Archlinux on Samsung n130/n140

Svlad Cjelli · 2009-12-15 09:55:54

I talked to the german samsung-support, they'll call me back and then we know more...

Feniks · 2009-12-15 12:45:57

Russian tech support did not answer questions and tactfully say that only support Windows

I think that downgrading dangerous. Perhaps in netbooks that are sold with versions of the BIOS newer than 01CM newer hardware. And perhaps the old BIOS just will not be able to boot on hardware that does not know.

Last edited by Feniks (2009-12-15 12:49:08)

DonVla · 2009-12-15 13:24:08

Feniks wrote:

I think that downgrading dangerous. Perhaps in netbooks that are sold with versions of the BIOS newer than 01CM newer hardware. And perhaps the old BIOS just will not be able to boot on hardware that does not know.

That's a point. It would be interesting which mainboards are used on the n130.

Last edited by DonVla (2009-12-15 13:24:20)

Svlad Cjelli · 2009-12-15 16:01:05

Ok my call with samsung germany wasn't successful

the guy from samsung searched the archive for about ten minutes (0,14€ per minute :-) ) and he didnt find anything.

He said that a newer linux-distribution might solve the problem.
I did my best to be decent and said him that i already run the latest linux distribution

any ideas?

I could ask some chinese people from university to get me that registration on the chinese forums... But that'd be the last step to go for me :-)

Svlad

Last edited by Svlad Cjelli (2009-12-15 16:01:32)

DonVla · 2009-12-15 16:46:11

The question is if some later kernel releases will solve the problem.
Is this a linux only problem with the phoenix failsafe stuff or is it also under windows?

Svlad Cjelli · 2009-12-15 17:01:36

DonVla wrote:

The question is if some later kernel releases will solve the problem.
Is this a linux only problem with the phoenix failsafe stuff or is it also under windows?

Due to this thread:

http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/l … el/1159101

the ata-timeout is also present under windows, though it is not recognizable (under Linux the tomeout lasts about 30 seconds, under xp about half a second)

I dont know when this stuff could be implemented into the linux kernel. And i am very pessimistic that this is the case before i get myself a new netbook in about a year :-)

A simple kernel patch that commands the kernel not (or never) to do a timeout would be nice. But i haven't a clue if that is realizable...

Svlad

Last edited by Svlad Cjelli (2009-12-15 17:02:45)

Theomachos · 2009-12-15 22:20:03

I managed (after lots of copy&paste) to create an account on the Chinese forums mentioned above, but I can't access any of the N130/N140 bioses
Seems like they've been deleted or something...
It says (in English - really !!!): "Attachment file not found, please contact the administrator."

If anyone still wants to try, feel free to ask me about account details. *sigh*

Svlad Cjelli wrote:

I dont know when this stuff could be implemented into the linux kernel. And i am very pessimistic that this is the case before i get myself a new netbook in about a year :-)

Hm...so you'd live with the freezes ? Or would you use windows instead ?

Last edited by Theomachos (2009-12-15 22:33:50)

Svlad Cjelli · 2009-12-16 06:59:08

Hm...so you'd live with the freezes ? Or would you use windows instead ?

I would use windows... because i really often suspend my netbook to ram...

Aedit · 2009-12-16 14:33:26

Has anyone using the samsung-laptop kernel module (i.e. running OpenSUSE or another kernel plus patch) run it with the debug parameter switched on and checked the kernel logs? Please post logs and your bios version (and say which patch).

birdspider · 2009-12-16 14:47:31

hi,
a side-question: are the freezes hdd related or hdd-controller specific ? more precisely would installing a different HDD (SSD) help ?

Aedit · 2009-12-16 15:03:37

birdspider wrote:

hi,
a side-question: are the freezes hdd related or hdd-controller specific ? more precisely would installing a different HDD (SSD) help ?

This was discussed above. The freezes have been seen with several HDD models. Someone also reported elsewhere that he tried an SSD (a 64GBOCZ Vortex) with the same freezes. So changing the disk won't help.

DonVla · 2009-12-17 12:11:46

Hi all.
I'm trying to check the opensuse kernels for patches, but I cannot figure out which kernel they use for the "normal" desktop.
There are lots of kernel-source packs. the link from the wiki is dead btw.

PS: Ok, took a look at the kernel-source-2.6.32-41.1.src.rpm (http://download.opensuse.org/repositori … .1.src.rpm) pack and afais the omitted the samsung-laptop module. There are about 6-7 libata patches, but i cannot really figure out what they do. Some input on further procedure needed. Does one want to test these patches? Should I add them to the n130 kernel?

PPS: I cannot test them since I don't have the freeze issue....

Last edited by DonVla (2009-12-17 12:28:19)

Aedit · 2009-12-17 13:08:12

DonVla wrote:

...the link from the wiki is dead btw.

this one from the LKML is now dead (2.6.31.6-37.1.src)
http://download.opensuse.org/repositori … .1.src.rpm
this one from the wiki is alive (2.6.31.7-37.1.src)
http://download.opensuse.org/repositori … .1.src.rpm
but here there are only 2.6.31.6-37-1 binaries (don't understand that)
http://download.opensuse.org/repositori … _11.1/i586

Svlad Cjelli · 2009-12-17 13:49:01

Does one want to test these patches? Should I add them to the n130 kernel?

I'd give it a try... I am on Windows 7 right now. Arch is a little bit faster

Edit:
Ah...while were at it...

i just want to ask how to completly uninstall the kernel26-n130?
Last time i just did a

pacman -Rs kernel26-n130

is that enough?

Last edited by Svlad Cjelli (2009-12-17 15:41:43)

Svlad Cjelli · 2009-12-17 16:07:14

Ok a guy from the german ubuntuusers-board wrote:

habe den momentanen git-Release Kernel von Suse genommen und alle Patches darauf angewendet. Danach meine abgewandelte Config vom Arch-Linux N130 Kernel darauf angewendet (und noch ein paar Sachen angepasst die nicht kompilieren wollten) und mit Ubuntu als .deb gepackt

For non-natives:

He compiled the kernel with all libdata-patches :-)

he has no Freezes anymore...
So perhaps that could help...

I wanted to write an email to samsung.com and samsung.uk to ask for the old BIOS-Version, but i cant access their sites :-/

Svlad

caligula700 · 2009-12-17 16:39:16

Svlad Cjelli wrote:

He compiled the kernel with all libdata-patches :-)
he has no Freezes anymore...
So perhaps that could help...

I wanted to write an email to samsung.com and samsung.uk to ask for the old BIOS-Version, but i cant access their sites :-/

Svlad

If hte kernel compiled with all libdata patches doesn't freeze, we may not need the old bios.

Svlad Cjelli · 2009-12-17 16:45:27

caligula700 wrote:

If hte kernel compiled with all libdata patches doesn't freeze, we may not need the old bios.

Indeed, but in case the so patched kernel doesn't solve the freeze-problem i want to continue investigating...

Aedit · 2009-12-17 17:13:07

@Svlad (or pschwed): was it just the four libata patches or actually _all_ the SuSE patches (there are lots) ? Obviously if it is just the libata ones it should be easy to find out which one(s) make(s) the difference.

Svlad Cjelli · 2009-12-17 17:22:44

Aedit wrote:

@Svlad (or pschwed): was it just the four libata patches or actually _all_ the SuSE patches (there are lots) ? Obviously if it is just the libata ones it should be easy to find out which one(s) make(s) the difference.

I am not pschwed, but i can ask him... mom

DonVla · 2009-12-17 21:17:24

Ok, tomorrow or Saturday I'll add the patches.

pschwed · 2009-12-18 00:16:01

Hi, I was asked to tell you guys what I did to get it running, so here is the story:

First of all, I used the SUSE git repository to get the latest release of the 2.6.32 kernel (and the patches). Then I applied ALL SUSE patches (yes I know, I am a lazy one, but I wanted to know wether it made a difference..).
I compiled this with SUSEs master config and it worked (no freezes).

By the way, I'm running Ubuntu UNR 9.10

Since I experienced A LOT of other problems with my graphical interface, hotkeys, graphics etc. I then compiled the source a second time using my own config.
I started with the ArchLinux N130 Kernel config and added a couple of modules to it (mostly usb devices). The compilation didn't went too smooth though, I had to change two options (I'm sorry, I forgot which), but then I ended up with a perfectly Ubuntu compatible kernel, without freezes (and incredibly fast). Sadly, I do still have problems with the graphic card (screen blackouts), If you knew how to solve them I would be very pleased!

So, if anybody wants my kernel config or has any questions, I am happy to help.

Good night!

pschwed · 2009-12-18 00:45:32

Oh, something I forgot to mention:

I tried the above mentioned before, but instead of using the git-repo i downloaded a package from SUSE which was labeled as already patched source. Even though there were a lot of nicely organized folders for the patches, most of them were empty. But anyway, the source was already patched, so I compiled it and got normal freezes after returning from suspend as a result. While normal startup, the freeze came up more early and thus wasn't really noticeable since the system was in the process of starting up. It showed up in the kernel log though.
If it wasn't for Svlad Cjelli (or Dirk Gently) I had never continued to investigate this a second time.

So if some of you experience Freezes with SUSE it may be related to this (confusing) experience..

Last edited by pschwed (2009-12-18 00:54:10)

Aedit · 2009-12-18 02:05:04

@pschwed: that's very interesting, thank you for posting here!

Would you mind posting your config and the location of the SuSE source repository you used? If I understood correctly the config is essentially the Arch N130 kernel config from the AUR. I guess the next step is to try to eliminate the irrelevant patches and find the relevant one(s).

If you run the samsung-laptop module with the debug parameter =1 what messages do you see ? I expect the kernel log will show that it is does nothing.

If you run powertop on battery when idle, do you ever see the power consumption drop from ~9W to ~6W ? Or does it stay at >=9W ?

pschwed · 2009-12-18 09:26:18

@Aedit:

powertop tells me that I'm using 6.4W and thus have 6.8h left... I guess that's ok!

I am not familiar with the usage of samsung-laptop, so I'm not sure how to pass the parameter..

As kernel source I used this guide to SUSE-git:
http://en.opensuse.org/Kernel_Git
btw: branch = master
and applied the patches to the basic 2.6.32 (not 2.6.32.1) from http://www.kernel.org
(you will be asked for kernel source while applying the patches...)

I don't have access to my N130 right now, so I'm not able to post the config, I will do that tonight.

Greetings

Aedit · 2009-12-18 12:44:58

pschwed wrote:

powertop tells me that I'm using 6.4W and thus have 6.8h left... I guess that's ok!

Looks good. So we know it did switch to the lower power mode.

pschwed wrote:

I am not familiar with the usage of samsung-laptop, so I'm not sure how to pass the parameter..

OK, it doesn't matter anyway because that repo doesn't seem to have that patch ("lsmod | grep samsung" is empty isn't it?), but in your Ubuntu userland you would do something like this:
cat "options samsung-laptop debug=1" >> /etc/modprobe.d/options
or add "samsung-laptop.debug=1" it to the grub menu.lst kernel command line.

That repo has hundreds of patches, but at least it's a starting point. To find the right one(s) we can either remove patches one-by-one from the SuSE kernel until the problem REappears, or we can add patches one-by-one to the Arch kernel26-n130 kernel until the problem DISappears. Unfortunately I will have no access to my N140 in the near future.

pschwed wrote:

I don't have access to my N130 right now, so I'm not able to post the config, I will do that tonight.

Thanks. Could you also post the output of "dmesg" please, after booting followed by idling for say 10 minutes followed by some disk access
("dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/null count=10000" for example) ?

Last edited by Aedit (2009-12-18 14:08:24)

Arch Linux

#51 2009-12-15 09:55:54

Re: Archlinux on Samsung n130/n140

#52 2009-12-15 12:45:57

Re: Archlinux on Samsung n130/n140

#53 2009-12-15 13:24:08

Re: Archlinux on Samsung n130/n140

#54 2009-12-15 16:01:05

Re: Archlinux on Samsung n130/n140

#55 2009-12-15 16:46:11

Re: Archlinux on Samsung n130/n140

#56 2009-12-15 17:01:36

Re: Archlinux on Samsung n130/n140

#57 2009-12-15 22:20:03

Re: Archlinux on Samsung n130/n140

#58 2009-12-16 06:59:08

Re: Archlinux on Samsung n130/n140

#59 2009-12-16 14:33:26

Re: Archlinux on Samsung n130/n140

#60 2009-12-16 14:47:31

Re: Archlinux on Samsung n130/n140

#61 2009-12-16 15:03:37

Re: Archlinux on Samsung n130/n140

#62 2009-12-17 12:11:46

Re: Archlinux on Samsung n130/n140

#63 2009-12-17 13:08:12

Re: Archlinux on Samsung n130/n140

#64 2009-12-17 13:49:01

Re: Archlinux on Samsung n130/n140

#65 2009-12-17 16:07:14

Re: Archlinux on Samsung n130/n140

#66 2009-12-17 16:39:16

Re: Archlinux on Samsung n130/n140

#67 2009-12-17 16:45:27

Re: Archlinux on Samsung n130/n140

#68 2009-12-17 17:13:07

Re: Archlinux on Samsung n130/n140

#69 2009-12-17 17:22:44

Re: Archlinux on Samsung n130/n140

#70 2009-12-17 21:17:24

Re: Archlinux on Samsung n130/n140

#71 2009-12-18 00:16:01

Re: Archlinux on Samsung n130/n140

#72 2009-12-18 00:45:32

Re: Archlinux on Samsung n130/n140

#73 2009-12-18 02:05:04

Re: Archlinux on Samsung n130/n140

#74 2009-12-18 09:26:18

Re: Archlinux on Samsung n130/n140

#75 2009-12-18 12:44:58

Re: Archlinux on Samsung n130/n140

Board footer