Inspiron 8200

coffie · n00b Joined: 16 Apr 2003 Posts: 11 Location: Corvallis, OR

Hey all,
I am wondering what kernel options to set on my dell inspion 8200 setup, i am running RC4, here are my specs
P4-1.8
512 ddr
1600x1200
ac97 sound using alsa drivers
dell 1050 wireless
100mbit lan
40 gig hd, 6 gig linux partition

my specific problem is getting the apm and pcmcia to work
thanks,
montana

taskara · Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2003 5:17 am Post subject:

Hi.. I am struggling with a dell inspiron 8200 atm too!

what kernel are you running atm?

I had to use kernel sources. Did you get it working with gentoo-sources per chance ?

I'd love to work together to sort it out.

I haven't tried to get apm working yet, as I'm stuck on getting 3D working for the ATI card

- I hope you got the nVidia version!
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coffie · n00b Joined: 16 Apr 2003 Posts: 11 Location: Corvallis, OR

taskara · Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2003 5:42 am Post subject:

soudns good.. well I'm stuck on ati.. but AM able to get X working with no 3d accell - maybe I'll leave it as is, and try apm etc.

could you post me your gentoo-sources kernel config? It crashes for me on boot at the CPUID section

that would be very handy.

there are HEAPS of sites out there with people installing linux on an 8200, but it seems none with gentoo

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Paper · Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2003 10:21 am Post subject:

Hi all!
Well, maybe I've been really lucky, but on my 1 month old 8200 I run Gentoo successfully without any particular problem.
Now I'm at work, so I cannot post detailed instructions/informations right.

My specs are:

p4-m 2.2
1024Mb ram
geforce4 440 go 32Mb
ac97
40Gb hd (5400)
1600x1200
ecc.

The sound card had some problem, with the alsa drivers (horribles glitches,...) so I tried the kernel oss drivers (for intel i810 if I remember, I'm not at the laptop right now) and everything went fine.

The GeForce runs just fine, following the nvidia-howto in the gentoo website docs section.

APM is a little bit broken ... in fact I didn't tried it because I'm almost always on AC (and I have 2 batteries, so I almost never run out of power...). Also, the GeForce X driver has some issue with apm, so after suspending I'm not sure the X screen would reappear ...

I tried a PCMCIA wireless card (a Cisco card) and it worked just fine.
I only needed to emerge pcmcia-cs and compile the pcmcia support in the kernel.

I emerged i8kutils and compiled i8k Dell support in the kernel, and I've got the volume buttons working, using aumix to control the sound card. The other multimedia buttons can be used with acme (a gnome utility) or with an xmms plugin.

Currently I'm using pfeifer-sources, but gentoo-sources was just fine. I'm gonna post my kernel config later ... when I take a break from working.

If you have more questions ... feel free to ask!

BTW, this laptop is great ... well, it's my first one, it has to be great :-D

The only problem I noticed is that the clock is always 'late', it loses many minutes every day ... need to run ntpdate everytime I'm online.

Byeeeeee,
Paper

Jimbow · Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2003 11:28 am Post subject:

I've got an i8200 running Gentoo on my desk too.

xr31Daisy · Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2003 12:19 pm Post subject: me too

My i8200 worked without to many problems.

APM : I never got s2d ( suspend to disk ) to work. but suspend to ram works fine, except that I had to hack the nvidia drivers ( see the FAQ : http://www.whacked.net/ldl/faq ).

PCMCIA : worked out of the box ...

Time drift : It's APM related, something to do with the clock not being updated during APM calls. I removed the battery-check applet, and that was enough to keep drift to a minimum.

Sound : my first experience with Alsa was horrible. but version 0.9-rc6 solved the glitches ( and with kernel sound some apps played everything at twice the speed.

Wireless : I've got the infamous TrueMobile 1180. 'nuff said.
coffie : What do you mean ' Mini-PCMCIA ' wlan ?
Is it an internal Mini-PCI card ?

Kernel : I'm using gentoo 2.4.20
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Paper · Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2003 12:49 pm Post subject:

xr31Daisy · Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2003 1:59 pm Post subject:

I didn't really worry about performance : I don't use my laptop for gfx-intensive applications ( I still have a windows box for gaming ... )
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coffie · n00b Joined: 16 Apr 2003 Posts: 11 Location: Corvallis, OR

Hey guys, thanks for the input, it seems as tho many people have been able to get most of the features of the laptop working.

What I am really looking for is a kernel config, i am having a hard time deciding what to install into the kernel, what to have as a module, and what to turn just plain off. If someone could post their kernel config i would be much appreciative. Even if they just told what modules need to be installed

thanks
montana

Oh, and i do mean the internal dell 1050 wireless card

coffie · n00b Joined: 16 Apr 2003 Posts: 11 Location: Corvallis, OR

Hey guys, Have most of everything working now, but i am having sound problems ATM
I am using the ALSA drivers installed per the alsa install doc, working great, except i now have static in my sound, xmms, gmplayer, dosnt matter, i am getting static

any suggestions helpful

Jimbow · Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2003 1:56 am Post subject:

I installed Alsa a'la the install docs and my sound sounds fine, although paper above reports a problem with Alsa.

Could be some i8200's are more equal than others. Or it could be an interaction with another module.

What I would like to know is: has anyone been able to get APM working on the i8200 without totally borking (slowing down) the clock?
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Death Valley Pete · Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2003 2:12 am Post subject:

Ice_Tiger · n00b Joined: 14 Dec 2002 Posts: 19 Location: Arizona

i just got my 8200
dell sent me a replacement after there onsite tech killed my 8000
now im slowly trying to make this system work, but i am havin lockup problems, time problems and does anyone know how to get the s/pdif working?
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bbarrera · n00b Joined: 22 Mar 2003 Posts: 44

Jimbow · Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2003 4:33 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the reply. I've already checked out the link you mention and have sent email to the author confirming that apm is not the *only* cause of the clock drift. I have a problem with clock drift even with apm turned off entirely. But with apm turned off (and with the i8k poll rate reduced) the drift is small enough to allow ntpd to keep my clock locked.

I'm still searching for a solution to the clock drift problem. Something is broken and (if possible) it should be fixed. My guess is that the Dell bios does not play well with one of the speed/performance enhancements provided by Gentoo. I tried turning off preemption in my kernel but was unable to successfully compile and had to remerge my Gentoo sources to get any compilation to work.

Even with apm totally disabled, my clock drifts and the drift is worse when my system is busy. I believe the reason I still have drift is because I am using the i8k utils to monitor my cpu temperature and fans. The drift was greatly reduced when I reduced the polling rate (in gkrellm) from once per second to once per 10 seconds. The drift rate seems to be roughly related by:

This is what got me to think that it might have something to do with preemption since this is roughly the same rate that bios calls would be interrupted by preemption.
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bbarrera · n00b Joined: 22 Mar 2003 Posts: 44

Have you tried the Vanilla sources kernel? All I've got for testing right now is a Latitude C600 and Inspiron 4100.

I get a small drift with i8k on my 4100, and it is tolerable on those occassions I don't have a network connection.

The real problem for me is the battery applet, I get half-hour drift during a working day. Last week I was consulting for a client and not connected to the net for ntp updates. By 5pm my Linux clock was saying 4:30pm!

Ice_Tiger · n00b Joined: 14 Dec 2002 Posts: 19 Location: Arizona

this is stupid.... i cant get anything to work right on this thing.
both the built in mice dont work anymore, nvidia drivers arnt working any more. compiles are failing at random, i get random slow downs and some times result in lockups, alsa drivers sound really really bad, and the display has a tarable water mark around al four edges(i sugest cheking yours for it too. i have herd it is comon. you can see it really well if you se your background to somin around #AAAAAA or R 170 G 170 B 170). im so frustrated with this system. im constently having to press fn,z i never had to do that with my old 8000. i miss my 8000.
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Jimbow · Posted: Sun May 04, 2003 6:05 am Post subject:

Sounds like a heat problem. I found that the default BIOS settings for the fans were inadaquate for Gentoo/Reiser.
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Ice_Tiger · n00b Joined: 14 Dec 2002 Posts: 19 Location: Arizona

sep that when i turn off the fans it is at 39 deg

let me ask you this, do your guy's 8200's play the ut2003 demo cd?
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patrickc · n00b Joined: 17 Apr 2003 Posts: 49 Location: atlanta, ga

Jimbow · Posted: Mon May 05, 2003 5:00 pm Post subject:

bLanark · Posted: Thu May 15, 2003 8:55 pm Post subject: Having trouble with alsa drivers?

I'm just about done configuring my 8200. I was just surfing to see what everyone else was up to, and came across this thread.

Lots of people reporting noisy sound with alsa:
I too, got really dodgy dodgy sound with the alsa module. I built the kernel module i810_audio and stuck alias snd-card-0 i810_audio in /etc/modules.d/alsa. I still run alsa, but I use the kernel module

I get ~1700 fps for glxgears with the ati-drivers package. I'm impressed with the opengl xscreensavers.

However, I haven't got s2d working, and s2r used to work with a vanilla graphics setup, since I loaded the ati-drivers and tweaked a bit I've lost that - it resumes with a garbled screen then hangs. :-(

I too run ntpd because of the clock drift.

Can anyone recommend a decent mini-pci wireless card? I don't really want an 1150 (I got an 1180 shipped) or pcmcia card (OK, the 1150 is a pcmcia card in a mini-pci pci slot, my problem is I don't want any of that PCMCIA stuff hanging around).

What else?
Oh, I have intermittent dropouts with a firewire HDD, as I did on my 8000 too. I'm using gentoo-sources, I just upgraded from 2.4.20-r-2 to r5 today and all seems well (once I build everything that creates modules again :-)

) Does anyone else run a firewire HDD without problems, and would moving to a vanilla kernel help me?

Does ACPI work on these muthas? I'm willing to waste an evening mucking around it there is hope .. I had s2d working on my old 8000 under red hat, but only got s2r working under gentoo (Heresey!!!!)

I got the modem working fine too.

Overall, it's a fantastic machine. I got a 8200 2,0GHz, 60G HDD, internal wireless (1180! - boo!), 1600x1200 display, and the ATI 9000 mobility with 64 Megs. I paid about 20% extra (this was a dell outlet sale) for 3-year on site support, after my 8000 needed a new keyboard and hdd within 2 years, and now the 8000 has touchpad problems.
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echo6 · Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2003 Posts: 587

Where can I find the i8kutils ?

xr31Daisy · Posted: Sat May 31, 2003 7:41 pm Post subject: