Hi all, hopefully this will be of some use.

Below is a summary of the important technical bits I documented when installing Linux (Slack64) on the E4310. At the time of writing all the hardware should work fine though the most recent kernel and drivers are required - hence Slack is a bit behind wrt this machine. I suppose this is not for the faint hearted since I have a fair amount of experience and it has taken many tens of hours work. Compile time for brand new kernels and modules has been up to ~4 hours (why?). I may be compiling in a load of useless garbage but I cannot be bothered trying to identify in any more detail what is necessary. Hopefully this will save time for others.

I have attached a copy of my kernel config file (2.6.36.2). It is not exactly polished but has the necessary components. Feel free to improve!

Output from lspci:
-------------------------------------------------------
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor DRAM Controller (rev 02)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)
00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82577LM Gigabit Network Connection (rev 05)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset USB2 Enhanced Host Controller (rev 05)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Device 3b57 (rev 05)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev 05)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev 05)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 3 (rev 05)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev 05)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset USB2 Enhanced Host Controller (rev 05)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev a5)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset LPC Interface Controller (rev 05)
00:1f.2 RAID bus controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 82801 SATA RAID Controller (rev 05)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset SMBus Controller (rev 05)
00:1f.6 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset Thermal Subsystem (rev 05)
02:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation Device 4727 (rev 01)
03:00.0 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd Device e822 (rev 01)
3f:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QuickPath Architecture Generic Non-core Registers (rev 02)
3f:00.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QuickPath Architecture System Address Decoder (rev 02)
3f:02.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QPI Link 0 (rev 02)
3f:02.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QPI Physical 0 (rev 02)
3f:02.2 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor Reserved (rev 02)
3f:02.3 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor Reserved (rev 02)

Dell apparently ships the E4310 with Ubuntu but this is not for me.

Build steps
-----------------------------------------------------------
1. Basic setup.
A full install with get you running with an X desktop that works.
However, look forward to rebuilding the kernel because ALSA does not recognise the sound device (see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ux/+bug/538383). Also, Intel HD integrated graphics drivers for X, that is those above 2.11.0, cause the system to freeze without a kernel above 2.6.36.0.

2. When rebuilding the kernel you will most probably want to know that:
> The wireless chip is a Broadcom variety. Broadcom kindly provided a driver on their website that built straight off and WORKED! This generates a kernel module called wl.ko (See http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php)
> The ethernet is Intel. e1000e is located in the kernel tree and works fines.
> The Intel HD Graphics controller (built into the core i5) requires you choose the DRM and i915 drivers.
> The touchpad is not synaptics but the psmouse.ko module auto installed and worked. Unfortunately I was unable to find out how to improve functionality - like removing the infernal tap-click feature.
> USB did not require any special effort, as expected (though not extensively tested).
> Not sure exactly which bus options are required by ensure the AHCI SATA is installed. The DVD driver worked fine though I haven't burned anything yet.
> Integrated webcam/mic WILL work. Audio is the biggest headache as the internal MIC will not work unless you ensure that the Intel driver (from the source tree) is installed as follows: modprobe snd-hda-intel model=dell-s14
> USB video is required (somewhere under v4l) for the camera but you do not need specific knowledge of the device manufacturer or proprietary drivers.

3. Docking station.
> I use a docking station. It works fine and all external screens, including both DVI outs are detected automatically and easily configurable via xrandr. Maxscreen size is 8192x8192. Note however I have not yet succesfully had 3 displays running (laptop + 2 external) - apparently it can be done provided the pixels clocks for each display is the same..??

4. Other important issues. Note some of this is for those who have come from older Slackware distros like me.
> If using the webcam with Skype, you will need to install 32 bit libraries from the 32bit 13.1 distro. Follow the EXCELLENT instructions here (http://alien.slackbook.org/dokuwiki/...kware:multilib). Without this, prebuilt 32bit (static or dynamic) binaries will not run on a 64bit platform. Note also the right kernel options will be required to support 32bit binaries.
> /etc/X11/xorg.conf has generally disappeared (arrggh!). This gave me plenty of headaches though actually there is only one main issue - change the default US keyboard map in X by copying from /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/10-keymap.fdi to /etc/hal/fdi/policy and edit the file accordingly (this took me about 30 minutes to find!).
> Note I did get an xorg.conf file working if needed (but it wasn't needed).
> XFCE 4.6 is nice but totally different to 4.4 (much to my irritation). Do not waste time trying to congifure the shutdown buttons with sudo - it has changed!! (Sorry can't remember exactly which files to modify)
> I initially experienced severe lag when running multiple apps, particularly when Opera's plugin wrapper was active and viewing PDFs. I put this down to buggy Intel graphics drivers so I upgraded to the latest, 2.13.0 at the time of writing. (http://intellinuxgraphics.org/2010Q3.html) This required the latest kernel (2.6.36.2) and I also installed the required packages as specified on the Intel web page. I did not however install a newer X server. The updated packages need to be built from source - this is tedious but can be achieved without resolving too many dependencies, though expect to spend a fair amount of time on this. (Note: uninstall the slack packages first, then build with prefix=/usr and libdir=/use/lib64).
> With this being my first 64bit build I had problems installing newly built packages. After much messing about I found that changing the above prefix and lib location generally ensured ldconfig did not get confused between different libraries and locations.

Hardware not yet tested or working.
------------------------------------------------------------
1. Not much testing of the power options, though they mostly seem to work. Suspend from XFCE hangs the machine.
2. Bluetooth untested.
3. Firewire untested.
4. eSATA port untested.
5. Thermal sensors recognised but not investigated.
6. Infrared (if it exists!).

Software I successfully installed.
----------------------------------------------------------
1. Openoffice from slackbuilds.org
2. Skype from Skype (also on slackbuilds I believe - 32 bit libs required).
3. Opera from slackbuilds.
4. R (from source).
5. 2.13.0 xf86 intel drivers.
6. Acrobat reader (32 bit libs required).
Didn't find any major problems with anything...

General stuff.
----------------------------------------------------------
1. Dell Latitude E4310
> Overheated during installation and shutdown mid install twice costing me ~2 hours.
> The screen viewing angle is narrow (you will notice this just by looking straight at it).
> Generally a nice light and robust machine. Other than initial overheating which I have not seen again or understood it has been stable, though I haven't thrashed it

2. Slackware 13
> Is sufficiently different to 12 to have caused me many a headache and much swearing.
> If I had gone ahead and installed the latest kernel immediately (like I always used to do :P) it probably would have saved me a lot of time in the long run. I guess I got lazy and just assumed that the shipped kernel would be adequate - I generally underestimated the 'newness' of the hardware vs. a 6 month old kernel.

Attached Files

config.txt (82.3 KB, 21 views)

Quick update. I've spent a lot of time messing about with the CPU scaling and thermal management.

I cannot find any way of accessing thermal information from the OS. Sensors documentation suggests the Intel hardware is not yet supported by lm-sensors and I don't know how the ACPI thermal info is accessed. I'm pretty sure I have every driver loaded.

However, frequency scaling and turbo boost do work. The down side is that the machine simply overheats in a matter of minutes and down clocks the CPU to 1.2GHz. I really do not know what the point of putting a 3GHz capable (Core i5 M540) chip in a machine that does not have sufficient cooling to run at half the speed. The fan does not seem to spin very fast and I've also found no way of controlling it. One way of ensuring consistent high clock speed is to place a bag of frozen vegetables underneath the machine, but this is not too convenient when on the move.

Additionally, I am almost certain that the Intel sound driver is causing problems resulting in severe system lag. When I remove the snd-hda-intel module the machine usually returns to its original (speedy) state. I have found several references to others who are continuing to experience sound problems.

I may be forced to use Windoze for a bit to see how the clock speed and temperature are managed... note I've not yet tried a different live boot Linux distro.

Quick update.

Frequency scaling works fine but appears to be dictated by the bios rather than any software (this is perhaps just as well because if one were to override the bios with higher clock speeds the machine would overheat very quickly. All diagnostics (lm_sensors) are unsupported at this time. I have been able to sustain full speed (~3GHz) for a single threaded application by sticking a cooling fan onto the exhaust port and another under the machine. Under a stress test running 4 threads it can achieve ~2.2GHz with additional cooling as above.

Without additional cooling the machine scales to ~1.2GHz in a matter of minutes.

Additionally, I ran some tests under Windows. Performance was, unsurprisingly, identical with the CPU reduced to a pathetic clock speed within minutes. (CPU temperature was restricted to below 100C).

IMHO there is little point in buying one of these machines with anything other than the slowest vailable CPU since under any sustained usage it will not achieve anything like its potential.

Final update (possibly?!)

Well, it turned out that the machine was defective (a Dell, what do you expect) and the speed and overheating problems I've had were entirely down to a knackered cooling fan or controller. The machine was thus down scaling clock speed to compensate, resulting in an incredibly slow clock speed. (Hence kernel builds taking over 4 hours!).

This has now, eventually, been fixed by Dell and the machine appears to be behaving itself.

I am running dual headed dvi config with the docking station, plenty of apps for scientific work and I have to say with Slackware on board it is a pleasure to use. The ease of use of xrandr for reconfiguring the display, particularly when on the move and plugging in the vga is excellent.

Over and out (hopefully)