Visit the Fabco site

Setting up the Presario 1247 laptop with Linux


XF86 Config for 4.1.0 Here is my XF86Config for Slackware 8.0. Sorry for those who emailed; I lost your addresses and hope you find this.
My /etc/X11/XF86Config

Runs pretty well... At this point, Linux in most current distributions should run with little or no tweaking; as of X11 4.1.0 you still need to add the device section below, but other than that, it all works pretty well.

Update Aug. 2001

Perhaps a bit off topic, but if you ever install OpenBSD or NetBSD on this little guy, you need to make sure there are no "gaps" in the partitioning. You can insure this by not selecting "use entire disk", which uses the 3rd partition; instead make sure it uses the first partition.

Update Jun. 2001

Let's hope it never happens, but if you have to put windows back on, you will need to order the Quick Restore disk s from compaq. Or buy a new copy of Windows.

Update Apr. 2001

Getting 4.02 to work with Cyberblade -- here is a suggestion from Jason Simpson, who suggests the following device info in your XF86Config: 

Section "Device"                                                                
    Driver               "trident"                                              
    Identifier           "Cyberblade"                                           
    VendorName    "Trident"                                                     
    Boardname       "CyberBlade/i7"      
    Chipset             "cyberbladei7"                                          
    Option              "CyberShadow"   # <----- This is the magic element!     
EndSection

Jason also notes he has no other options enabled for the device, and has no modelines, no HorizSync, no VertRefresh, but it all works.

There is a white screen when switching back to text mode. A kernel parameter may be necessary. If Jason or anyone has more info I will post it here. Thanks Jason!

Update Mar. 2001

I am now using Debian GNU/Linux, testing/unstable, with kernel 2.4.2. Not much has changed, except I am now using ALSA for the sound. Just a matter of preference; the 2.4.2 via82xxx module works fine, as does the equivalent alsa module.

I am no longer detecting the IDE chipset; I think the newer kernels can detect it by default. The larger hard drive I have is considerably slower than the factory drive, and you might consider that before replacing it. I tried ReiserFS on it for a while, and was quite happy with it. It's a great idea for any laptop.

Finally, as of Mar. 2001, I have no idea how to get X 4.02 to work with this thing. The 3.3.6 drivers work great though, and as of now I see no real benefit to using X 4.02. Some scanning around the net revealed that perhaps the latest CVS version of X 4.02 might work. If anyone knows, please email me.

I was working for a company that needed me to fly out to San Diego for a week, and I ran down to Office Depot to purchase the first computer I saw. I got what I deserved, but this computer can luckily be improved a great deal. I did use an unstable kernel for all of this, so if you aren't the do-it-yourself type, you may just want to skim this for chipset information and things like that.

The Kernel
(note: I don't know how to do all of this in an older kernel, or if it's even possible, so if you DON'T want to compile a test kernel, I can't help.)

The chipset in the Compaq 1247 (Via82cxxxx) wasn't well-supported in my Mandrake 7.1 kernel (I'd have instal led Debian, which I prefer, but no decent PCMCIA support on the bootdisk...). I am going to assume you have built a kernel before and know where to look for these things in it. I use 2.3.99pre8, later kernels should work also. Update... now using 2.4.0-test4

Be sure to compile the kernel with settings for the AMD K6/K6II.. series of proc essors.

IDE
This is the slowest thing on the machine, by default. Something like 1.28Mb/s transfer rate on mine. Eeew! Paired with the low memory on a default 1247, this will kill you. Luckily you can get this up to nearly 8Mb/s with little trouble. First, enable automatic (U)DMA setting in the kernel. Then select the VIA82cxxxx IDE stuff. These are:
Generic PCI bus-master DMA support
Use PCI DMA by default when available
VIA82CXXX chipset support (EXPERIMENTAL)
On kernel reboot, now you can set up hdparm:
hdparm -c1 -d1 -m16 /dev/hda
You should notice an immediate increase in responsiveness.
Update: I got an 18.1 gig drive from www. mcglen.com; they have a number of options for the 1247.

Video
The cyberblade video seems to use normal RAM for its video memory. It's not gonna be a speed demon, but with the passive matrix display, you aren't gonna be rendering Toy Story III with it, so let it go. In the BIOS you can get back 2 megs of precious memory by setting Video RAM to 2 megs, so I'd do that first.
To get X to work, I recommend you try the modelines suggested by Jim Morford, II , at his 1247 page. They work perfectly for me , and I wasn't able to get the right modelines with xf86config. YMMV.
Second, you should enable MTRR support in the kernel. You should start X and switch to the console from which you started it, and look for the base of the framebuffer. Then you can run something like: echo "DISABLE=0" > /proc/mtrr
echo "base=0xfe00000000 size=0x200000 type=write-combining" > /proc/mtrr< br> Where base is equal to that number you found in the framebuffer base line in the X boot. 0x200000 should be 0x400000 if you have your video set up for 4 megs of RAM.

RAM
You should buy more RAM at your first convenience... it just doesn't come with e nough. It is a special sort of Compaq RAM, but as of this writing it is still available. Check on the Compaq page. Really, if you plan to put any more money into this laptop, you need at least the 8 meg upgrade to keep X from swapping, and you will notice a very marked improvement.
Update: I scored 64 megs f rom www.kingston.com, they have memory for all of the compaq laptops.

Touchpad
I have read a lot about patches for other presarios for the touchpad; mine works fine, so I have tried nothing; I just pretend it is a ps/2 mouse, all works fine. That is to say, use /dev/psaux as your mouse device.

PCMCIA
Compile DataBook TCIC host bridge support. Your distribution should be able to take it from there. I use a cheap linksys network card on mine, which seems to do the job.

Sound Card
This is a VIA82cxxx integrated sound device. You can change the settings for it in the BIOS, but I'd just leave it. In the kernel you need to install the modu le for VIA 82C686 Audio Codec. In your rc.local you can just modprobe via82cxxx an d ac97codec.

This should get you started. If you find out anything else to make this slug fa ster, let me know at egabriel@io.com

NOTES:

# lsmod
Module          Size    Used by
via82cxxx_audio 10928   1
ac97_codec      7140    0 [via82cxxx_audio]
soundcore       3332    2 [via82cxxx_audio]
pcnet_cs        9408    1
8390            6048    0 [pcnet_cs]

(pcnet and 8390 are for my linksys combo card, purchased from Office Depot)
LINKS:
--Gabriel Emerson