Kilrathi's
Gentoo on a Dell Latitude C600 NotesLast updated: 12/04/2004
My Guide | Kilrathi's Guide | Others
These are some install notes from
another Gentoo user, Kilrathi, who wanted to add to this guide. If you have any questions
about his guide, please contact him at kilrathi at gmail dot com. This
directory is dedicated to his contributions. If you would like to contribute, please
contact me: roop dot singh at this domain. Kilrathi's notes: Revisited Install notes
Don't use genkernel. When beginning the install with the Gentoo Live CD
use the nodma option as it can cause problems with the hdd. For the
install guide use the Quick Install guide and if you find something lacking
explanation then try the Full install guides on the Gentoo site or on the CD.
The first thing to do is set the root password with "passwd". My method
uses 3 of the virtual consoles. The first console for the Live CD. The second
for the chrooted install and the 3rd for IRC #Gentoo channel on
freenode.net will be a handy place to hang out. In the first console you might
want to start an SSH daemon so you can move elsewhere and "shell into" the
laptop to check on things. Screen is also a great tool to learn in this respect.
VIDEO_CARDS="Rage128" must be in your make.conf.
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-x86-quickinstall.xml I used states its
use is for emerge xfree-drm. Xorg has x11-drm if you wish. The Rage 128 in the
C600 should be an 8mb card which has 3D Direct Rendering and acceleration via
OpenGL. Only emerge x11-drm if your using 2.4 kernels, DRI/DRM is built into the
2.6 kernels. Also looking at my Xorg.conf file you'll
note that I use 1024x768 for the resolution and a depth of 16. The screen that I
have maxes out at 1024x768 on Windows and Linux, and OpenGL 3D DRI won't work
with a depth higher than 16. Trust me you won't want for more that. You can use
my Xorg.conf for an Xfree setup you just have to change the names for mouse and
keyboard drivers. If all goes well you can check it out this way. Start X and
open a term
type "glxinfo | head" You'll see a line "direct rendering: Yes",
if you do it worked. I prefer the 2.6 kernels so if it doesn't work for me I
check my kernel build options until it does.
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/dri-howto.xml Touchpad
http://www.tuxmobil.com/touchpad_driver.html.
Power Notes
Don't use ACPI unless you've upgraded your bios. APM is best. Set the suspend to
disk option in your 2.6 kernel this will dump memory and disk IO to your swap
partition. Also in 2.6 set "Dell Laptop support" as a module. Build the kernel
and emerge "i8kutils", this will add support for the volume keys and the fans
and as hot as this laptop gets you'll be thankful for it. I use the gkrellm
plugin "i8krellm" to control the fans. To set up the modules to load open "/etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6
or 2.4" in your editor of choice and add the name of the modules. I have "3c59x"
for the nic "r128" for the video card, which isn't needed because its loaded by
X anyway
"snd-maestro3" the alsa module for the soundcard and "i8k" for the Dell laptop
support needed by i8kutils.
Other Tweaks
You'll need to add certain options to your "/etc/rc.conf" like your logging
daemon, domainname, i8k utils and such you'll see that notice come up after an
emerge so I leave that to you to figure out. I'm still working on getting the
TV-out to work but its a no go at this time. Also in "/etc/rc.conf" you can
change the console font and the default editor in case "nano" isn't for you. Use
my configs as a base and hack on them as you please.
Happy Hacking
-Kd
kilrathi at gmail dot com
xorg.conf
Sample XF86CONF modified from
2.6 .config
make.conf
i8k.config
http://ingo.exphysik.uni-leipzig.de/~useidel/dell_linux/index.htm