SL400 running Ubuntu / Linux

[Sxooter]

For anyone else running ubuntu on the SLseries, especially the SL400 which I have, here's your thread.

I rather foolishly ordered a new design hoping everything would work.  Well, close, but there were a few issues getting things to work.

Here's what I've done:

Booted live Ubuntu 8.10 CD.  Used the gparted program to resize the windows main partition down to 20G or so, just big enough to hold windows for now.  I'll probably delete some of the crapware later, and resize again, as I only need windows for support and games.  Created two new ext3 partitions, so I could install both 8.04 ubuntu and 8.10 for testing.  Installation of the two ubuntu distros went without a hitch as well.

Things that work:  Built in nic, video display, SD card slot, USB, CD/DVD burner.  Track pad, Track pointer, mouse buttons.

Things I haven't had a chance to test: HDMI, Firewire port, Express Card slot (or whatever it's called).

Things that didn't work: Volume buttons, wireless network, video playback, suspend.

Things that didn't work but now do (after a bit of research and work): video playback, wireless nic.

The video drivers that ship with 8.04 (version 2.2.0 or so) and 8.10 (version 2.4.1) crash and burn when you try to play back video, like with mplayer.  I found the melchiorre patched 2.4.0 driver which does NOT crash when you play video.  

 http://melchiorre.wordpress.com/2008/07/31/driver-intel-240-deb-package/

However, there is no xv support in them, so with mplayer you can choose either -vo sdl or -vo x11.  Sdl will allow you to scale the picture by resizing the video window, but the scaling looks pretty bad.  X11 requires you to use -vf scale=1280:720 (for 16/9 full screen) since it won't software scale, at least I haven't figured out how to have it scale in real time while up and running.  I wrote myself a couple aliases that allow you to simply play videos without having to type a big string of numbers each time.

Playback speed is pretty good with X11, but I can tell it's taxing my CPU way more than xv would.  I'm sure the xv enabled intel drivers will show up soon and this will seem like a distant memory.

For the network card, you need to madwifi drivers, for either 8.04 or 8.10.  I used this posting for making it work on my 64 bit ubuntu install:

 http://ubuntu-ky.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=816780&highlight=ar242x

Now I have wifi and (mostly) working video, I'm pretty happy.  This machine is quite fast, and I'm sure that once updated drivers come out that just work, it will be even nicer.

[Sxooter]

The machine does suspend and come back now.  But there's a trick.  When it comes back up it's in a console of some kind.  Pressing ALT-CTL-F7 brings back up X windows.  woohoo!  Now to figure out what to do to fix the volume keys...

[KaOS-bEat]

I have the SL400 but with the nVidia GFX. after installing the stock linux nVidia driver in the restricted drivers options in ubuntu everything works. For the WiFi I did a similar thing like sxooter did. If you get the volume keys working, please PM me.

Occasionally Wifi stops working after suspend/resume, but I guess the madwifi drivers will keep getting better.

other hardware that seems unsupported is the  Hard Disk shock prtection and the Ricoh memory stick reader. I heard reports that it works with SD-cards, but not with Memory sticks. There is a driver effort going on here, but the project seems quiet...

[Sxooter]

I've had my wifi card just stop working a couple times, and couldn't get it working again (/etc/init.d/network restart didn't fix it).  I'm guessing the card firmware is crashing.  Note that I run a lot of torrents all the time, so it's quite possible other folks with a lower network utilization will not have as much of a problem as I do.

There are some drivers for detecting the shock inputs, I've seen a demo on youtube for it, but I don't think any distro supports them right outta the box or with packages.

The SD slot definitely works for plain old SD cards. Don't have any memory sticks, SDHD or SD micro cards to test with.

My boss has a wide screen tv with HDMI input I'm gonna try the HDMI connector on later and I'll report back on that when I try it.

[garytr23]

the madwifi drivers for the atheros cards are some of the best out there in linux support.  Can you run lspci and paste the output b/c I'm curious about this, I'll run into the same problem probably.

also, take a look at this:

http://madwifi.org/wiki/About/ath5k

it's their new development branch for everything that isn't 802.11n.

Message Edited by garytr23 on 10-09-2008 10:08 PM

[Wangberg]

can you please list your actual system specs, such as network adapter, nic chipset, sound card, etc etc, as your post is helpless for others interested in konwing what hardware you've gotten working in ubuntu. 

[Sxooter]

Here's all the specs for my system, from the lshw command in ubuntu.  Some bits have been removed for being redundant (the other 7 USB controllers, unused pci slot, volume info etc...)

 

    product: 2743CTO
    vendor: LENOVO.
    version: ThinkPad SL400
    serial: L3HXXXX

    width: 32 bits
    capabilities: smbios-2.5 dmi-2.5 smp-1.4 smp

  *-core
       description: Motherboard
       product: 2743CTO
       vendor: LENOVO
       physical id: 0
       version: LENOVO 6AET46WW
       serial: 11S42W7892Z1ZF0C899LD0
       slot: MIDDLE
     *-firmware
          description: BIOS
          vendor: LENOVO
          physical id: 0
          version: 6AET46WW (09/05/2008)
          size: 64KiB
          capacity: 960KiB
          capabilities: isa pci pnp upgrade shadowing escd cdboot bootselect edd int13floppy1200 int13floppy720 int13floppy2880 int5printscreen int9keyboard int17printer int10video acpi usb smartbattery biosbootspecification netboot
     *-cpu
          description: CPU
          product: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     T5670  @ 1.80GHz
        *-cache:0
             description: L1 cache
             size: 64KiB
             capabilities: internal write-back data
        *-cache:1
             description: L2 cache
             slot: L2-Cache
             size: 2MiB
             capabilities: internal write-back unified
     *-memory
          description: System Memory
          physical id: 19
          slot: System board or motherboard
          size: 2GiB
        *-bank:0
             description: SODIMM Synchronous 667 MHz (1.5 ns)
             product: N/A
             vendor: N/A
             physical id: 0
             serial: N/A
             slot: SODIMM0
             size: 1GiB
             width: 64 bits
             clock: 667MHz (1.5ns)
        *-bank:1
             description: SODIMM Synchronous 667 MHz (1.5 ns)
             product: N/A
             vendor: N/A
             physical id: 1
             serial: N/A
             slot: SODIMM1
             size: 1GiB
             width: 64 bits
             clock: 667MHz (1.5ns)
     *-pci
          description: Host bridge
          product: Cantiga Memory Controller Hub
          vendor: Intel Corporation
          physical id: 100
          bus info: pci@0000:00:00.0
          version: 07
          width: 32 bits
          clock: 33MHz
          configuration: driver=agpgart-intel-ich9m module=intel_agp_ich9m
        *-display:0 UNCLAIMED
             description: VGA compatible controller
             product: Cantiga Integrated Graphics Controller
             vendor: Intel Corporation
             physical id: 2
             bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
             version: 07
             width: 64 bits
             clock: 33MHz
             capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list
             configuration: latency=0
        *-display:1 UNCLAIMED
             description: Display controller
             product: Cantiga Integrated Graphics Controller
             vendor: Intel Corporation
             physical id: 2.1
             bus info: pci@0000:00:02.1
             version: 07
             width: 64 bits
             clock: 33MHz
             capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list
             configuration: latency=0
        *-usb:0
             description: USB Controller
             product: 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4
             vendor: Intel Corporation
             physical id: 1a
             bus info: pci@0000:00:1a.0
             version: 03
             width: 32 bits
             clock: 33MHz
             capabilities: uhci bus_master cap_list
             configuration: driver=uhci_hcd latency=0 module=uhci_hcd

Second half in next post.

Message Edited by Sxooter on 10-11-2008 09:15 PM

[Sxooter]

Here's the second half.

        *-multimedia
             description: Audio device
             product: 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller
             vendor: Intel Corporation
             physical id: 1b
             bus info: pci@0000:00:1b.0
             version: 03
             width: 64 bits
             clock: 33MHz
             capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
             configuration: driver=HDA Intel latency=0 module=snd_hda_intel
        *-pci:1
             description: PCI bridge
             product: 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 2
             vendor: Intel Corporation
             physical id: 1c.1
             bus info: pci@0000:00:1c.1
             version: 03
             width: 32 bits
             clock: 33MHz
             capabilities: pci pciexpress msi pm normal_decode bus_master cap_list
             configuration: driver=pcieport-driver
           *-network
                description: Wireless interface
                product: AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter
                vendor: Atheros Communications Inc.
                physical id: 0
                bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
                logical name: wifi0
                version: 01
                serial: 00:23:4d:3e:cf:ae
                width: 64 bits
                clock: 33MHz
                capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix bus_master cap_list logical ethernet physical wireless
                configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath_pci ip=192.168.1.115 latency=0 module=ath_pci multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11g
        *-pci:3
 

[mgribov]

The only way I got my wireless (intel hardware) on sl400 to work is compile my own kernel.

I followed instructions at http://www.howtoforge.com/kernel_compilation_ubuntu

Here is the relevant part of my .config:
CONFIG_IWLWIFI=m
CONFIG_IWLWIFI_LEDS=y
CONFIG_IWLWIFI_RFKILL=y

For some reason, I also had to manually enable Intel HD sound:
CONFIG_SND_HDA_INTEL=m
# CONFIG_SND_HDA_HWDEP is not set
CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_REALTEK=y
CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_ANALOG=y
CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_SIGMATEL=y
CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_VIA=y
CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_ATIHDMI=y
CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_CONEXANT=y
CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_CMEDIA=y
CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_SI3054=y
CONFIG_SND_HDA_GENERIC=y

I made kernel .deb packages and posted them at
http://www.neuropunks.org/ubuntu-lenovo-sl400-wifi
if you want to skip compiling yourself - just make sure you have SL400 with Intel - not Atheros wifi. I also posted my .config file there if you want to use it as source for the compile.
Obviously, now you are running not supported kernel, so keep that in mind with updates, etc.

My relevant hardware below:

max@nomad:~$ lshw -C Network
WARNING: you should run this program as super-user.
  *-network              
       description: Wireless interface
       product: Intel Corporation
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
       logical name: wmaster0
       version: 00
       serial: 00:16:ea:c5:ce:3e
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: bus_master cap_list logical ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlagn ip=192.168.10.64 latency=0 module=iwlagn multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11abgn

root@nomad:/usr/src/linux# lshw -C Sound
  *-multimedia           
       description: Audio device
       product: 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 1b
       bus info: pci@0000:00:1b.0
       version: 03
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
       configuration: driver=HDA Intel latency=0 module=snd_hda_intel

[garytr23]

Got my SL300! and yup atheros 242x which doesn't work in ubuntu 8.10 64 or 32 with the same error in dmesg.  Next I'll try the instructions sxooter linked to.

Anyone looked into what it would take to use DKMS to manage the module?  I want something more automated than recompiling manually.