Fedora Core 4 on HP Compaq nx7010

When installing FC3t1 I ran into bug 127713. The solution is to rmdir /selinux before the upgrade.

This was the first upgrade I've done from the single DVD ISO instead of several CD ISOs. It worked quite nicely, and would be particularly useful when doing a fresh install. The only disadvantage is that it is a 4.1GB download so if you don't have a fast connection and don't need the sources you are better off downloading the CD ISOs.

Fedora automatically enables a lot of services. If you are not using your machine as a server, then there may be a lot of services that you never use. Several reasons to disable these services are: faster startup time, disable potential security holes and reduce unnecessary use of resources.

Once all the hardware is properly running there is not much use for kudzu. Disabling it saved me about 30 seconds of startup time. It can the be disabled with:

chkconfig --del kudzu

I don't use sendmail so:

chkconfig --del sendmail

NFS consists of several services:

chkconfig --del nfs
chkconfig --del nfslock
chkconfig --del rpcgssd
chkconfig --del rpcidmapd
chkconfig --del rpcsvcgssd

Some other stuff I personally never use:

chkconfig --del isdn

With default installation the firewall blocks all ports. However, ping response is still on, so the machine is still detectable. You can turn it off by adding the following lines to /etc/sysctl.conf:

# Disable ping response
net.ipv4.icmp_echo_ignore_all = 1

On the 1680x1050 screen the font and mouse cursor are a little too small to be comfortable.

The font size can be increased via Preferences→Font. Setting all fonts to size 12 works well for me.

The size of the mouse cursor can be increased via Preferences→Mouse. On the Cursors tab you can set the size to Large.

As of 2.6.6 laptop-mode is integrated in the kernel. To get it to work follow the instructions in Documentation/laptop-mode.txt.

Jeppe Andersen brought to my attention Bart Samwel's page on using laptop mode tools to get laptop mode working easily. You can use this instead of the kernel documentation.

With Fedora development having switched to gcc 4.0, I tried to compile the kernel with this version. It failed with errors in the i2c module. To fix this I used this patch.

To get the kernel driver to work you only need to add psmouse.proto=imps to the kernel line in your /etc/grub.conf. Because I used to use the separate driver before, I had to clean up my /etc/X11/xorg.conf. On a clean install you probably don't have to make any changes to this file.

The Synaptics Touchpad driver is not included in Fedora Core 2, but it is included in Fedora Core 3. I installed the synaptics-0.12.3-0.n0i.1.rpm package myself, and added the parameters to /etc/X11/XF86Config (Section "InputDevice", Identifier "Mouse1"). To /etc/rc.d/rc.local I added /sbin/modprobe evdev to have the module loaded at boot.

You can use synclient to monitor and adjust settings for the touchpad.

With the driver the touchpad works quite nicely. Horizontal and vertical scrolling, and tapping to simulate mouseclicks all work. The on/off switch also works, though that is no surprise as it's probably hardwired to do so.

The Intel ipw2100 driver works great. Note that newer models are delivered with 2200BG adapter, which does not work with the ipw2100 drivers. Check out the Intel ipw2200 driver instead. If you're not sure about which adapter you have enter:

lspci | grep Wireless

In Fedora Core 3 the driver is properly loaded during init and immediately available. The basestation settings can be maintained with system-config-network.

Note that in FC3 the firmware directory is moved from /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware to /lib/firmware, so make sure to copy the ipw2100 firmware files to that directory.

In Fedora Core 2 there is a problem with the firmware loading of the ipw2100 driver during init. Once the system is started modprobe ipw2100 loads the firmware without problems. I tracked it down to a missing /etc/init.d/hotplug. I filed a description of the problem, and the solution as bug 122807. Though this makes the firmware loading work during init, it causes trouble with ipw2100 drivers 0.45 and onwards, probably as it conflicts with kudzu. So for the time being I've disabled it.

A nice option that is not mentioned in the ipw2100 INSTALL document is that you can enter base station data in the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1 file. That way you can get the network up and running without starting iwconfig at a later stage. I have it set to my home network settings so at least there I've got an immediate connection. In my case it looks something like this:

# Intel Corp.|PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 3B Mini PCI Adapter
DEVICE=eth1
ONBOOT=yes
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
MODE=Managed
ESSID=Enter basestation ESSID here
KEY=Enter WEP key here

install hostap /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install hostap; /sbin/modprobe hostap_crypt_wep

I was unable to get ndiswrapper to work. Everything compiled OK, and the modules loaded without problems as long as the base station was off, or the network button off. However, the moment a connection was made I got five seconds of stack dump flashing by, followed by a freeze. I read that some Windows drivers crash under ndiswrapper if the kernel is compiled with 4k stack, but I had already switched to ipw2100 at that point so I never tried a build with 8k stack.

The Buffalo ClipDrive (a USB flash drive) works fine. The only problem was that hotplug did not recognize it. This page helped me get it fixed. I just added match hd ClipDrive to the device flash section in /etc/updfstab.conf.default. After this I added the Disk Mounter applet to my panel to mount/unmount it.

If a flash drive is not recognized by hotplug you can mount it with (assuming it's plugged into USB port 1):

mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/flash

	Note
	In FC3t1 updfstab is replaced by fstab-sync. As a result the /mnt/flash mountpoint is no longer used. Instead the drive will be automatically mounted to /media/usbdisk.

Using a Logitech Click! optical mouse is as simple as plugging it in. Xorg accepts input of the mouse at the same time as from the touchpad without any switching.

After plugging in a HP LaserJet 1300 with an A-B USB-cable, the printer is automatically detected and the usblp kernel module automatically loaded. It is easy to set up in the Print Manager. As device specify /dev/usb/lp0. As printer driver select HP LaserJet 1300 using PostScript.

Plugging in an "HP Personal Media Drive" yielded dmesg messages complaining that NTFS is not supported. The simplest solution seemded to reformat it to FAT32 (I also need to access the drive under XP). The HP manual had some instructions for doing this, but was rather vague. It turns out XP will only format FAT32 partititions up to 32 GB even though FAT32 supports up to 8 TB (see Q314463)! Fortunately Linux has no such artificial limitations and happily formatted the drive to FAT32.

First use fdisk to change the partition to FAT32:

# fdisk /dev/sda

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 19457.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
   (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041886208 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1       19457   156288321    7  HPFS/NTFS

Command (m for help): t
Selected partition 1
Hex code (type L to list codes): b
Changed system type of partition 1 to b (W95 FAT32)

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.

WARNING: Re-reading the partition table failed with error 16: Device or resource busy.
The kernel still uses the old table.
The new table will be used at the next reboot.

WARNING: If you have created or modified any DOS 6.x
partitions, please see the fdisk manual page for additional
information.
Syncing disks.

After this the partition can be formatted (BTW, the formatting only took one second, whereas Windows took more then 20 minutes only to bail out with a message that it could not handle it):

mkdosfs -F 32 /dev/sda1

swsusp works very well. Prerequisites are:

The phase PM: snapshotting memory may take more then half a minute, during which there is no visual feedback, so it may seem like the machine hangs.

Currently I use the following script (located at /etc/acpi/actions/hibernate.sh) to suspend, it is based on a script posted by v.v on x1000 Forums:

#!/bin/sh
# stop network interface, unload WLAN module
/sbin/ifdown eth1
/sbin/rmmod ipw2100
/usr/bin/killall dhclient

# Turn off USB
/sbin/rmmod uhci_hcd

# preventive sync, not sure whether it's needed
sync

# USB storage gets confused by hibernate so unload it
# No need to reload this module after wake-up, hotplug will do that on demand
/sbin/rmmod usb_storage

# suspend
echo -n shutdown > /sys/power/disk
echo -n disk > /sys/power/state

# After the suspend, we restart here...

# resetting the system clock to the hardware clock
/sbin/hwclock --hctosys

# Start dummy X-session
# Needed as long as bug 1220 on freedesktop.org/bugzilla is not resolved
#/usr/bin/X11/xinit /bin/false -- :1 &

# Restore USB
/sbin/modprobe uhci_hcd

# restarting network interfaces.
/sbin/modprobe ipw2100
/sbin/ifup eth1

Note

This version of the script starts a dummy X session to get DRI running again. This is only needed if you run a version of xorg for which bug 1220 is relevant. That is versions of 6.8 and its release candidates up to xorg-x11-6.8.1.901-1. This latter version (or newer) is available in development packages for FC4. If it is not relevant, it is better to remove it as it takes several seconds longer to return from hibernation.

To get this script started by the power button, I deleted /etc/acpi/events/sample.conf and created /etc/acpi/events/button.conf:

# Suspend to disk when power button is pressed
event=button/power.*
action=/etc/acpi/actions/hibernate.sh

To activate these changes, restart the ACPI daemon:

service acpid restart

For some reason the above event only worked once per reboot after which I had to suspend by starting the script directly. There appears to be some problem if ACPI_BUTTON is compiled as a module. Compiling it into the kernel fixed this, and the power button now reliably suspends.

Up to kernel 2.6.9-rc3 you must specify the swap partition on the kernel line /etc/grub.conf with (assuming your swap partition is /dev/hda5):

pmdisk=/dev/hda5

with kernel 2.6.9-rc3 and later this should be:

resume=/dev/hda5

After spending a lot of time, I still have not been able to get Software Suspend to work with any 2.6 kernel. I can get the machine to hibernate with kernel 2.6.5 and the latest patches, and wake up work all the way up to the Cleaning up phase, at which point it either freezes or flashes a huge stack dump.

One kernel parameter that needs to be turned off (it's on by default in Fedora) is REGPARM ("Use register arguments") or you'll get messages like "Number of free pages at start and end of write pageset don't match 122657 != 122658" .

As of kernel 2.6.11-rc3 suspend to RAM works. Prerequisites are:

ACPI still has some problems with getting the video hardware back up, but bug 3670 has a program called video_post that can be started after wake-up and fixes this. You should download, untar and build it:

cd /usr/src
tar xvfz attachment.cgi
cd emu
make

To start the suspend I use the following script. Running it from within X caused occasional crashes, so I use chvt to switch to a text terminal during the suspension.

#!/bin/sh
# stop network interface, unload WLAN module
/sbin/ifdown eth1
/sbin/rmmod ipw2100
/usr/bin/killall dhclient

# Turn off USB
/sbin/rmmod uhci_hcd

# preventive sync, not sure whether it's needed
sync

# Switch away from X to avoid crash during wake-up
chvt 1

# suspend to RAM
echo -n mem > /sys/power/state

# After the suspend, we restart here...

# Reset video hardware as ACPI does not do this properly
# http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3670
/usr/src/emu/video_post

# Switch back to X session in VT 7
/usr/bin/chvt 7

# Restore USB
/sbin/modprobe uhci_hcd

# restarting network interfaces.
/sbin/modprobe ipw2100
/sbin/ifup eth1

exit 0

	Note
	When after suspending you restart the computer by pressing the power button, ACPI catches the event and executes any scripts you have attached to it. In my case this caused it to start the hibernation script immediately after waking up.

During installation no screen with resolution 1680x1050 is offered. To work around this, I selected the 1400x1050 resolution. This resulted in a rather 'stretched' screen during the first time X was started. To fix this, open /etc/X11/XF86Config in an editor, and the Section "Screen" change the Modes line to Modes "1680x1050" "1280x1024" "1280x960" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480". The next time X is started, it will use 1680x1050 resolution.

I have filed this as bug 121104 in Bugzilla. Hopefully it will be included in the final Core 2 release.

Dual head works fine. Unfortunately the system-config-display utility is not able to set up a proper xorg.conf file. It can however be used to set up an initial file that can then be edited. If the color depth of the displays differs, the utility silently refuses to exit. Another problem is that you can still not select 1680x1050 resolution for the video card, though it is now available for the LCD panel selection. After adding the 1680x1050 resolution manually I get the following xorg.conf.

The simplest way to start using the new configuration is to reboot. If you just want to restart X, go to runlevel 3 (enter init 3 as root) and then back to 5 (init 5). Once you are logged on the second screen will become active.

With the 2.6 kernels you no longer need SCSI emulation for the CD/DVD, so the device address has become obsolete. For example the cdrecord command can directly use the /dev/cdrom (or /dev/hdc) device. So for example to get device information you can enter:

cdrecord dev=/dev/cdrom -prcap

The cdrecord command in Fedora is supposed to be patched with DVD support. But I use growisofs instead. For example to burn the Fedora Core 3 test 1 CD you can use:

growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/hdc=/tmp/FC3-test1-i386-DVD.iso

It is possible to connect Gnokii via IrDA to the Siemens SX1, but the current functionality is very limited. I use the following .gnokiirc:

[global]
port = /dev/ircomm0
model = AT
initlength = default
connection = serial
bindir = /usr/local/sbin/
use_locking = no
serial_baudrate = 115200
smsc_timeout = 10

To use this you should have IrDA enabled, and also the ircomm and ircomm_tty modules loaded. Before starting Gnokii, go to the main menu on the SX1 and select Setup and then Modem. You now get a menu with only the Connect option, make sure to select this option so that you get a popup message Connecting via infrared. Now place the phone so it's IR port points to the IR port of the nx7010. You can now enter the gnokii --identify command, which should work.

Since Gnokii 0.6.1 there is a new way to connect Symbian Series 60 phones. It consists of a small program (gnapplet) that is started on the phone, and gnokii communicates with this program.

To get gnapplet loaded into the phone you can send it as a message via Bluetooth:

gnome-obex-send --dest=00:01:e3:2c:3b:55 /usr/share/doc/gnokii-0.6.2/gnapplet.sis

(of course you'll have to adjust the bluetooth address and possibly the path to gnapplet.sis). After you have accepted the message gnapplet will be available in the SX1 main menu.

[global]
model = series60
port = /dev/ircomm0
connection = serial

gnokii --getphonebook ME 1 300

5.5.2.2. Gnapplet via Bluetooth

To connect via Bluetooth I use the following .gnokiirc:

[global]
port=00:01:E3:2C:3B:55
rfcomm_channel=13
model=series60
connection=bluetooth

	Note
	If you get the following error "Couldn't open GNBUS device: Success", then Bluetooth is probably not compiled in. To get this to work I had to install the bluetooth-libs-devel rpm, after which Gnokii's configure script automatically added Bluetooth to the setup.

Python for Series 60 supports the interactive console that is one of the nice properties of Python. Of course using it via the SX1 keys is less then ideal. With the standard installation the bt_console.py script is delivered that can set up a Bluetooth connection to the interactive mode.

For this to work you first need a Bluetooth serial port on the PC:

sdptool add --channel=3 SP

Next you have to create a corresponding rfcomm port:

rfcomm listen /dev/rfcomm1 3

Now start Python on the SX1 and via Options→Run script start the bt_console.py script.

When the connection is made, rfcomm on the PC should respond with:

# rfcomm listen /dev/rfcomm1 3
Waiting for connection on channel 3
Connection from 00:01:E3:2C:3B:55 to /dev/rfcomm1
Press CTRL-C for hangup

You can now connect to /dev/rfcomm1 with a terminal program, for example:

screen /dev/rfcomm1

Now you can enter Python commands, for example try sending yourself an SMS (remember to change the phone number in the example):

>>> import messaging
>>> messaging.sms_send('0109876543',u'Hello world!')

With FC3t2 compositing can be enabled and used to add shadows to windows and making them transparent. Because it is very slow the practical use at the moment is limited to making pretty screenshots.

Add the following lines to /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

Section "Extensions"
    Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection

After restarting xorg, compositing will be enabled (you'll know because xorg will be much slower). At the moment Gnome does not support compositing, so you'll need two small applications to demo this:

cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.freedesktop.org:/cvs/xapps login
[No password needed, just press return]
cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.freedesktop.org:/cvs/xapps co transset
cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.freedesktop.org:/cvs/xapps co xcompmgr

cd xcompmgr
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/X11R6/lib/pkgconfig/
./autogen.sh
./configure
make
sudo make install

cd ../transset
make
sudo cp transset /usr/X11R6/bin/

You can now turn on compositing with:

xcompmgr -cfC

Note that with the Bluecurve theme the borders seem to get translucent and only the menus get shadows. To make a window 40% transparent, start:

transset .4

the cursor will change into a cross. Click on the window to which you want to apply the transparency setting.

There are several Bluetooth utilities for GNOME that use OBEX to send or receive files from Bluetooth devices. Once you've got Bluetooth up and running, these should be easy to use. These are included in FC2, so you should not have to bother with installing the right libraries and such.

To get an overview of the Bluetooth devices that are in range, start gnome-bluetooth-manager (gnome-bluetooth-admin in older versions). This will display a window with the available devices. For each device it will display it's name, address and available services. If the list is not up-to-date, or some of the other GNOME Bluetooth utilities give you problem, press the Scan button to scan for devices.

To be able to receive files from Bluetooth devices, you can start gnome-obex-server (also available in the Fedora menu under System Tools; Bluetooth File Sharing). You will see an icon in the system tray. To send files, consult the manual of your Bluetooth device. For example on the SX1 you select a file in the File Manager, and then specify Send; via Bluetooth after which it will ask you to which device to send it. The file will then be created in the home directory of the user that is running gnome-obex-server.

To send files, a Nautilus VFS extension is available that then uses gnome-obex-send to send the file. To send a file, enter bluetooth:/// in the Nautilus location bar. It should then display a list of Bluetooth devices. Note that you can not browse these devices. You can however drag files to them, which will then be sent to the corresponding Bluetooth device.

You can also use gnome-obex-send to send files from the command line. For example:

gnome-obex-send --dest=00:01:e3:2c:3b:55 /usr/share/wallpapers/sunday_brunch.jpg

To get mp3 ripping to work you have to install the gstreamer-plugins-mp3. It is available on Livna.org.

After the Firefox rpm became available in FC3t2, I switched to that instead of the version downloaded from the Firefox site. Unfortunately it did not work properly. Firefox started, but the menus did not work and I could not enter an URL.

Apparently the problem was an installed extension, as removing the ~/.mozilla/firefox/default.xyz/extensions/ directory fixed this.

The mplayerplug-in works nicely. You can download a Fedora RPM from the download section of the project page. Install it with (as root):

rpm -U mplayerplug-in-2.70-fc2.i386.rpm

After updating from 0.9 to the 1.0PR release Firefox no longer started. Firefox just ended immediately without any messages. Removing the following line from ~/.mozilla/firefox/profiles.ini fixed this:

Default=1