Debian GNU/Linux on a Compaq Armada e500

I have acquired a second-hand Compaq Armada e500, on which I have installed Debian GNU/Linux sid (aka unstable).

My model came with the following configuration:

• Mobile Pentium III 600 Mhz
• 14″ TFT screen, 1024×768
• 128 MB RAM
• Ati Rage Mobility graphic card
• ESS Maestro 2E Soundcard 16 bit
• 10 GB IBM hard disk
• 24x Atapi CD-ROM
• Floppy drive
• PS/2 touchpad
• 2 PCMCIA slots
• Built-in Intel 10/100 NIC
• Internal Lucent Winmodem
• Ports: PS/2, parallel, serial, USB, IRDA, phone jack for the modem, headphones and microphone, connector for a docking station. External volume keys.
• Intel 440 BX chipset

This was the first time I have set up Linux on a laptop. And this laptop was a quite good choice! I have been greatly helped through Franck Steiger’s website: http://www.bio.ifi.lmu.de/~steiner/linux/. Although this site is a bit outdated, due to the fact that the author has stopped his work on it, you may find valuable information on it, especially concerning the hardware specifications of your laptop.

My aim is not to mirror the previous pages, I just want to share my experience with this laptop and the Debian GNU/Linux distribution. Due to time restrictions, I will not answer e-mail regarding this matter. I am not a Linux “guru”, Google is your best friend

Installing Debian GNU/Linux

I won’t detail Debian installation here, this would be out-of-topic. Please refer to Debian website, that contain a lot of precious information. For French speaking people, I recommend reading carefully Alexis Delattre’s “Formation Linux”, which contains anything you may need to understand what you’re doing when installing Debian. You can find the latest version of this document on: http://people.via.ecp.fr/~alexis/formation-linux. You may also download a zipped PDF version on my ftp server: ftp://ftp.kirya.net/docs_linux/debian/.

I advise you to install the Sarge or even the SID version, with a 2.6 kernel, which would allow you to enjoy all Linux’s multimedia features. Just test the new debian-installer which should be released with Sarge in a few weeks (months?); more information at: http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/.

Hardware details

Output of lspci:

0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX Host bridge (rev 03)
0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX AGP bridge (rev 03)
0000:00:04.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1225 (rev 01)
0000:00:04.1 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1225 (rev 01)
0000:00:07.0 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA (rev 02)
0000:00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01)
0000:00:07.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB (rev 01)
0000:00:07.3 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 03)
0000:00:08.0 Multimedia audio controller: ESS Technology ES1978 Maestro 2E (rev 10)
0000:00:09.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corp. 82557/8/9 [Ethernet Pro 100] (rev 09)
0000:00:09.1 Serial controller: Lucent Microelectronics LT WinModem
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x (rev 64)

Output of lspci -n:

0000:00:00.0 0600: 8086:7190 (rev 03)
0000:00:01.0 0604: 8086:7191 (rev 03)
0000:00:04.0 0607: 104c:ac1c (rev 01)
0000:00:04.1 0607: 104c:ac1c (rev 01)
0000:00:07.0 0680: 8086:7110 (rev 02)
0000:00:07.1 0101: 8086:7111 (rev 01)
0000:00:07.2 0c03: 8086:7112 (rev 01)
0000:00:07.3 0680: 8086:7113 (rev 03)
0000:00:08.0 0401: 125d:1978 (rev 10)
0000:00:09.0 0200: 8086:1229 (rev 09)
0000:00:09.1 0700: 11c1:0445
0000:01:00.0 0300: 1002:4c4d (rev 64)

Kernel and modules configuration

Kernel

The kernel that comes with Debian may be enough for you. However, you have the possibility to tune options in your kernel to improve the performance of your system.
Kernel compilation on the Armada e500 works great, but if you have the possibility using a more powerfull machine to do this, simply use the “Debian way” to compile your custom kernel and make a Debian package with it.

Here is the .config file file I used with the 2.6.14.2 kernel.

Please note I have used vanilla sources from kernel.org.

This configuration allows me to use all Armada e500’s hardware (including irda port, network card etc.).

Ethernet card

The built-in network card is an Intel chip. Just use the eepro100 module to make it work. Note that I have chosen to include support for this card in my kernel configuration. So, if you use it, no need to add this module.
Modem

The internal Internal Lucent Winmodem needs modules to be compiled. You can find the needed sources at: http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/packages/ltmodem/kernel-2.6/.

To compile the modules, you just need to extract the archive you have downloaded, then edit the Makefile to change the KERNEL_DIR := variable to point to the directory where you have the sources of the kernel you are using installed. Then run:

make clean && make

To install the modules, you must be logged in as root:

mkdir /lib/modules/<kernel>/ltmodem-alk
cp -a ltserial.ko ltmodem.ko /lib/modules/<kernel>/ltmodem-alk
depmod -a
modprobe ltserial
modprobe ltmodem

Run lsmod to verify that the modules are loaded. dmesg can be of great help if you have a problem.

To make the modules automatically load at boot time, edit your /etc/modules file and add both modules names.

Please refer to the documentation that comes with the sources for any further details.

Alternatively, you can install “my” source Debian package ltmodem-2.6-source and compile the module using make-kpkg. See http://packages.kirya.net for more information on how to use my repository.

Sound card

There are alsa as well as kernel drivers for the ESS Maestro 2. The kernel driver is loaded with modprobe maestro. The 2.6.x kernel versions come with built-in Alsa support, so this choice will certainly we the best. The external sound function keys work great without the need of any further configuration.
Franck Steiner report the microphone to work. I do not have use of it, but believe him

irda

I personally use my mobile phone modem through irdA to connect to the Internet from anywhere. I own a Sony Ericsson T68, but it should work with your own phone or PDA.
Just install the irda-utils package.

Power management

The armada’s bios can handle both ACPI and APM. I have been using ACPI for a while without any problem, but I noticed that I was unable to resume the computer after sudpending. You should also notice that I have seen in many articles it could simply make the laptop freeze.
Thus, I now use APM, which gives less options, but which handles both suspend and resume (!). Wait mode makes the computer reboot, without any warning message, so I simply disabled this feature, which does not make much sense anyway.

Software configuration

X.org configuration

The video card works fine with Xorg (driver ati).
Here is the Xorg.conf file I use with a French keyboard.
Note that I use the synaptics driver for the touchpad (Debian package name: xfree86-driver-synaptics)

S-video output

I use the program atitvout to activate the S-video output of the laptop under XFree. Debian package is simply atitvout.

atitvout pal
atitvout -f t

I can’t have both the LCD and S-video output active. The S-video cable must be plugged-in during boot time.

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