Dell Inspiron 6400/E1505 Laptop Guide [Wiki]

thayer · 2007-05-30 21:30:19

I have nearly completed the Dell Inspiron 6400 Wiki.

The following items are covered in detail:
* Basic Setup
* Xorg
* KDEmod
* ATI Radeon X1300/X1400 (fglrx driver)
* Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 (open source driver)
* nVidia GeForce Go 7300
* Synaptic touchpad
* Intel 3945ABG Wireless
* Broadcom 440x 10/100 Ethernet
* Sigmatel STAC 92xx Audio (ALSA)
* Dell Wireless 350 Bluetooth
* Hibernation, Suspend and CPU Scaling with powersaved
* LCD Brightness Function keys (out of the box)
* Ricoh R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Card Reader

The following items remain to be confirmed and may need more information added:
* Conexant 56K Modem
* ExpressCard Slot
* Firewire IEEE 1394

I'd appreciate any help I can get with the items remaining. Please edit the Wiki directly or post the basic instructions here and I can edit the Wiki for you.

Last edited by thayer.w (2007-08-30 14:45:53)

vtn · 2007-06-02 15:57:57

Congratulations man, efforts like yours make the linux community grow.

I also have a Dell 6400, so let me help with some topics:

ACPI Features

I use kpowersave-devel instead of powersaved or klaptop. There is a PKGBUILD for it. Suspend to disk can be configured as described in http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Suspend_to_Disk but I have not enabled it, arch boots so fast that I do not even care about hibernate

Power Management FN

I cannot help here, tried once and did not succeed. But it is not critical.

Multimedia Keys

My keyboard session in Xorg.conf:

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier  "Keyboard0"
    Driver      "kbd"
    Option        "XkbModel" "pc105"
    Option        "XkbLayout" "us(intl)"
EndSection

I do not activate keyboard layouts in KDE Control Center. You can get all the multimedia buttons by creating a file /etc/xprofile with the content bellow:

xmodmap -e "keycode 162 = XF86AudioPlay"
xmodmap -e "keycode 164 = XF86AudioStop"
xmodmap -e "keycode 160 = XF86AudioMute"
xmodmap -e "keycode 144 = XF86AudioPrev"
xmodmap -e "keycode 153 = XF86AudioNext"
xmodmap -e "keycode 176 = XF86AudioRaiseVolume"
xmodmap -e "keycode 174 = XF86AudioLowerVolume"

MediaDirect Button

Did not know that kubuntu was able to do that, I have googled a bit and found this:

http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-192096.html

Maybe we can also make the power management keys that do not get mapped with xev work through this xbindkeys method...

Ricoh Card Reader

Weird, mine works out of the box with Arch. With Slackware I had to load the module mmc_block, though.

Dell 350 Bluetooth

The hardware is recognized out of the box, I managed to communicate and transfer files to my Nokia 6100 using bluez-libs, bluez-utils and kdebluetooth packages. There are also some nice apps that turn your mobile phone into a remote control, for example remuco. I will make a PKGBUILD and post to AUR.

Conexant 56K Modem

Never bothered, but I know there is http://www.linuxant.com

ExpressCard Slot

Same situations as yours.

Firewire IEEE 1394

Same situations as yours.

Final Comments

Of course you should post to the wiki, people can always edit it and improve it later! And sorry for tons of writing mistakes, I am not a native English speaker.

vtn · 2007-06-02 16:35:53

Here is an update for the Conexant 56K Modem session:

There are packages for this modem in AUR, just search for "conexant" and you'll find hsfmodem and hsfmodem-utils.

thayer · 2007-06-02 18:10:33

Thanks for all the tips, vtn! I've been working through the hotkeys issues the past couple of nights. I've got the multimedia keys working (using the same sort of setup as you have), but I have not quite gotten the Fn keys to do what I want. The MediaDirect key doesn't work at all when I'm logged in as a regular user, and when I log in as root it generates a different keycode every time.

I've started the wiki and I'll try get more into it today... I'll also try your suggestions with the bluetooth and modem (thanks again!). I don't have an ExpressCard device so that will have to wait until someone can verify the steps for me.

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_Inspiron_6400

thayer · 2007-06-02 18:17:12

I meant to ask... what is the difference between kpowersave-devel and powersave/klaptop? Oddly enough I found that Fn+Esc (Standby) actually triggers hibernate mode on my laptop. I hadn't set any keys at all for that either. It works too, as long as I add resume=/dev/sda2 to the kernel options.

I'd like to get suspend-to-disk mapped to the correct key though (Fn+F1) so that's still a work in progress.

Zaffe · 2007-06-04 06:35:29

Hi and good work !
The wireless "Dell Wireless 1390" works fine using ndiswrapper with the drivers from dell, and the video card X1300 its almost the same that x1400.

But something that i didn't like about the wiki, is that i think that its should be more hardware related topics. There are others wiki for things like install arch or create a new user. I don't know if its just me

thayer · 2007-06-04 15:25:15

Thanks, it's taking a while, but there will be plenty more bits of info coming. I'm converting my notes as time permits... thus far, there will be detailed instructions on setting up the Intel 3945 wireless, Synaptics Touchpad, cpu frequency stepping, power management features, multimedia hotkey configurations, Conexant 56k modem, plus whatever other information I can glean from vtn's post.

I have no experience with the ndiswrapper (and I don't have the Dell Wireless 1390) so feel free to add to the Wiki once the wireless sub-sections are posted.

Thanks again

thayer · 2007-06-27 16:29:47

Just wanted to let everyone know that I've expanded the Wiki quite a bit. Please refer to my original post (above) for up-to-date information.

Last edited by thayer.w (2007-06-27 16:30:45)

nikron · 2007-06-27 21:13:02

I'll add info about the 4965 wireless card later today, and the 7300 Nvidia. Question though, why does the wiki recommend p4-clockmod? Yes, it does allow the fulll range of throttling, but I didn't think it reduced power usage.

thayer · 2007-06-27 21:40:46

That'd be great if you could add the wifi info...

With respect to the cpufreq module, my experience has been that the p4-clockmod is what powersave automatically detects as the most appropriate driver. I prefer the acpi-cpufreq module myself, but I have found that powersave will not use (load) the acpi-cpufreq module dynamically... it must be loaded manually in the MODULES array. For simplicity's sake, I just used powersave's recommendation, which requires no further modifications to the MODULES array.

Last edited by thayer.w (2007-06-27 21:42:07)

zeus · 2007-06-28 22:52:33

Dellfand in community can be used for fan regulation. It solve possible problems with overheating.

When you close your notebook lid, monitor still on or monitor does't turn on when you open lid - add this code /etc/acpi/actions/lm_lid.sh

#!/bin/bash
if [ ! "$(cat /proc/acpi/button/lid/LID/state | grep open)" = "" ];
  then vbetool dpms on
  else vbetool dpms off
fi

Last edited by zeus (2007-06-28 22:56:20)

tardo · 2007-06-28 22:56:50

Almost similar to e1405/640m. Might want to add that =/

nikron · 2007-06-29 00:28:33

zeus wrote:

Dellfand in community can be used for fan regulation. It solve possible problems with overheating.
When you close your notebook lid, monitor still on or monitor does't turn on when you open lid - add this code /etc/acpi/actions/lm_lid.sh
#!/bin/bash
if [ ! "$(cat /proc/acpi/button/lid/LID/state | grep open)" = "" ];
  then vbetool dpms on
  else vbetool dpms off
fi

You could also you the i8kmon, works well for me.

hotsauce · 2007-06-30 04:41:34

I have added a tidbit on the Dell1370 wireless card in the wiki. Also i agree with a previous poster. The kdemod section should be taken out or left in only as a link. This should be hardware specific.

Thank you for the great guide, it helped me quite a bit!

thayer · 2007-06-30 18:18:45

Thanks everyone for the advice and contributions.

I have removed the kdemod section (I'm back to GNOME anyway) and replaced it with a list of desktop environments at large.

@ zeus: thanks for the script tip, I'll find a place for it. I'll also look into the Dellfand as i8kmon has never worked quite right for me.

@ nikron: I've had nothing but problems with the i8kmon (the fans spin up/down erratically every few seconds). Could you post a copy of your /etc/i8kutils/i8kmon.conf here?

@ tardo: I'd rather keep it specific to the 6400, since I can't confirm the other... feel free to grab the relevant bits though and create a wiki entry for the e1405/640m.

@ hotsauce: I'm glad you've found it useful. I expanded on your entry for the Dell 1390--hope you don't mind!

hotsauce · 2007-06-30 19:17:19

Sounds much more professional. Great!

zeus · 2007-06-30 20:29:19

thayer.w wrote:

@ tardo: I'd rather keep it specific to the 6400, since I can't confirm the other... feel free to grab the relevant bits though and create a wiki entry for the e1405/640m.

why?? e1405 absolutly similar model exept size (14' instead of 15').
agree with tardo, we can merge this topics

and of cource you post wrong "partitioning" section. i require save partition with dell utils. it consts about 100mb and can help with hardware problem.

Last edited by zeus (2007-06-30 20:45:37)

thayer · 2007-07-03 01:19:02

@zeus: I've created a redirect to the 6400 wiki if anyone searches for the e1405, e1505, or 640m. With respect to the partitioning info, as the wiki says, it's an example partition table. Personally, I don't use the recovery partition or utilities. Every user will have individual needs for partitioning, as it states.

harishreedharan · 2007-07-12 17:44:44

The guide is excellent. Though in the network part of it,networkmanager is not really required....Also the Bluetooth modules with the Inspiron 6400 I have is Dell Bluetooth 355..It does work with Archlinux without a problem

thayer · 2007-07-12 18:40:43

Thanks for the kudos... I realize it's possible to configure wireless profiles within the rc.conf, but unless I am mistaken, networkmanager is the easiest way to scan networks at a glance and connect on the fly. It's for this reason alone that it's recommended as a prerequisite.

With respect to the 355 Bluetooth module, are you saying the instructions for the 350 work exactly the same as the 355? If so, I'll mark it confirmed. Thanks again!

harishreedharan · 2007-07-12 19:17:14

Yes.They do work without a problem.
Network Manager does make it easy to scan wireless networks,no doubt about that!

harishreedharan · 2007-07-13 12:32:41

I think something that could be easier, in the network configuration, is to install "Wifi Radar", (http://wifi-radar.systemimager.org/). Though not a part of the arch repositories, it can be useful in case of wireless. The normal network config(though the ipw3945 package is needed) is enough for this and gives a good GUI to scan and access wireless networks. It needs Python and pygtk2, and is just a few KB,so downloading it too is not an issue. I felt it is better than Network Manager as I wasn't too happy with Network Manager.

Finally, it is a matter of choice , but WiFi Radar is a good alternative for wireless.

Last edited by harishreedharan (2007-07-13 12:36:24)

nikron · 2007-07-31 15:16:44

scrambler013 wrote:

The only question I have is about the card reader. I didn't have an SD card with me at the time I read this, only an XD card and it didn't read it. Do you know if there is anything special that I may need to do to get it to read them the same as the SD? I am very new to Linux and got my E1505 set up with a lot of help from my co-workers, and some digging here. Other than that question, thayer.w, that Wiki is very good. I looked it over and found a few things that I had not done yet and now that I have my laptop is really running great! Thanks for the Wiki!

It should just show up in /dev/mmpo ... errr the device name is kinda wierd, I don't remember it. But it should be there. And if your using HAL + gnome, it auto appeared in gnome for me.

macros78 · 2007-08-01 08:23:42

AFAIK the card reader works only with SD cards. I tested with SD, MMC and MS PRO DUO with appropriate adapter. At the time I searched the web there were only SD and MMC cards supported, however I did not managed to get my MMC card to work.

XD and Sony cards are probably unsuported, and they will remain unsuported due to closed source specifications or patent deals. (or something) If it is not correct someone will correct me.

I will try the MS Pro DUO in XP, because I think it is not working in XP either.

macros78 · 2007-08-01 08:29:57

I have one question to the powersave. Did you manage to control both CPUs after hibernation or after suspend to memory?

I use ondemand governor and my problem is that one core is running at full speed after suspend to ram or suspend to disk. Should not the powersave take care of this?

Arch Linux

#1 2007-05-30 21:30:19

Dell Inspiron 6400/E1505 Laptop Guide [Wiki]

#2 2007-06-02 15:57:57

Re: Dell Inspiron 6400/E1505 Laptop Guide [Wiki]

#3 2007-06-02 16:35:53

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#4 2007-06-02 18:10:33

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