Installing Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex (8.10) on an X301
Please improve on this preliminary effort.
Contents
- 1 Overview
- 2 Keyboard
- 3 Ethernet
- 4 Wireless
- 5 Fan
- 6 Power Mgmt
- 7 Display
- 8 Suspend and Hibernate
- 9 Sound
- 10 Camera
- 11 Graphics Chipset and Driver Information
- 12 External Displays
- 13 Compiz / 3D Acceleration
- 14 Boot time
- 15 Fingerprint Reader
- 16 Minimalistic installation instructions
- 17 Compiling custom fast-boot-patched kernel
- 18 Compiling intel xorg drivers
- 19 Install Intel xorg drivers from the Driver Testing Archive
- 20 Other tweaks
- 21 Credits
Overview
Now that Intrepid is out the door, get it while it's fresh!
Keyboard
pretty much all of the fn+... keys work (not all tested yet) tested: lock screen, brightness, sleep, hibernation, battery status, thinklight
Ethernet
Works OOB
Wireless
Works OOB: The Ubuntu 8.10 Kernel (2.6.27) ships with support for the IWL5100 (iwlagn driver)
Fan
Works fine. It is spinning lightly almost all the time, but acceptable (like in windows)
Power Mgmt
Seems to work fine. The gnome power manager reports ~3h30 which sounds about right. The [Fn] + [F3] combination even causes the applet to pop up info :)
Display
Works fine OOB
Suspend and Hibernate
Closing the lid puts the machine to sleep, i often managed to resume from ram but i also got frozen (mouse moveable but switching to console doesn't work, screen remains black except for the pointer (i have a black screensaver)) - caution here (solution below) - The Installing_Debian_(stable)_on_an_X300#Suspend_.26_Hibernate article suggests removing the e1000e module which i haven't tried but may help. The 2.6.28-rc3-git1 kernel features a suspend fix for the iwl-agn (wireless) driver, so if that was an issue, it might be gone with the next kernel (not shipped with ubuntu 8.10)
This script offers a solution to the black-freeze-on-resume problem. my suspend now works flawlessly
Sound
Works out of the box on the generic kernel, i've run into some trouble with my custom kernel - feel free to report on what i'm missing. alsamixer reports the Conexant chip being used so i've selected that one in the snd-hda-intel driver (selecting them all didn't help either)
i haven't extensively tested this feature untested remain:
- usage with a sound server (esd)
- microphone
- headphone
-works correct so far with pulseaudio
-headphone port works
If no sound in applications such as Firefox, check the following: User name may be missing from audio group. Add it with:
sudo vi /etc/group
and add your user name to the audio group:
audio:x:29:[USERNAME]
In addition the PCM channel may be on zero. Slide it to maximum. Do this by double clicking the speaker icon and then clicking "mixer". Push the slider to max. Alternatively in a terminal session run:
alsamixer
Select PCM and set to maximum output.
Camera
works fine in ekiga (green LED lights up as well) if it doesn't work you might want to try
sudo adduser youruser video
Graphics Chipset and Driver Information
GM45
The chipset is called: Mobile Intel® GM45 Express Chipset
It was initially referred to as IGD_GM "Intel Integrated Graphics Device" in the Intel driver
Next, support for G4X "Intel 4 series chipsets" was added
IGD_GM was then renamed to it's official name GM45
Finally, the defines IS_GM45 were merged into IS_G4X because they are identical as at 2008-11-06.
Direct Rendering Infrastructure
DRI is supported with the package libgl1-mesa-dri
The DRI driver is i965 http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/Intel
$ grep AIGLX:\ Loaded /var/log/Xorg.0.log (II) AIGLX: Loaded and initialized /usr/lib/dri/i965_dri.so
The DRM driver is i915
$ lsmod | grep drm drm 110304 3 i915
External Displays
vga port works as expected. you can activate it through xrandr or the screen resolution preferences.
with xrandr HDMI-1 shows up as well, but i couldn't test it yet (no adaptor/displayport device)
untested:
- displayport
Display port may not yet be supported by the intel driver: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg/2008-July/037375.html. There have however been commits since then mentioning displayport.
The follow xorg.conf works with an external 24" dell display connected via VGA:
Section "Device"
Identifier "Intel GM45 Express"
Driver "intel"
Option "monitor-VGA" "DELL2407WFPHC"
Option "monitor-LVDS" "Laptop"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "DELL2407WFPHC"
Option "PreferredMode" "1920x1200"
# Option "Left Of" "Laptop" # causes crash on intel 2.5
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Laptop"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "HDMI-1"
Option "Ignore" "true"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "Intel GM45 Express"
Monitor "Laptop"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Virtual 3360 2100
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Default Screen"
EndSection
Compiz / 3D Acceleration
Works OOB, requires p
The Intel i965 driver supports 8192x8192 resolution in the Intrepid packages, however the mesa dri driver libgl1-mesa-dri currently only supports 2048x2048. This means is your combined resolution is greater than that (i.e you have an external display attached), mesa eyecandy will be disabled.
Bug link: https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/146298
$ glxinfo -l | grep 2048 GL_MAX_TEXTURE_SIZE = 2048
There is crude patch which has had mostly positive feedback, but no-one seems to be sure: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg/2008-April/034707.html. I've not tested it yet. It's also not clear when it will be fixed upstream.
Boot time
- 12sec from power to GRUB
- 22sec to GDM, 18sec with tweaked readahead
- 29sec from GDM into fully loaded session, 28sec with readahead (seems awfully slow to me.. fluxbox takes like 2sec..)
Improvements
Native Upstart boot
Since i'm using this one i even ditched boot-readahead (still using desktop-readahead though) Described here
Concurent loading
edit /etc/init.d/rc set CONCURRENCY from none to shell
CONCURRENCY=shell
note that after some testing i've switched back to the none value, as some startups weren't clean
Readahead
install readahead
sudo apt-get install readahead
profile your GNOME login (instructions: [1], then filter out all files under 100kb (guessed number, feel free to experiment). i filtered out small files since access times on SSD is very good, throughput not. The linked page states about loading in Xsession.d, forget about that and put your profiled files in /etc/readahead/boot and /etc/readahead/desktop. This will cause the boot process to profit and the desktop-files to load earlier (before X starts) to create a boot file, append "profile" to the GRUB prompt
filter out the small files boot file:
cat boot | xargs -i ls -lk {} | sort -rn -k +5 | awk "{print(\$8)}" > boot.sorted
now delete any line below the wanted threshold from the sorted file (i took "dash" as masker with 104kb) since the boot file is ordered, we want to keep that order
cat boot | while read line; do grep "$line" boot.sorted >> boot.new; done;
same for the desktop file:
cat desktop | xargs -i ls -lk {} | sort -rn -k +5 | awk "{print(\$8)}" > desktop.sorted
remove lines from sorted file...
cat desktop | while read line; do grep "$line" desktop.sorted >> desktop.new; done;
Fingerprint Reader
Doesn't currently work as it's an AthenTec and not a Thompson chip.
Minimalistic installation instructions
The system you are installing when following these instructions will be a good starting point if you want a clean ubuntu system without all the bloat (which you may of course add yourself). For a simple installation just download and install the desktop version of ubuntu 8.10 (beta)
Boot from the Ubuntu Server AMD64 Disc (32bit also works, but what a waste) select Install Ubuntu Server
Choose language and country Select Keyboard layout
Don't worry about network interface right now.. (only ubuntu 8.10 Beta) choose your hostname then username and password change your proxy settings
At the software selection select:
- OpenSSH server
you might want the Samba Server if you're sharing files on a mixed network
wait for the install to complete (5 min)
Reboot without the CD
login to you new system and switch to root
sudo -s
if you're using the beta and your network, download a newer kernel (amd64) from (this will require a second machine or other OS if you have)
http://packages.ubuntu.com/intrepid/linux-image-2.6.27-7-generic
copy it to usb stick
on the X301 mount usb stick with
mkdir /mnt/usb && mount /dev/sdb /mnt/usb
install kernel with
dpkg -i /mnt/usb/linux-image-2.6.27-7-generic_2.6.27-7.12_amd64.deb umount /mnt/usb reboot
if networking still doesn't work (try with ping google.com) edit the interfaces
nano /etc/network/interfaces
and add the line
iface eth0 inet dhcp
use [CTRL]+[X], [Y] to save and quite and start the interface
ifup eth0
it should now be ok...
now let's loose some fat:
apt-get remove --purge linux-image-server linux-image-2.6.27-4-server
apt-get remove --purge apparmor update-motd landscape-common installation-report \ libapparmor* libgpm2 memtest86+ ppp pppconfig pppoeconf reiserfsprogs \ strace tasksel tasksel-data ubuntu-minimal ubuntu-serverguide rm -rf /var/log/landscape
and update the system with the newest upstream package catalog:
apt-get update
install sound:
apt-get install alsa
..and X
apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-input-mouse xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-synaptics
gdm:
apt-get install gnome-session gdm
and the network manager:
apt-get install network-manager-gnome
now upgrade the base system with:
apt-get dist-upgrade
if you added the line to fix networking, it is now time to remove it again from /etc/network/interfaces as NetworkManager will do that for us
reboot the machine
reboot
gdm should now appear and you may log in to X/Gnome
start synaptic from the gnome menu, you might want to add additional filters like
- Installed: check only "Installed"
- Upgradable: check only "Upgradable" (shows also upgradable packages which aren't upgraded to a new upstream version (i.e. only featuring ubuntu-specific patches)
- Residual Config: "Residual config"
- Orphaned: check only "Orphaned" (install deborphan package to use this)
- Autoremove: check only "Automatic removable"
if you know you'll need one of the following packages, don't delete it or just reinstall it later on.. they should all be safe to delete (at least my system still works)
select the "Installed" filter and remove (right click, then mark for complete removal):
- alacarte
- app-install-data
- aptitude
- apt-xapian-index
- cupsys
- ed
- esound-clients
- gnome-user-guide
- gnome-utils
- libbeagle1
- libmbca0
- ltrace
- mobile-broadband-provider-info
- mtr-tiny
- netcat netcat-traditional
- oss-compat
- parted popularity-contest
- python-beagle python-debian
- python-gnupginterface
- python-openssl
- python-pyopenssl
- python-software-properties
- python-twisted-bin
- python-twisted-core
- python-xapian
- python-zopeinterface
- radeontool
- rsync
- tcpd
- tcpdump
- ufw
- unattended-upgrades
- update-manager-core
- vim-tiny
- xdg-user-dirs
- xserver-xorg-input-all
- xserver-xorg-input-vmmouse
- xserver-xorg-input-wacom
right now the system is pretty much stripped down and we can build up from here :)
some things i got from the missing-recommands tabs:
- acpid
- deborphan
- evince
- gnome-screensaver
- gnome-system-tools
- vim
once deborphan is installed: delete anything from the custom filter orphaned
what i also installed:
- evolution
- firefox
- mesa-utils (for glxgears)
- seahorse
- totem-gstreamer
- mozilla-plugin-gnash
what i still removed:
- gnome-pilot
- gnome-pilot-conduits
You may now want to install following packages:
- gnome-terminal
- gedit
- gcalctool
- cpufrequtils
- powertop
- system-config-printer-gnome (+ your printer driver)
- linux-firmware (or download the firmware yourself from linuxintelwireless.com, or extract iwlan-5000-1.ucode from that package and put it into /lib/firmware)
- libdvdcss from videolan.org/libdvdcss (read legal advices)
And remove those:
- libv4l-0
- libgtksourceview-common
- libgtksourceview1.0-0
- python-gnome2-desktop
- gnome-app-install
Compiling custom fast-boot-patched kernel
install these packages:
- libncurses5-dev
- make
Get most recent 2.6.29 kernel from [[2]] untar it..
sudo -s cd /usr/src tar xjf /home/foo/downloads/linux-2.6.29.tar.bz2 ln -s linux-2.6.29 linux cd linux
The Fastboot patch is already included in 2.6.29. It just requires the boot parameter fastboot (described below)
Get the kernel .config file and put it inside the root of your kernel source. This will make a good start. Not that i did not include support for IPv6, firewall and PCMCIA so you'll need to add those if wanted.
if you want to change the configuration:
make menuconfig
build the kernel:
make -j3
install kernel and modules:
make install make modules_install
..adapt your /etc/grub/menu.lst file to boot the new kernel make sure to switch the root=UUID=.. for root=/dev/sda1 or you'll get a kernel panic when booting (can someone explain this to me why UUID won't work (because of not using an initrd?)) also remove the initrd line.
mine looks like this:
title Ubuntu (development branch), kernel 2.6.29 root (hd0,0) kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.29 root=/dev/sda1 usbcore.autosuspend=1 fastboot ro quiet quiet
Compiling intel xorg drivers
Works OOB on ubuntu kernel - THIS IS NOT NEEDED UNLESS YOU'RE COMPILING YOUR OWN 2.4.27+ KERNEL -
With my shiny new kernel i wasn't able to start X as exa was failing.. so after some googling i recompiled the driver. - this will hopefully be fixed before the final release - (it is fixed in the 2.5.0 driver, ubuntu currently has 2.4.1)
While this will work perfectly fine with the light new kernel, the generic ubuntu kernel displays ugly artifacts in firefox and gnome-terminal. So i'd rather wait if you're considering using the generic kernel.
You revert these changes by reinstalling xserver-xorg-video-intel and libdrm2 with
apt-get install --reinstall xserver-xorg-video-intel libdrm2 libdrm-dev
Install these packages from apt
- automake
- xutils-dev
- libtool
- xserver-xorg-dev
- xorg-dev
- pkg-config
- mesa-common-dev
- (libdrm-dev) - currently also has to be compiled from source because of incompatibilities with intel's 2.5.0 driver
libdrm
Get the source from git:
git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/git/mesa/drm drm cd drm ./autogen ./configure --prefix=/usr
now edit the "libtool" file and comment out the line with "directory not ending" aswell as the line before it. (won't install to /usr otherwise, only /usr/local)
make -j3 sudo make install
xf86-video-intel
git clone git://git.freedesktop.org/git/xorg/driver/xf86-video-intel/ xf86-video-intel cd xf86-video-intel ./autogen ./configure --prefix=/usr make -j3 sudo make install
Install Intel xorg drivers from the Driver Testing Archive
xserver-xorg-video-intel version 2.5.1 is available from the following archive:
http://ppa.launchpad.net/intel-gfx-testing/ubuntu
Other tweaks
Don't start the rsync daemon at boot-time:
sudo update-rc.d -f rsync remove
Power-saving settings: insert these lines into /etc/sysctl.conf
vm.dirty_writeback_centisecs=1500
If you have lots of RAM (4Gb):
vm.swappiness=0
with 2Gb i recommand a value of 40 instead of 0
Switch getty for mingetty
Install mingetty
apt-get install mingetty
edit /etc/event.d/tty1 through 6 and change the last line to
exec /sbin/mingetty tty1
(you could add the --noclear switch on tty1 to leave the boot-messages) also comment out the lines starting with
start on ...
if you do not wish to span ttyX (in my case 4..6)
edit /etc/default/console-setup and change
ACTIVE_CONSOLES="/dev/tty[1-3]"
in my case 3, since i never need more than 3 TTYs
Credits
Article skeleton from the Ubuntu 8.10 on X200 article
Article --Blk 20:09, 21 October 2008 (CEST)
