Good day all,

I have been using Fedora Core 2 on a Toshiba laptop for about a year now and all has been well. This past weekend I purchased a brand spanking new Toshiba A70-TS1 (3.06GHz, 512DDR, 60GB, ATI RADEON 9000...). I want to do a dual boot and I have Windows XP installed and working fine.

When it come to the Fedora install i had problems. After I inserted the CD and booted from it the install stopped at the media check screen. I did some research and ran the install with the 'pci=off' option. This allowed the install to happen without mouse but the keyboard worked. But for some reason the keyboard is dead on boot, along with the mouse (everything else seems to be ok).

When I boot the system it detects new hardware and gives me 30 seconds to press any key to install it. That becomes difficult with a dead keyboard. My USB mouse and touchpad are also not working.

Any suggestions?? If i have to reinstall I am prepared to do that.

Thanks for your help.

Mike

[QUOTE]Originally posted by miskopisko
[B]Good day all,

....

My USB mouse and touchpad are also not working.

Any suggestions?? If i have to reinstall I am prepared to do that.

...

I have an A70 RT-1 - the slower CPU/smaller HD version, but I believe the rest is the same.

I had this same problem. I found an option in the BIOS settings. It's called "Legacy USB support" or something like that. If you disable it then this problem goes away.

I have the same Model Toshiba A70-TS1. I'm thinking of installing Fedora Core 2 on it. Besides the Legacy USB support issue, does Fedora run well on this Toshiba model?

Short answer: Yeah, I've had no major problems running FC2, and I'm really enjoying this laptop.

Longer answer: I haven't gotten the following things to work yet, but I haven't really tried either:
* SVideo out
* 5-in-1 card reader
* IR port
(again I haven't put any effort into these. I have read articles that indicate getting the SVideo out is easy with the atitvout package, for example)

Longest answer: I had to do a few things to get FC2 running nicely on my A70. First of all, I installed the 2.6.8.1 kernel. I haven't tried 2.6.9 yet, but I imagine it will be better. There's a kernel patch to get the sound working, as well as to get the Alps Glidepoint working (might be working in 2.6.9). ACPI support isn't great, but I can adjust the CPU speed, and although I cannot suspend to memory yet (might be working in 2.6.9) I can suspend to disk, which is my personal preference. Wireless is fine using the MadWifi package.

If you want further details, send me a message and I can send you the patches I've found and some notes. In the meantime, I'm slowly working on a document that I'll post to the linuxlaptop.net collection of useful info on laptops.

I also bought an A70 recently and I am just starting the FC2 install battle. Strangely I have only had the not-recognizing keyboard problem once and it went away on reboot.

I have tried to recompile the 2.6.8-1.521 kernel with the alps patch but actually get a compilation error. Clearly I am doing something wrong. I would very much appreciate any thing you have written up already on your FC2 install. Once I get it going I will post some notes as well.

Note that even without alps patch, I seem to have lost my sound card when I went to the 2.6.8 kernel. Any ideas ?

Cheers

I noticed that the clean 2.6.8.1 kernel from kernel.org had pcspeaker not compiled into the kernel (or as a module either) by default. I thought there was a problem with my sound, too, until I found I was able to play a WAV file after loading the atiixp driver.

Also note that the Alps patch is for the Alps GlidePoint touchpad device and doesn't have anything to do with sound. You need to apply the AC97 patch for sound.

--- sound/pci/atiixp.c.old 2004-08-22 23:22:57.608564184 -0400
+++ sound/pci/atiixp.c 2004-08-22 23:23:00.324151352 -0400
@@ -1387,12 +1387,13 @@ static int __devinit snd_atiixp_mixer_ne
ac97.num = i;
ac97.scaps = AC97_SCAP_SKIP_MODEM;
if ((err = snd_ac97_mixer(pbus, &ac97, &chip->ac97[i])) < 0) {
- if (chip->codec_not_ready_bits)
+ if (chip->codec_not_ready_bits) {
/* codec(s) was detected but not available.
* return the error
*/
- return err;
- else {
+ chip->ac97[i] = NULL; /* to be sure */
+ continue;
+ } else {
/* codec(s) was NOT detected, so just ignore here */
chip->ac97[i] = NULL; /* to be sure */
snd_printd("atiixp: codec %d not found\n", i);


That's the patch that I have for sound. Also put 'alias snd-card-0 snd-atiixp' in your /etc/modprobe.conf if it isn't there already.

Thanks for the comments. I didn't mean to imply that the alps patch had interferred with the sound card, but it was still frustrating that the new kernel stopped something working. Meanwhile...2.6.9 came out which promised to fix a few things. Sound is back up. The synaptics driver doesnt work for me but in the process of debugging noticed that switching SUPPORT FOR LEGACY USB DEVICES off in the BIOS made the touchpad work with the standard psmouse driver. In fact, I now think the synaptics doesnt work because the psmouse driver is in the kernel (according the synaptics trouble shooting guide). Havent played with it again.

Installing RH6.2 on my laptop in 1998 was easier than FC2 in 2004. Kind of sad.

Problems high on my list:
- how do I configure touchpad parameters like sensitivity/accelerationg ? It's pretty hard to use at the moment.
- CD player can't play audio CD's (plays, but no sound). Is this really a problem of there being no direct connection from the player to snd card (windoze plays them fine).

Cheers

Gertjan

RE: Sound and CD: When you say "Sound is back up" what makes you say that? What test did you run that led you to this conclusion? With regards to your CD player, did you check the volume of the CD channel in your mixer?

RE: Touchpad: Without the ALPS kernel patch for the synaptics driver, your touchpad will be recognized as a regular mouse. However, the ALPS device is somewhat different from a regular mouse, especially with sensitivity. This is why it's hard to use. There are notes about this specifically in the synaptics tarball. There is a Gnome tool which allows you to adjust speed/sensitivity (gnome-mouse-properties) but I don't know if you'll be able to get the performance you want.
On the other hand, if you apply the ALPS patch, not only will you be able to adjust the sensitivity of mouse movement, touching, etc. to your heart's delight but you will also be able to use the right side of the touchpad as a scrollwheel, the bottom edge as a horizontal scrollwheel, and even use circular scrolling (useful for very long documents). Also you get the upper left corner is mousebutton 1, the lower right corner is button 2, and the upper right corner is button 3 (I find this one very useful as Toshiba didn't see fit to give us a 3rd button. 2-button emulation is OK, but I like the corners).

Re Sound - I think in both cases KDE told me on logging in sound wasnt available (when moving to 2.6.8) and was available when booting with 2.6.9. This problem is also discussed in Jeff McCoy's write up on installing Mandrake on Toshiba A75 on the linux laptop site, so it didnt come as a surprise.
I tried every thing in aumix and all KDE panel things I could find and possibly set. No deal.
I also found one web info exchange on this subject, although when I wrote one of the authors, he wasnt aware that the person describing a problem had a laptop. I still think it's bizarre, and I havent given up on fixing it. No such (audio playing) problem is described on the A75's for example.

Re Mousepad - thanks for both the tip on the gnome util and synaptic. I think my strategy is to start again with FC3 - i dont have too much set up yet - a clean slate, with 2.6.9 kernel. Then to follow synaptics instructions on loading psmouse as a module. Then to try understand the many parameters that come with that driver. Presumably, these all have to be set in the x-config file ?

And then...there is ACPI. Doesnt work with standard FC2 kernels but I gather this is not a surprise. Even this guy Jeff McCoy, who has tried about 4 distros on his toshiba hasnt seen it work on any. Suspent to RAM worked like a charm with RH6.2 on my Gateway Solo in 1998...(win98 never managed it).

So far, my experience with this Toshiba hasnt been great. Perhaps I should have spent the extra couple of hundred and gone with an IBM or Dell D800. The Toshiba screen is fabulous though and for a lot less money. I am also encouraged by the amount of help I have found in the Linux community (I have paid my dues, so this is welcome return).

Cheers

Gertjan

any feedback on how well FC3 runs on the A70?

Well, I don't know about the A70 in particular but I just installed FC3 on my new Compaq (which also has an ALPS touchpad) and I am having the same mouse trouble that these Toshiba owners were having with FC2. I'm thinking about installing Mandrake 10.1 now. It is supposed to be excellent with laptops and 10.0 seemed to be more complete "out of the box."

I was away for two weeks but last night I finally got an hour to start again with FC3 on my toshiba A70. I keep posting some updates if there is interest.

This time (my 3rd install) I didnt have the patience to select packages (i always miss stuff I need anyway) so I installed everything. Didn't bother parition my drive either, except for a / and swap (plus the existing NTFS of course). The system takes up 6.8 GB (!). Ouch. Good news is, I didnt have install problems, which have been reported with FC3.

I have only briefly booted it once but the good news is, the mousepad and external USB are both working out of the box (presumably the pad as PS/2 mouse, not the much better synaptics driver, but I havent even checked that yet). Sound is working, the display is of course not running at the right resolution (1400x800 for me). Also the mouse pad seems to be working better than I had it with FC2/6.9 kernel in the sense that the acceleration and responsive are more sensible.

Certainly I would recommend skipping FC2 and the 6.8 kernel. Also, I looked at Mandrake 10.1 but after talking to some who tried Mandrake and had problems with the wireless, I decided to stick to FC3. I am certainly interested in hearing whether it works better.
Also check out:
http://jmccoy.sdf-us.org/computer/to...comparison.php

More explorations tonight.

Cheers

G