FC3 and Dell Latitude C600

[eBast]

I would like to Install FC3 on my Dell Latitude C600, but my search has revealed no previous instance of FC3 on this particular machine. Configuration is

Intel PIII Mobile with speed step @700 Mhz
256 MB memory
20 gb Hitachi HDD 4200, UDMA 66
ATI Rage 128 Mobility M3 8Mb memory AGP 2x
ESS Maestro 3 PCI Audio (WDM)
BIOS Version A21
BIOS Date 04-12-01
3COM mini pci ethernet card and 3com mini pci 56 kbs modem
802.11b wireless PCMCIA card with AMD 1772 Chipset.

PLease go through the hardware and inform me of the problems that may araise, particularly the wireless card.

Any advice welcome.

[Omer22]

By looking at your specs, the only thing I would be overly concerned about is your sound and wifi. I'm not sure, but I believe I spotted a slew of ESS drivers in ALSA, so I would imagine it would work, if not out of the box, it could be configured with a little tlc. The wifi is another story, I've had alot of sucess with ndiswrapper. it uses your windows driver and takes the configuration from that and sort of translates it into a generic format that linux can handle. before you install I would reccomend downloading and burning ndiswrapper and your windows wireless driver.

[eBast]

I was browsing through the installation CD that came with the wireless card, and guess what it had a folder named 'linux' in it with the following contents ....

binaries_linux_ST6.0.tgz
documentation_external_ST6.0.tgz
source_doc_linux_ST6.0.tgz
source_linux_ST6.0.tgz

I think these include the drivers for my pcmcia wireless card. How do I go about installing them? Please advice...

[Omer22]

i would imagine that there is complete documentation inside the zip files
just expand them and there will likley be a README or somthing of the like. if you would like you can email me the binaries and documentation files and I'll take a look at them.

[eBast]

Yes detailed documentation is there in the zipped file, but me not being an expert in linux cant make head or tails from it I think it has to do with some nautilus project and that it was for the kernel 2.4

[Omer22]

alright, you could use NDISwrapper, its not hard at all to set up, and floating around the forum here.

http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/arc...p/t-29659.html

I've used this on 6 machines now, all different nic's and its worked perfectly every time.

[knite75]

Your spec. is similar to my Dell's Inspiron.

I installed FC3 w/o any major problem. There were a few minor ones though.

(1) The screen might not be in it's correct resolution causing the boot process to freeze. You can rectify the problem by pressing FN + F7 at the boot process.

(2) I had a hard time getting Netgear MA521 wireless card up and running. But, after discovering NDISWRAPPER and half a day of fiddling around, I got it up and running.

Good luck!

Oh, you might want to update to the latest kernel, otherwise you might experience problem with shutting down with the default version. It would shut down half way and hangs.

[Adm.Wiggin]

I'm currently on a Dell Latitude C600 laptop computer, in RedHat Fedora Core 3. Most of the setup worked out-of-the-box. A few things (one) I've added myself:
linux-ntfs kernel driver (for communication with Windows 2000 Pro Dual-Boot)
been looking for a way to run UT2004, lately. It craps it's pants about the graphics driver, etc. The actual display works fine, and Fedora did have a driver for it

WARNING: ALC_EXT_capture is subject to change!
Couldn't set video mode: Couldn't find matching GLX visual


History:

Exiting due to error

That's the output from ut2004 in the console. If anyone has any ideas, they are definately welcome.

[eBast]

Originally Posted by Adm.Wiggin

I'm currently on a Dell Latitude C600 laptop computer, in RedHat Fedora Core 3. Most of the setup worked out-of-the-box.

Glad to find some body with the same machine
How about the IR ? Is it working ?
Is standby working ? can you shut the lid and get the machine to sleep ?
How about the modem part of the mini PCI ? Is it working ?
Do you have 3D acceleration on ? What is your glxgears score ?

I know that is a lot of questions to answer... but please bear with me.

[Adm.Wiggin]

1) I don't use IR... I could test with my dad's work laptop (maybe), but I don't think he'd let me "play". I know, bummer, but I have to live with it.
2) No, it will not standby in linux. In Windows 2000 Pro, it will, but not in Linux. When I try to do it from the "Battery Meter Panel Menu" (in GNOME), it says it can't find apm, or whatever the program is that does it.
3) I don't know about the modem. I can connect to other computers and the internet through my family router, I know that much. I've never tried much else (no need to, really).
4) Don't know how to check for 3D Acceleration.
5) Don't have any idea what glxgears IS, let alone my score.

Sorry, I'm still learning Linux. I'm better than I was on my last try, but still not as good as I'd like. I know a lot of the basics, like the terminal, some bash commands, etc. I wouldn't say I'm a total newbie, but still do feel lost sometimes.

[Adm.Wiggin]

ok, got off and realized what glxgears was.

I was getting about 600 frames in 5 seconds OR 480 frames in 5 seconds. and sometimes it would take 6 seconds to get up to those.

Is this good, or bad?

[Adm.Wiggin]

Ok, ran 'apm -s' in terminal, and it complained about the kernel not having APM compiled in, or something like that. I wish it would work, though.

[ginotech]

add
acpi=off apm=on
to your kernel's boot arguments in grub.conf. kinda buggy, but now my c600 actually shuts off the screen when i close it. after you add those arguments, check out the APM configuration in the BIOS as well.

[Adm.Wiggin]

Originally Posted by ginotech

add
acpi=off apm=on
to your kernel's boot arguments in grub.conf. kinda buggy, but now my c600 actually shuts off the screen when i close it. after you add those arguments, check out the APM configuration in the BIOS as well.

I'll be sure to try this as soon as I re-login in linux.

are these already in grub.conf with different values, or will I have to add them explicitly?

Originally Posted by Adm.Wiggin

ok, got off and realized what glxgears was.

I was getting about 600 frames in 5 seconds OR 480 frames in 5 seconds. and sometimes it would take 6 seconds to get up to those.

Is this good, or bad?

With the new ATI driver and new kernel that number will go up.

I have a radeon 9200 and this is what I'm getting:

[brach@blue-fedora ~]$ glxgears
62624 frames in 5.0 seconds = 12524.800 FPS
62563 frames in 5.0 seconds = 12512.600 FPS
62564 frames in 5.0 seconds = 12512.800 FPS
62584 frames in 5.0 seconds = 12516.800 FPS

forget what the norm is for the controller in question though. You might want to search the forum for the controller if no one posts their norm with your controller to this thread.