines
Offscreen Pixmaps
Setting up tile and stipple cache:
32 128x128 slots
32 256x256 slots
16 512x512 slots
(II) fglrx(0): Acceleration enabled
(II) fglrx(0): Direct rendering disabled
(II) Loading extension FGLRXEXTENSION
(II) Loading extension ATITVOUT
******************************************************************
The screen now looks way better than 1024x768.

Hi Gaspra,

I did the fglrx driver download via rpm.livna.org (using yum). I followed all the instructions and my drivers are all in the right place. But the fglrx driver cannot seem to find my card. I do a pci scan I find the ATI device (chip set number 5955 - just like one of the supported versions in your output). AND I have the same hardware you have - Compaq v2000z

But when I edit my xorg.conf file and restart X, it can't find the hardware, so I am stuck with vesa.

Request: Since you made this work - and got 1280x768 mode - I would appreciate it if you gave a couple of hints regarding where you found instructions that worked. The info on rpm.livna.org -looks- correct, but the results cannot find my video card.

Also, would you be so kind as to post your xorg.conf file so I can see if the problem is there. I can't figure out why this is so hard. The livna.org instructions seem to indicate this is a solved problem - and they are all about supporting FC4 (which is my distro), but it still doesn't work.

Thanks for your help.

Originally posted by bluto29 Hi Gaspra, Also, would you be so kind as to post your xorg.conf file so I can see if the problem is there. I can't figure out why this is so hard. The livna.org instructions seem to indicate this is a solved problem - and they are all about supporting FC4 (which is my distro), but it still doesn't work. Thanks for your help.

Hi, bluto29,

I used the driver from ATI site: ATI Proprietary Linux x86_64 Driver 8.13.6 for Radeon Xpress 200 Series. When I installed the driver, xorg.conf set vesa driver as default, just simply comment the lines using vesa driver and that will force xorg.conf to use fglrx driver (scroll down you will see the fglrx driver section), restart X and screen will show a nice 1280x768 resolution.

You may check the xorg.conf on your 2000z and see if it is using vesa driver as default.
BTW, my laptop is in office and I will post my xorg.conf file tomorrow, if you can wait for 12 hours

Thanks - I can wait 12 hours. The 1024x768 mode works, but you sure hate to create any graphics in GIMP in that mode - or debug any HTML tables.

Please post the xorg.conf file when you can and I will make my system work. I appreciate your response very much.

- Bluto

Here is my xorg.conf:

# **********************************************************************
# DRI Section
# **********************************************************************
Section "dri"
# Access to OpenGL ICD is allowed for all users:
Mode 0666
# Access to OpenGL ICD is restricted to a specific user group:
# Group 100 # users
# Mode 0660
EndSection

# **********************************************************************
# Module section -- this section is used to specify
# which dynamically loadable modules to load.
# **********************************************************************
#
Section "Module"

# This loads the DBE extension module.

Load "dbe" # Double buffer extension

# This loads the miscellaneous extensions module, and disables
# initialisation of the XFree86-DGA extension within that module.
SubSection "extmod"
Option "omit xfree86-dga" # don't initialise the DGA extension
EndSubSection

# This loads the Type1 and FreeType font modules
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"

# This loads the GLX module
Load "glx" # libglx.a
Load "dri" # libdri.a

EndSection

# **********************************************************************
# Files section. This allows default font and rgb paths to be set
# **********************************************************************

Section "Files"

RgbPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"

FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/local/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/"

# The module search path. The default path is shown here.

# ModulePath "/usr/X11R6/lib/modules"

EndSection

# **********************************************************************
# Server flags section.
# **********************************************************************

Section "ServerFlags"

EndSection

# **********************************************************************
# Input devices
# **********************************************************************

# **********************************************************************
# Core keyboard's InputDevice section
# **********************************************************************

Section "InputDevice"

Identifier "Keyboard1"
Driver "kbd"
# Option "Protocol" "Xqueue"

Option "AutoRepeat" "500 30" Option "XkbRules" "xfree86"
Option "XkbModel" "pc101"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"

EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

# Identifier and driver

Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
HorizSync 31.5 - 50
VertRefresh 50 - 70
# ModeLine "1280x768@60" 79.8 1280 1312 1608 1640 768 783 791 807
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

# === ATI device section ===

Section "Device"
Identifier "ATI Graphics Adapter"
Driver "fglrx"
# ### generic DRI settings ###
# === disable PnP Monitor ===
#Option "NoDDC"
# === disable/enable XAA/DRI ===
Option "no_accel" "no"
Option "no_dri" "no"
# === misc DRI settings ===
Option "mtrr" "off" # disable DRI mtrr mapper, driver has its own code for mtrr
# ### FireGL DDX driver module specific settings ###
# === Screen Management ===
Option "DesktopSetup" "0x00000000"
Option "MonitorLayout" "AUTO, AUTO"
Option "IgnoreEDID" "off"
Option "HSync2" "unspecified"
Option "VRefresh2" "unspecified"
Option "ScreenOverlap" "0"
# === TV-out Management ===
Option "NoTV" "yes"
Option "TVStandard" "NTSC-M"
Option "TVHSizeAdj" "0"
Option "TVVSizeAdj" "0"
Option "TVHPosAdj" "0"
Option "TVVPosAdj" "0"
Option "TVHStartAdj" "0"
Option "TVColorAdj" "0"
Option "GammaCorrectionI" "0x00000000"
Option "GammaCorrectionII" "0x00000000"
# === OpenGL specific profiles/settings ===
Option "Capabilities" "0x00000000"
# === Video Overlay for the Xv extension ===
Option "VideoOverlay" "on"
# === OpenGL Overlay ===
# Note: When OpenGL Overlay is enabled, Video Overlay
# will be disabled automatically
Option "OpenGLOverlay" "off"
# === Center Mode (Laptops only) ===
Option "CenterMode" "off"
# === Pseudo Color Visuals (8-bit visuals) ===
Option "PseudoColorVisuals" "off"
# === QBS Management ===
Option "Stereo" "off"
Option "StereoSyncEnable" "1"
# === FSAA Management ===
Option "FSAAEnable" "no"
Option "FSAAScale" "1"
Option "FSAADisableGamma" "no"
Option "FSAACustomizeMSPos" "no"
Option "FSAAMSPosX0" "0.000000"
Option "FSAAMSPosY0" "0.000000"
Option "FSAAMSPosX1" "0.000000"
Option "FSAAMSPosY1" "0.000000"
Option "FSAAMSPosX2" "0.000000"
Option "FSAAMSPosY2" "0.000000"
Option "FSAAMSPosX3" "0.000000"
Option "FSAAMSPosY3" "0.000000"
Option "FSAAMSPosX4" "0.000000"
Option "FSAAMSPosY4" "0.000000"
Option "FSAAMSPosX5" "0.000000"
Option "FSAAMSPosY5" "0.000000"
# === Misc Options ===
Option "UseFastTLS" "0"
Option "BlockSignalsOnLock" "on"
Option "UseInternalAGPGART" "yes"
Option "ForceGenericCPU" "no"
# BusID "PCI:1:0:0" # no device found at config time
Screen 0
EndSection
# **********************************************************************
# Screen sections
# **********************************************************************

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "ATI Graphics Adapter"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
#Option "backingstore"

Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1280x768"
ViewPort 0 0 # initial origin if mode is smaller than desktop
EndSubsection
EndSection

# **********************************************************************
# ServerLayout sections.
# **********************************************************************
Section "ServerLayout"

# The Identifier line must be present
Identifier "Server Layout"
Screen "Screen0"
InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"

EndSection

### EOF ###

Originally posted by bluto29 Thanks - I can wait 12 hours. The 1024x768 mode works, but you sure hate to create any graphics in GIMP in that mode - or debug any HTML tables. Please post the xorg.conf file when you can and I will make my system work. I appreciate your response very much. - Bluto

I know 1024x768 works, I mean you should make sure the xorg.conf you generated after installation of fglrx driver is not using vesa driver as default. I installed the ATI driver but I had to force the xorg.conf to use flgrx driver since vesa driver is default for above xorg.conf.

Thanks Gaspra!

It works now.

There is a large rat hole determining to ignore the ATI web site trying to get you to go down the 'notebook' driver route.

1280x800 is working now. And just in time.

Thank you.

- Bluto

gaspra, bluto29,
terrific ! I've been looking for some information on gettng linux to work on a v2000z. I haven't begun yet, but intend to (near future) put some flavor on linux onto the laptop. What current version are you using...centos or the ubunto?

Either of you happen to try one of the BSDs?

Thanks for the posts.
bootjack

I installed FreeBSD 4.11 on the laptop and it worked OK. Everything was generic. X11 worked, but I could only get 800x600 working. The generic SVGA driver in FreeBSD could not seem to get 1024x768 working (my guess is because that is not native on the Presation v2000z. But it certainly had no idea of the 1280x768 screen resolution.

I really like FreeBSD, but here is the caveat - when I was using FreeBSD 4.9, all of the /usr/ports/* makefiles worked 100% without any extra steps. On FreeBSD 4.11 almost everything I tried to make was broken, including Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, etc. And I mean really broken. I would get an error message about a mismatched lib file and go find out the makefile was looking for the wrong version. I would find the right version, cross check for issues with other libs and hack the makefile. Then the make would get past that issue and go onto the next one. In all, I had to do 5 or 6 makefile hacks to get Firefox to compile, and then it wouldn't run. Of course, there is a working version of Firefox for FreeBSD 4.11, but it is several revs old. The most current version just will not compile. If I had lots of spare time, this would be a fun project, but I am really busy and all that messing with the /usr/ports collection pushed me to using Fedora Core 4.

As for Fedora Core 4, I have been able to now make the video work fine. I am still not working with the sound card or the 802.11G card. I have found some info on using the Broadcom NDIS driver, but (1) I dislike the NDISwrapper solution and (2) it broke my kernel - I had to roll back the ndiswrapper install. My current solution for wifi is to slap my Lucent card into the slot - which is a little dumb, but works 100%.

As for sound, I am still on the task with no solution yet. And sound is not an option for me. If my Linux install cannot run Skype I have to reboot Windows and -that- is not a good solution for me.

This is what I get for buying cool new hardware - and it -is- cool hardware. I love the machine.

- Bluto

Originally posted by bluto29 I installed FreeBSD 4.11 on the laptop and it worked OK. Everything was generic. X11 worked, but I could only get 800x600 working. The generic SVGA driver in FreeBSD could not seem to get 1024x768 working (my guess is because that is not native on the Presation v2000z. But it certainly had no idea of the 1280x768 screen resolution. I really like FreeBSD, but here is the caveat - when I was using FreeBSD 4.9, all of the /usr/ports/* makefiles worked 100% without any extra steps. On FreeBSD 4.11 almost everything I tried to make was broken ..... - Bluto

I'm not very familiar on FreeBSD, but I do know that the 4.x series is considered Legacy. Since laptops require the latest and greatest driver support and such, wouldn't it make sense to install 5.4? It just seems silly to complain about ancient software not working on new hardware when all of the development is going toward newer versions. The same goes for people that complain that there aren't Windows 98 drivers for the v2000z. It comes with XP Home. Why downgrade to something significantly worse?