I installed RedHat 7.3 on a used Dell Latitude CPi D266XT. I chose the graphical, normal user installation method. The install went reasonably well, but there were four problem areas: XFree86 monitor selection, sound, wireless ethernet, and APM.
Get linux laptop info at tuxmobil.org.
During installation Redhat correctly identified the video card, but incorrectly identified the monitor. In the installation monitor list I set the monitor selection to Dell 1024x Laptop Display. X works well with this setting.
Redhat 7.3 failed to identify the sound card. I added the following lines to /etc/modules.conf:
alias sound-slot-0 cs4232 post-install sound-slot-0 /bin/aumix-minimal -f /etc/.aumixrc -L > /dev/null 2>&1 || : pre-remove sound-slot-0 /bin/aumix-minimal -f /etc/.aumixrc -S > /dev/null 2>&1 || : options sound dmaabuf=1 alias synth0 opl3 options opl3 io=0x388 options cs4232 io=0x530 irq=5 dma=0 dma2=1 mpuio=0x330 mpuirq=5
Redhat failed to detect my Linksys WPC11 version 3 Wireless Ethernet card. I am running my card in ad-hoc mode, connecting to another PC running a WMP11 in ad-hoc mode. Here is what I had to do to get the WPC11 working
Build and install my own kernel (2.4.18). The new kernel must not have PCMCIA support. If you want to use wireless-tools, then you need to configure the hermes wireless device in kernel. I compiled frame buffer support and APM support. Here is a copy of the kernel config file.
Install the new kernel and reboot.
Download, configure, build, install pcmcia-cs-3.1.33. Here is a copy of the config.mk file.
Download, configure, build, install linux-wlan-ng-0.1.13. Here is a copy of the config.mk file.
Edit the /etc/sysconfig/pcmcia file. Here is what my file looks like:
PCMCIA=yes PCIC=i82365 CORE_OPTS= CARDMGR_OPTS=
Reboot.
ifconfig -a now lists a wlan0 device. So use the following commands to enable and configure the interface:
wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_ifstate ifstate=disable
wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_ifstate ifstate=enable
wlanctl-ng wlan0 dot11req_start ssid=linksys bsstype=independent \
beaconperiod=100 dtimperiod=3 probedelay=100 \
cfpollable=false cfpollreq=false basicrate1=2 operationalrate1=2
ifconfig wlan0 192.168.1.5 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.1.255
route add default gw 192.168.1.15
You should be able to ping other machines on your LAN now. You can configure the basicrate and operationalrate properties to make the card run faster.
When I turned off the laptop it wouldn't automatically powerdown. Of course, APM has to be compiled in the kernel. Read above to see my kernel config. Then I editied the /etc/rc.d/init.d/halt file. Basically, you want to run the shutdown command with the -p option, so I changed the last line of the script to:
eval $command -p $HALTARGS
I have experienced problems using PCMCIA and APM at the same time. I have had to turn off APM.
To boot the system in a higher text mode using frame buffer, add "vga=0x317" to the kernel line during the boot process.
Andrew Howlett, 18 May 2002
updated 23 June 2003