Mandrake Linux 8.2 (Bluebird) and Win 2000 on Toshiba Tecra 8200 mini-HOWTO

Version 2.3 04/07/2002

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Preconditions
3. Install Linux
4. Configuring the Boot Menu
5. Video (Configuring XFree86)
6. Sound
7. USB
8. Miscellaneous
9. Toshiba Linux Utilities
10. Power Management
11. References
12. Known Issues/Problems
13. To Do List
14. Files
15. Contact

1. Introduction

NOTE: I no longer have this computer and have moved on to newer versions of Mandriva software, but I am leaving this here in case it helps someone with older hardware.

This document is for users who want to get Mandrake Linux up and running on a Tecra 8200 that already has Windows 2000 loaded. I borrowed the format of this mini-HOWTO from Tom Woytaszek's mini-HOWTO on Linux/Win2k and modified it for my information. The following instructions are based on Tom's with changes due to my Linux distribution and choice of software, as well as other information collected from around the Internet.

I originally created this HOWTO using Mandrake Linux 8.0, but the number of changes that I had to make (mainly compiling newer releases of software) was getting rather large.  Many of the workarounds I had to make have been incorporated into the current Mandrake releases.  I plan on continuing to update this HOWTO as new releases appear.  The previous version of this document can be found here.

If you want to know some configuration settings or want me to send you a configuration file that is not listed below, feel free to contact me at the email address listed in the contact section.

2. Preconditions

You first need to decide on how you want your hard drive to be partitioned. I use and highly recommend PowerQuest's Partition Magic (version 6.0) software to manage your partitions. I have a 20 GB drive in my Tecra, and started with a single 20GB NTFS partition with Windows 2000 loaded. I was able to shrink my NTFS partitions multiple times without any data loss. I decided that I wanted a total of 10 partitions (yeah, call me crazy if you want but there is a method to the madness). I wanted a small partition at the beginning of the drive to install BootMagic and allow it to manage the startup between Linux and Windows. I wanted a primary Win 2000 partition, a FAT32 partition for my data (so that Linux and Win 2000 can read and write to the partition), another NTFS partition for other development, and RieserFS partitions for /, /home, /backup, /usr, /opt, and swap.

I resized my Windows partitions and let space for the Mandrake installation to create ReiserFS partitions.

Here's my environment:

Toshiba Tecra 8200
-- 850 Mhz Intel Pentium III (Coppermine)
-- 256MB RAM
-- 20GB hard disk (Toshiba MK2016GAP)
-- Select-Bay DVD-ROM (TOSHIBA DVD-ROM SD-C2402)
-- Trident Cyber/BladeXP based graphics
Windows 2000 Professional loaded
Toshiba USB Floppy (TEAC FD-05PUB)
No PCMCIA Cards
Toshiba Network Port Replicator II (a.k.a. docking station)
NEC MultiSync XE21 (attached to the port replicator)
Microsoft PS/2 Intellimouse (attached to the port replicator)
Noteworthy Keyboard (attached to the port replicator)
10 partions (3 for Windows, 7 for Linux)

Mandrake - Linux 8.2, which includes, among other things,

Toshiba Linux Utilities 2.0.1

3. Install Linux

I was able to boot from the CD-ROM using the F2 boot option to start the Mandrake install from CD.  I strongly recommend hooking up the USB floppy drive prior to installation.  If you do, then the drive will be recognized and configured automatically.  Otherwise, you will have to configure it yourself later.

The install was relatively uneventful. I formatted the partitions, selected the packages I wanted and proceeded to install.  I also decided to install while undocked, since more people would probably have this configuration and I could play with setting up networking profiles later.  Mandrake correctly identified the built-in Ethernet and I was able to setup networking using DHCP (while unconnected) and it worked perfectly later when I connected at work.

During the middle of the installation, Mandrake allows you to specify timezone, printer, etc.. At this point, Mandrake correctly identified my sound card - the Yamaha DS-XG based on the Yamaha YMF-754 chip. I specified the timezone and my printer using CUPS.

When I got to the video setup I selected XFree86 4.2.0 from the Mandrake install.  The Trident Cyber/BladeXP chipset was correctly detected and configured.  I selected the "High-Frequency SVGA, 1024x768 @ 70Hz" monitor and chose 1024x768 and 32-bit color.  I ran the video test successfully and selected to have the system start X at bootup.

I got to the LILO/GRUB choice, selected LILO and installed the bootloader on /dev/hda2, the primary root Linux partition. I did not select /dev/hda, as I chose to use BootMagic (installed on /dev/hda) to manage the boot menu.  After creating a boot disk, I rebooted and managed the boot menu.

4. Configuring the Boot Menu

I chose PowerQuest's BootMagic to manage my boot process after great success with it on my previous Tecra 8000. The BootMagic program, which comes with PartitionMagic, has to has to be installed on a FAT or FAT32 partition below the 2GB boot line. I created a 150 MB FAT32 partition at the beginning of my drive using PartitionMagic to shrink the NTFS partition. I then installed the BootMagic program and it autodetected the two primary OS's and setup the boot menu for me. I then saved the configuration and installed the bootloader.

After this, I did not want the partition available since I didn't need it. I used PartitionMagic to hide the partition.  When I need it again, I can unhide it.

5. Video (Configuring XFree86)

XFree 4.2.0 fixes a lot of prior problems with the Trident Cyber/Blade chipsets.  For the first time with a Mandrake release, I had to do nothing special to configure video modes, modelines or frequencies.  The three VESA modes (640x480, 800x600 and 1024x768) work like a charm and I can switch between them using <ctrl> + <keyboard minus> without any of the problems of previous XFree releases, such as flickering or color shifting.  The only catch is that the lower resolution video modes do not stretch to the full screen size.  I tried to add the "CyberStretch" option for the trident driver but that caused very undesirable video results when switching to the lower modes and made the display unreadable.

The default Mandrake video settings work perfectly for DVD viewing as well.  I installed the Ogle RPMs and was able to watch DVDs without any further configuration.

There is talk on some of the XFree lists about 2D acceleration coming soon.  If I can get it working, I will update this how-to.

6. Sound

Mandrake correctly identified the Yamaha PCI chip (YMF-754) and installed drivers for it.  Remember to bring up the mixer the first time you boot and unmute the channels.  In the KDE mixer, make sure all of the green circles are lit above the channels, except for the microphone.  Also, the mixer defaulted the recording option (the red circles) to the master volume.  When the microphone is on, this will cause very unpleasant feedback.  I changed the recording option to the "aux" channel and had no other feedback problems.

For those interested, here are the relevant lines from my modules.conf:

alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-ymfpci
above snd-card-ymfpci snd-pcm-oss

7. USB

I have tried several USB devices and have had a great deal of success.  Again, Mandrake installed USB and setup the USB daemon, so that hotplugging USB devices is a breeze.  The support Mandrake installed works either while undocked or while docked to the Network Port Replicator II.  I did not have to make any changes because of the docked status.

Floppy Drive (Toshiba USB Floppy Drive) - The floppy drive reports itself as "TEAC FD-05PUB".  Once I plugged in my floppy drive, the default hotplug scripts correctly loaded the usb-storage module and assigned a /dev entry (/dev/sda in my case).  I only had to add a line to /etc/fstab to allow me to mount the drive later.  Here is the  line from my /etc/fstab for the floppy device:

/mnt/floppy /mnt/floppy supermount dev=/dev/sda,user,fs=auto,--,iocharset=iso8859-1 0 0

There are a couple of issues with this that I never solved with the USB floppy drive.  The first was that I could not get the KDE or Gnome floppy formatter working.  Both appear to expect specific dev entries (the KDE formatter complained before about the device /dev/fd0H1440) which are apparently not connected with the usb-storage drivers.

I would also like to get the a hotplugging script together to dynamically add an icon to the desktop when I attach the floppy drive, but that's a future project.

Olympus C3040Z Digital Camera - My digital camera worked like a charm.  I plugged in the camera and turned it to the correct mode.  This particular device uses the usb-storage driver, so Mandrake hotplugged it and loaded the driver correctly.  I created an /etc/fstab entry for the camera, setup a desktop icon to let me mount and unmount it and created a mount point under /mnt.  I chose not to use supermount for now, but I will try it and see how it works.  My /etc/fstab entry is:

/dev/sdb1 /mnt/camedia vfat user,iocharset=iso8859-1 0 0

SmartMedia Card Reader (SmartDisk SmartCard Reader SMUSB) - Once I got my digital camera working, I tried my SmartCard reader.  This device was as easy as the floppy drive.  I connected the reader and Mandrake correctly hotplugged it.  I created a mount point (/mnt/smartdisk), configured /etc/fstab, and was able to mount the CompactFlash card as a drive.  My /etc/fstab entry is:

/dev/sda1 /mnt/smartdisk vfat user,iocharset=iso8859-1 0 0

Note that this is /dev/sda, because it was the first device that I plugged in.  You will need to change this to suit your configuration.

CompactFlash Smart Card Reader (Sandisk ImageMate SDDR-31) - The next device that I tried was my CompactFlash reader.  This reader worked just like the SmartCard reader.  I connected the reader and Mandrake correctly hotplugged it.  I created a mount point (/mnt/flash), configured /etc/fstab, and was able to mount the CompactFlash card as a drive.  My /etc/fstab entry is:

/dev/sdc1 /mnt/flash vfat user,iocharset=iso8859-1 0 0

Note that this is /dev/sdc, because it was the third device that I plugged in.  You will need to change this to suit your configuration.

Digital Camera (Kodak DC-220) - I decided to go ahead and try to get my old digital camera working.   I have succeeded in the past in getting both the USB and serial connection working.  I plugged in the camera and it was hotplugged correctly and the correct kernel module (dc2xx) was loaded.

To actually communicate and work with the camera, additional software is required.  I dowloaded the Open Digita Services 0.3 utilities, which give you user-level access to DigitaOS based digital cameras.  I compiled and installed the ODS programs without error.  Mandrake hotplugged the camera and configured it as /dev/usb/dc2xx0, so I used that device name when running the "ks" utility from ODS, using a command line such as "ks -u -d /dev/usb/dc2xx0 status".

I attempted to get the serial connection to the camera working (but since I have the USB working, why would I use it -- nostalgia perhaps?).  I used the serial option for the ks utility and the /dev/ttyS0 device entry but I received the following error - "unexpected read failure in read_beacon(), exiting...".   This is the same error I have received since the Mandrake 7.x series, so I suspect that this interface has just been neglected and will probably never work again. :-(

Scanner (Acer Scan 2 Web 3300U) - Not tested yet on my laptop.  I did receive a "special" version of SANE 1.0.4 from a contact in Acer Taiwan that provides a color USB scanner backend.  I was able to successfully scan under one of the Mandrake 8.1 betas, so maybe....

8. Miscellaneous

ZIP Drive (ioMega ZIP 250 Parallel Port) - My parallel port ZIP drive also worked out of the box.  I plugged in the drive and connected it.  The kernel module (imm) was not loaded, so I had to initiate a "modprobe imm" as root.  I then created an /etc/fstab entry for the drive (/mnt/zip), setup a desktop icon to let me mount and unmount it and created a mount point under /mnt.  I chose not to use supermount for now, but I will try it and see how it works.  My /etc/fstab entry is:

/dev/sda4 /mnt/zip vfat user,iocharset=iso8859-1 0 0

Note that the ZIP drive does not use the first partition, but rather the fourth.

Supermount works with the ZIP drive!  The only two changes to make this work for me was changing the /etc/fstab entry and changing the device entry on the desktop icon.  The supermount /ets/fstab entry is:

/mnt/zip /mnt/zip supermount dev=/dev/sda4,user,fs=auto,--,iocharset=iso8859-1 0 0

Hard Disc Optimizations  - For some reason, hdparm (the utility that allows you to set hard disc optimizations) was not installed by default under Mandrake 8.2.  I had to go to rpmfind.net, search for hdparm, download and install it.  Once installed, I had to set the optimizations for my internal drive and the DVD-ROM drive.  This is recommended to get hard drive performance back where it should be.

KDE 3.0  - This doesn't really have a lot to do with the Toshiba specifically, but I thought I'd mention it.  I was able to download and install the KDE 3.0 RPMs from the KDE download sites.  The only problems I had were with KDE playing .wav files but I think this is a known issue with KDE based on the bug database.

9. Toshiba Linux Utilities

Thanks go out to Jonathan Buzzard and his Toshiba Linux Utilities . These utility programs allow you to access and control some of the specific Toshiba laptop features. I have used these on my previous Tecra laptop out of necessity (primarily since the fan would not come on automatically under Linux).  While I do not specifically need any of them anymore (power management, including the fan and suspend/resume, work great), I wanted to make sure they still worked.

For the Tecra 8200, I downloaded the latest version (2.0.1) of the utilities and then followed the instructions to compile and install the utilities.  There were two items missing from the Mandrake installation that had to be done before compiling.  The first was to get the source package for xpm (xpm-3.4k-19mdk.src.rpm for me), install it and then move the xpm.h header file that is needed for the compile somewhere where it can be found (/usr/X11R6/include/X11).  I tried the configure script option to point to the header file in another location, but it seemed to ignore it.  The second change was to create a symlink to a shared library that the toshutils expect to be there.  A version of the library (libXpm.so.4) was in /usr/X11/lib but you must create a symlink to it named libXpm.so.  Once that was done, the utilities compiled cleanly.  In order to install, I also had to create the following directories (/usr/local/man, /usr/local/man/man1 and /usr/local/man/man8).

The model number for the 8200 is recognized as of version 2.0.1 of the utilities so you should get no funny warnings when running them.

10. Power Management

The power management issues that I experienced under Mandrake 8.1 seems to have been fixed with 8.2.  I have been able to leave the laptop and it auto-suspends and wakes correctly.  I can manually put it to sleep by using wmtuxtime, one of the Toshiba Linux Utilities.  The screen and hard drive also power down and resume without any issues (note that this is specifically while undocked).  The fan automatically comes on and off without any intervention as well, though the fan utility also works.

11. References

12. Known Issues/Problems

13. To Do List

14. Files

15. Contact

Kevin Hollenshead
khollenshead@sprintmail.com

Feel free to contact me with corrections, suggestions, etc.

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