Ksénia, Jules, Gaëlle & Nicolas

Page started: Sunday August 14, 2005
Last update: Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Current Distribution: Ubuntu 7.04 “Feisty Fawn”

Notebook acquired on: Thursday August 11, 2005

This is my work notebook, provided by my employer. I’m dual-booting with XP pro (standard image), but spend 95% of my time using Linux.

I’m coming from the Debian world, so I’m quite confortable with Ubuntu, which I chose for its more polished desktop and more recent packages (kernel, x.org, GNOME, etc…). The Ubuntu kernel guys even managed to produce the first 2.6 kernel I tried that made my Firewire disk work for any period of time!

Everything works under Linux on that machine!

So I will not spend pages and pages explaining how to make things work from scratch, it would be quite useless. I removed all the info for the previous releases of Ubuntu and left only a few configuration specifics.

• Hardware specifications

• • Model: Dell Latitude D610
  • Processor: Intel Pentium M 760 – Dothan – 2 GHz – 2 MB Cache – 533 MHz FSB
  • Chipset: Intel 915GM – ICH6 – Sonoma Centrino
  • Memory: 1 GB 533 MHz DDR2 Dual Channel in 2 SDRAM modules
  • Hard-drive: 80 GB – 5,400 RPM – Fujitsu MHV2080AH – UDMA133 via S-ATA controller
  • Optical drive: Single Layer DVD±R/RW burner – Sony DW-D56A (OEM Liteon SOSW-852S) via S-ATA – 8X DVD – 24X CD
  • Wired network: 10/100/1000BaseT Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5751 Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express
  • Wireless network: Intel PRO/wireless 2915 A/B/G
  • Bluetooth: Dell Truemobile 350 via USB
  • Video:Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 with up to 128MB shared1 graphics memory
  • Display: 14.1″ SXGA+ (1400×1050) active matrix (TFT)
  • Audio: Intel AC’97 with Sigmatel STAC9750/51
  • Internal modem: Intel AC’97 with Conexant chip
  • Ports: 4 USB 2.0; S-Video; VGA; Serial; Parallel; Infrared; Ethernet(10/100/1000); Modem; Audio In/Out; 1 Type I/II PCMCIA
  • Security: Integrated Smart Card Reader and integrated TPM Security Chip
  • Desk docking: D-port with DVI video and D-view
  • External screen: Dell 2405FPW LCD, 1920×1200

• Getting the correct resolution

The Intel video BIOS is buggy and doesn’t have the 1400×1050 mode available by default. So, if you want to use the internal flat panel correctly, you will have to use a tweak to patch that correctly.

You have to use 915resolution, available in Universe. It comes with full complement of documentation, configuration files and startup scripts, even with an automatic mode.

Because I had already some legacy and I am running 2 screens and need to patch 2 modes, I have built my own configuration files and startup scripts. You do not need them, just edit the files provided by the package, but here are my configurations files, for information:

• /etc/default/915resolution
• /etc/init.d/915resolution

You will notice that I am changing two modes, one for the built-in screen, one for the wide 24″ external LCD.

• Dual displays

Xinerama works! I have 2 screens: built-in LCD at 1400×1050 and a Dell 2405FPW 24″ LCD at 1920×1200 on the D/Port’s DVI port, both 24bits.

Then, in order to get the panel’s native resolution I had to use the following Monitor section, with a custom Modeline, like in the good old days…:

Section "Monitor"
Identifier      "2405FPW"
DisplaySize	519 324
HorizSync	30-81
VertRefresh	56-76
Option		"DPMS"
Modeline	"1920x1200" 154 1920 1968 2000 2080 1200 1203 1209 1235
EndSection

I came up with this Modeline after reading an article in the x.org Wiki. I only understood why it is needed and what it does when reading Tucker Sylvestro’s comment. Thanks!

Xinerama disables DRI, though, and it doesn’t desactivate properly when the laptop is undocked. I have kept a separate xorg.conf file for single screen/DRI.

• xorg.conf for xinerama
• xorg.conf for single internal screen

• Automatic discovery of docked and undocked status

This status is quite practical to know, especially at boot time, before X starts, in order to adjust its configuration with or without Xinerama.

There is no meaningful or consistant hardware difference between the two states that an lspci -vvv can show.

This is where the package read-edid becomes handy. It provides tools (get-edid, parse-edid) that can query attached monitors using DCC.

A friend (Thanks Guillaume!) created a startup script that will query for an external monitor and link the /etc/X111/xorg.conf file to the correct one (single or dual screens).

Copy the script to /etc/init.d/ and register it

$ sudo update-rc.d amidocked defaults 12

As root run the following command:

# get-edid 2>/dev/null | parse-edid 2>/dev/null | grep Identifier

and edit the startup file with the proper string.

You need to have generated the proper xorg.conf-something for single or dual-screen setups.

The startup script can be used for many other things depending on the docking status, or not… I extended the startup script to change the background, for example.

• /etc/init.d/amidocked