it’s me… henry

VirutalBox and OSX has come a long way.  I got iATKOS S3 rev 2 and installed it on VirtualBox.  My experience with the installation was actually pretty good.  Nothing to painful and very straight forward.  But after it was done installing and onto the first boot, it would just hang…  I kept reading over and over the forums but nothing was specific to VirtualBox and iATKOS S3 rev 2.

What I do know (from reading different posts from different forums) is that a 32-bit system needs be installed, VirtualBox settings needs to have an additional “ExtraDataItem”, fakesmc and EVO Reboot needs to be unchecked.

Oh, as a side note, I’m running the host in a Linux (Ubuntu 10.04 specifically) environment.  There is no Mac OSX, there’s Mac OSX Server and Mac OSX Server 64-bit.  I used Mac OSX Server for the guest.

Reading somewhere, you need to install atleast one 32-bit app/binary for thesystem to boot into a 32-bit system.  In the boot options of the installer, choose the 32-bit and it will.

All the other stuff is self explanatory.  But after the initial boot, it just hangs.  Digging around, this person made a comment that the kernel they used “qoopz 10.3.0″ worked for them.  I tried the qoopz kernel with the other settings and then it worked.  I booted perfectly.

Now, I just need to install VirtualBox Additional Tools.  But overall, the install went fast, and from what I can tell, OSX runs a lot faster than before.

After using the laptop for a while now… there are some issues that I need to figure out.

- After waking up from “sleep”, the screen is still blank.  I read somewhere changing to a terminal and back to X fixed it for them, but it didn’t for me.  I think it’s because I’m on an Intel graphics card and the other person was on an Nvidia graphics card.

- I forgot what sequence it was, but if I’m docked, and undock it while everything is running, the screen is blank.  Or this issue was the reverse (I was undocked, then I dock it and so blank screen).

- When docked, I boot the laptop, but my KVM is not switched to the port.  I just let it load, and I switch the KVM to the port of the laptop and blank screen.

- Touchpad is not detected in X (basically, when I go to the system settings in KDE, and to Keyboard and Mouse, the Touchpad settings are disabled).  I read somewhere that it’s because the touchpad is detected as a mouse, so the touchpad properties is not valid.

Wow… I have a lot of video issues…

Installing Ubuntu or Kubuntu 10.04 has been troublesome…

First, I noticed that it had a A01 BIOS version.  But I figured that since the E6510 is a new model, it should be right.  Then that’s where all the trouble started…  When I would boot with the installer, sometimes the screen would go blank.  Sometimes just turning it on will have a blank screen.

Going to my PC troubleshooting roots, I noticed whenever I plugged in an external monitor to the boot up, the screen would not come up at all.  I first thought it was a bad laptop, but something told me to look on the site to see if there was an updated firmware.  I went to the Dell support site and there it was, it was A03 update with a P02 patch.  I read the description, but nothing seem to have what I was experiencing.  I told myself to just try it anyways.  I’m glad I did cause now the internal and external monitor works on every boot.

Now, I have another issue upon booting…  After the installer goes to a certain point, the internal monitor would blank out again.  Googling helped me find out that there are issues the latest kernel and some Nvidia, ATI, and Intel graphics drivers.  I tried many things people suggested, but none really worked.  I need to have the internal and external monitor to work (it’s for work, so I have to be able to use it at home on a docking station and at work with just the internal monitor).

All the things people suggested either had the internal monitor working but not the external, or the other way around.  I basically got real fed up with 10.04 and tried 9.10 and 9.04.  I installed it and everything went fine.  Works with and without docking.

I was going to give up there and just just 9.10 till 10.04 works.  Then I started to do the usual installing apps and updating the system.  Then after an updated kernel, it restarted and while docked, it worked.  Then I undocked it (meaning I just used the internal monitor) and it gave me the blank screen.  So, that lead me to believe that somethings going on with the kernel.

I went on a mission to figure out what kernel is going on.  I read on some post that installing an older kernel could fix my issue, so I found the Ubuntu kernel team page and went and installed random kernels in the 2.32.6.xx family.  This is when I was on 9.10, and installing random ones, I noticed that at a certain point, it would blank out.

I decided to install 10.04 again and install kernels from 2.6.32.9 to 2.6.32.15 and see if that helped my situation.  (Note, the default 10.04 installs a 2.6.32.21).  I first ran 2.6.32.9 without the monitor.  Success… it worked.  Then I docked it, and again… success!!  Okay.. lets try .15, and see if that works… *crosses finger*  Nope… didn’t work.  Then I tired .11, it worked, tried .14, it failed.  Okay… getting close.. I tried .13-4, fail, .13-3, fail.  Then finally 2.6.32.13… success!!!

Everything works.  Well, as far as wifi (it didn’t work with the stock 9.10 kernel) and video (with and without docking).  The only thing I can’t do is when docked, I can’t undock it.  I still need to poweroff the laptop before switching displays.  I’m pretty sure there’s a fix for that, but for now, I can live with it.

TL;DR - Got new laptop, internal/external monitor didn’t work.  Updated firmware, got monitor to a stable state.  Installed Kubuntu 10.04, 9.10, and 9.04 and figured out the blank issue is a kernel issue.  On 10.04, kernel 2.6.32.13 works.

Edit: My setup is that I don’t have to do extra kernel args in GRUB and in xorg.conf, I need to use driver “intel”.

Just upgraded to Kubuntu 8.10.  KDE 4 is very different from KDE 3.5.  So, I’ve been getting used to it and the “plasma”.  Two things that must be installed is powerdevil (for power management) and quicklauncher.

For powerdevil (http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php/PowerDevil?content=85078): sudo apt-get install powerdevil

Reboot so the service is started, and you can modify your settings in System Settings > Advanced > Power Management

For quicklauncher, you need to compile it yourself (which needs kdebase-workspace-dev).  You can get the source from http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php/QuickLauncher+Applet?content=78061.

Basically one day, my keyboard stopped working.  I could use the mouse, but the keyboard doesn’t work.  Even if I put a USB keyboard on it.  So… after some debugging… I found this:

- Keyboard works while booting up
- Works during login
- When KDE starts, the keyboard disappears (I did this by pushing the caps lock key to see the light come on)
- Even the virtual keyboard didn’t work
- Somehow I managed to log into console (non-X) and the keyboard worked.  Checked dmesg and /var/log/Xorg.0.log, but everything looked good.

So… I searched online, and found this post: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=458036

Basically… yes, that was my problem.  I turned on accessibility “slow keys”.  From what I remember, it was before class, and I was playing a flash game.  Holding down a key, the popup came up and asked something about accessibility.  I just randomly clicked something and that is when it started to get “weird”.

After turning off “slow keys”, everything is good…

When I use GVIM to edit files, I like to have console font and have automatic syntax highlighting.  So, here is my ~/.vimrc

<File ~/.vimrc>
set gfn=Console
syntax on
</File>

I’ve searched and since I’m using the 64-bit version of linux, it doesn’t have the i8k module yet.  So, I searched some more, and found that I need to install dellfand to have the fans work.

Oh… and I found a KDE applet that will show me the speed of the CPUs.  Its called Kima (Kicker monitoring applet).  Very useful to verify what speed the CPUs are on.

So, after I installed cpufreq, I somehow installed cpufreqd.  This caused my cpu to always be max no matter what cpu policy I select.  After trying everything and endless searching on google, I was getting nowhere and about to give up.  But I remember seeing this one post about setting the min and max of cpufreq.  I tried to set the min, and it worked.  Did some more digging around, and I finally can get cpu scaling.  Then I thought it was just a misconfiguration, and now I fixed it.  I rebooted the computer to make sure the settings stayed.

Fingers crossed, and nope, back to the same thing.  So, trying to figure out what was going on, I remembered I installed cpufreq and not cpufreqd on my other laptop.  So I removed cpufreqd, rebooted and everything is back to normal.

Now that I think of it, it must be because cpufreqd takes priority, so even though I set the policy in KPowerManager, cpufreqd checks its rules and says, nope, I’m this policy.

I guess I’m more of a control freak, so I want to control my CPUs and not having a daemon do it for me.

Finally got my new laptop.  A Dell M1330.

Removed Windows.

Had to boot into a live CD to remove hidden partition which is for MediaDirect.  The button which looks a “Home” button next to the power button.  Zero-ed out the whole drive…

$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1024& pid=$!

To check status use:

$ sudo kill -USR1 $pid

After a few hours, we’re ready to install.

I like KDE, so I’m using Kubuntu.

After installing, and first boot into Kubuntu, I want to mount the iso image so I always have the discs. First install smbfs.

$ sudo apt-get install smbfs

Append fstab to mount network drive

//ip/sharename /path/to/mount smbfs username=xxx,password=xxx,rw,user,noauto,exec 0 0

Create the mount paths and change the ownership to myself so I don’t have to always do sudo.

sudo chown xxx.xxx /path/to/mount

Mount the path and transfer iso images.

Edit fstab to always mount iso images

/path/to/filename.iso /path/to/mount iso9660 ro,loop,auto,user 0 0

Add the mounted isos to apt source.  Edit /etc/apt/sources.list and add

deb file:///path/to/mount/ hardy main restricted

Only one user, so auto login

Go to “System Settings”, then “Advanced”, then “Login Manager”.  Click “Administrator Mode” and enter password.  Go to “Convenience” and check “Enable Auto-Login”.

This is specfic to M1330.  We must blacklist the driver video, this fixes with brightness being issued more than once when pushed.  Edit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

Change the video drivers to use “intel”.  It’s currently as “vesa”, but I want “intel”.  We don’t need to install 915resolution.  But when changing the drivers, we must select the specific monitor and say it is widescreen.

Go to “System Settings”, then “Monitor and Display”.  Click on “Administrator Mode” and type password.  Click on “Hardware” and push “Configure” for “Graphic card: VESA”.  Choose “intel” from the “driver” section.  Then click on “Configure” for “Monitor”.  Select “LCD panel 1280×800″ from “Generic” and make sure the “Image Format” is widescreen.

I like the console font for Konsole.  So lets install the console bitmap font.

$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config
$ fc-cache -f -v ~/.fonts

After all this… reboot the laptop to take changes.

 I like gkrellm, so install it.

$ sudo apt-get install gkrellm

A new way of setting up the fan

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=4069092&postcount=6

 For some reason, the sound didn’t work… or it was muted.  So, go into right click on KMix, and select “Select Master Channel”, then select “PCM”.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=5407780&postcount=8

Basically, since using my laptop more and more, I’ve noticed that it has been getting hot. The fan should be turning on, but it hasn’t. So after digging around… I fixed the problem.

First, I’m not sure if turning off apmd made a difference or not, but I did it because another forum told me to do it. But after the results were not successful, I kept it off. acpi is newer than apm, so I left apm off.

In this thread, it basically tells you to install the i8k packages. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=74578

In this thread, it basically tells you how to configure the i8k package. http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=1325507&postcount=128

By doing both, I got my fans working.