Hi again, as reported in https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LaptopTestingTeam/DellXPSM1210
this laptop has three devices that are not working with a default install of 6.06 (Dapper): SD/MMC card reader Wireless NIC Built-in webcam The good news is that I've been able to make the three work. This message is thus a 'for the record' so that others see it. With these issues fixed, this laptop would have all its devices completely supported under linux/ubuntu. The bad news is that the webcam worked for only a moment ... and I lost USB functionality along the way (read on). == The SD/MMC card == For solving the SD/MMC card reader issue, I've built a 2.6.17 kernel (2.6.17.11 from kernel.org). I included the SD/MMC code into the kernel (not as a module) after reading a post that mentioned that this was the only way of making it work (YMMV): # # MMC/SD Card support # CONFIG_MMC=y # CONFIG_MMC_DEBUG is not set CONFIG_MMC_BLOCK=y CONFIG_MMC_SDHCI=y CONFIG_MMC_WBSD=y after rebooting with the 2.6.17 kernel, inserting a SD card into the built-in reader resulted in the card being automatically mounted, with a nice icon shown in the desktop. Nice. Now, the rest of my tests were done under this new kernel. I have yet to try to apply them to the stock 2.6.15 that came with Dapper. == The wireless NIC == This laptop has an Intel Pro Wireless 3945 ABG NIC (standard Centrino platform). Dapper does not recognize the NIC, and I've not found packages to support it. To make it work, I've downloaded the sources for the ipw3945 module from ipw3945.sf.net, and the corresponding daemon and firmware from links in that page. I've put the daemon in /sbin, the firmware in /lib/firmware and after extracting the ipw3945 sources (with /usr/src/linux being a symlink to the 2.6.17.11 sources) I did the standard: make clean && make && sudo make install After rebooting the NIC was detected and I could use iwconfig to turn it on. Now the hardware switch that's on the side of the laptop works as in Windows to turn the radio on/off (it was ignored before). As a side note, I had this related stuff in my kernel confifg: CONFIG_IEEE80211=y # CONFIG_IEEE80211_DEBUG is not set CONFIG_IEEE80211_CRYPT_WEP=m CONFIG_IEEE80211_CRYPT_CCMP=m CONFIG_IEEE80211_CRYPT_TKIP=m CONFIG_IEEE80211_SOFTMAC=m # CONFIG_IEEE80211_SOFTMAC_DEBUG is not set CONFIG_WIRELESS_EXT=y == The built-in webcam === In Dapper, the webcam is seen as a USB device, Bus 005 Device 003: ID 046d:08c6 Logitech, Inc. and when trying to configure ekiga, the recording sound tests are OK (sound from the camera's mic is recorded and played back fine), but there's no video device (no /dev/video). Now, since this webcam is listed as supported by the uvc driver (from linux-uvc.berlios.de) I downloaded the sources, and built and installed the module. After rebooting, dmesg showed the device: [4294680.802000] Linux video capture interface: v1.00 [4294680.940000] uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device <unnamed> (046d:08c6) [4294680.958000] usbcore: registered new driver uvcvideo [4294680.958000] USB Video Class driver (v0.1.0) and the video devices were now there lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 6 2006-09-03 11:13 /dev/video -> video0 crw-rw---- 1 root video 81, 0 2006-09-03 11:13 /dev/video0 and I was now able to make the webcam work in ekiga. Nice. But ... this only worked once. For some reason, the video didn't work the next time I started the laptop. Upon further investigation, it turned out that the USB system was not working right as I couldn't use an external USB keyboard/mouse (this was working OK with the 2.6.15 kernel), the sound device associated with the camera (the mic) was also not recognized, and in alsamixer now I had only one audio devie (HDA Intel), when I had three before: With the stock 2.6.15 kernel: 0: USB device 0x46d:0x8c6 (alsa mixer) 1: HDA Intel (alsa mixer) 2: USB mixer (oss mixer) With the new 2.6.17 kernel: 0: HDA Intel (alsa mixer) I cannot understand why it worked once, and why now it doesn't. Any ideas how to debug this? Where should I look? As a side note, this is what I have related to V4L in my kernel config: CONFIG_VIDEO_DEV=m CONFIG_VIDEO_V4L1=y CONFIG_VIDEO_V4L1_COMPAT=y CONFIG_VIDEO_V4L2=m If you got this far, congratulations. And thanks for any tip/suggestion/advice. Fernan -- laptop-testing-team mailing list laptop-testing-team@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/laptop-testing-team
