Linux on a Toshiba Satellite 1800-514

by Francesco Salvestrini

Last update: 20/1/2002

Intro:

This Notebook is an european model that has an equivalent american one: Toshiba Satellite 1800-S205.
It is equipped with the following hardware:

Celeron 1 GHz CPU
128 Mb RAM (There are two expansion slots: one is filled with shipped RAM module, one is free. Max installable memory: 512 Mb )
14' LCD TFT display (Max resolution 1024x768, smaller resolution can be centered or stretched in the display)
CD/DVD-ROM
1 HD 15Gb
Touch Pad with 2 Keys (PS/2 mouse compatible)
2 PCMCIA Slots
2 USB ports
1 Video Out (max 65536 colors)
1 TV Out
1 Serial (9 pin)
1 Parallel
1 IRDA
1 Mic in
1 Audio out
1 PS/2 port.

Issuing 'lspci' you'll get this output:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Acer Laboratories Inc. [ALi]: Unknown device 1644 (rev 01)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Acer Laboratories Inc. [ALi] M5247
00:02.0 USB Controller: Acer Laboratories Inc. [ALi] M5237 USB (rev 03)
00:04.0 IDE interface: Acer Laboratories Inc. [ALi] M5229 IDE (rev c3)
00:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: Acer Laboratories Inc. [ALi]: Unknown device 5451 (rev 01)
00:07.0 ISA bridge: Acer Laboratories Inc. [ALi] M1533 PCI to ISA Bridge [Aladdin IV]
00:08.0 Bridge: Acer Laboratories Inc. [ALi] M7101 PMU
00:11.0 CardBus bridge: Toshiba America Info Systems ToPIC95 PCI to Cardbus Bridge with ZV Support (rev 32)
00:11.1 CardBus bridge: Toshiba America Info Systems ToPIC95 PCI to Cardbus Bridge with ZV Support (rev 32)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Trident Microsystems: Unknown device 8820 (rev 82)

Configuration:

Configuration is explained for a Slackware 8.0 distribution but it shouldn't be difficult to let it work with other distributions too. Download kernel 2.4.16 from www.kernel.org or ftp.kernel.org, decompress it and start configuring it (as root...):

$tar -xvzf linux-2.4.16.tar.gz
$cd linux-2.4.16
$make menuconfig

Then follow these directions:

CPU & Fn-Keys
Video
Audio
IDE, CD/DVD-ROM
USB
Modem
Touch-Pad
APM/ACPI
IrDA
AGP
PCMCIA

For the not-so-patient this is my .config file, copy it in /usr/src/linux-2.4.16 or wherever you 2.4.16 kernel is and issue a make menuconfig to adjust it at your liking, then put a floppy in your drive and issue:

$make dep
$make bzdisk
$make modules
$make modules_install

or (equivalent):

$make dep && make bzdisk && make modules && make modules_install

Then reboot. While rebooting press the 'del' key and select 'boot from floppy' then enjoy...

CPU & Fn-keys:

1) Select (Pentium-III/Celeron(Coppermine)) Processor family
2) Select Toshiba Laptop support
3)Disable 'High Memory Support'
4) Enable 'MTRR (Memory Type Range Register) support'
5) Enable 'Local APIC support on uniprocessors'
6) Enable 'IO-APIC support on uniprocessors'

To let the Fn-keys be supported by the kernel:

7) Enable 'Toshiba Laptop support'

To let the Fn-Keys be detected, pass this parameter to the kernel: tosh_fn=0x62

For more information see the Toshiba(tm) Linux Utilities by Jonathan Buzzard.

Video:

This notebook is shipped with a Trident Cyberblade XPAi1 video board. This graphic board has 16 Mb of video RAM shared with the system RAM. RAM size isn't changeable by BIOS.
Trident is not willing to leave technical specification to developers soXFree has no support for it. To let X-Windows works with this notebook you must configure the kernel VESA Framebuffer support and then configure X-Windows to works on it.

Configuring Framebuffer:

To configure Framebuffer you must:

1) Select 'Code maturity level options'
2) Enable 'Prompt for development and/or incomplete code/drivers'
3) Go to 'Console drivers'

Then:

4) Select 'Frame-buffer support'
5) Then select:
'VESA VGA graphic console'
'Virtual Frame Buffer support'
'Advanced low level driver options'
'8 bpp packed pixel support'
'16 bpp packed pixel support'
'24 bpp packed pixel support'
'32 bpp packed pixel support'
'VGA 16-color planar support'
'VGA characters/attributes support'
'Select compiled-in fonts'
'VGA 8x8 font'
'VGA 8x16 font'

Now you'll need to insert one of these lines in your lilo.conf

vga = 791 #1024x768x64k
vga = 790 #1024x768x32k
vga = 773 #1024x768x256
vga = 788 #800x600x64k
vga = 787 #800x600x32k
vga = 771 #800x600x256
vga = 785 #640x480x64k
vga = 784 #640x480x32k
vga = 769 #640x480x256

or pass it as a kernel parameter at boot time as: video=vesa:number

Configuring XFree 4.0.3:

... To be inserted ...

Audio:

The audio chipset is supported by the kernel, to let it work:

1) Go to 'Sound'
2) Enable 'Sound card support'
3) Select 'Trident 4DWave DX/NX, Sis 7018 or ALI 5451 PCI Audio Core'

IDE, CD/DVD-ROM:

The IDE bus and the CD/DVD-ROM are supported by the kernel, to let it work:

1) Select 'ATA/IDE/MFM/RLL support'
2) Enable 'ATA/IDE/MFM/RLL support'
3) Select 'IDE, ATA and ATAPI Block devices'
4) Then enable:
'Enhanced IDE/MFM/RLL disk/cdrom/tapefloppy support'
'Include IDE/ATA-2 DISK support'
'Include IDE/ATAPI CDROM support'
'Generic PCI IDE chipset support'
'Sharing PCI IDE interrupts support'
'Generic PCI bus-master DMA support'
'Use PCI DMA by default when available'
'ALI M15x3 chipset support'

In this way the IDE bus will start at 33Mhz bus frequency. To get the bus working at 66Mhz pass this parameter to the kernel: idebus=66

USB:

This notebook has an OHCI controller that is supported by the kernel, the only thing to do is to compile it in the kernel (as a module or for a monolithic kernel) and it will works fine:

1) Go to USB support
2) Enable 'Support for USB'
3) Enable 'OHCI (Compaq, iMacs, OPTi, Sis, Ali, ...) support'

If you want to see information about your USB devices then:

4) Enable 'Preliminary USB device filesystem'

And insert this line into your /etc/fstab file:

...
/proc/bus/usb /proc/bus/usb usbdevfs defaults,noauto 0 0
...

This will let you issue this command:

$mount /proc/bus/usb

Then you could see your USB bus...

$ls -la /proc/usb/bus

Modem:

This notebook is shipped with a Lucent AMR modem. I got no success with it so if know how to let it work please tell me...
To get information with this thipe of modem see: www.linmodems.org.

Touch-Pad

The touch-pad is manufactured by ALPS, and is a PS/2 device so, to have it supported:

1) Go to 'Character devices'
2) Then go to 'Mice'
3) Select 'Mouse Support (not serial and bus mouse)'
4) Select 'PS/2 mouse (aka "auxiliary device") support'

It will be accessible via /dev/psaux device. If you prefer you could link it to /dev/mouse so:

$ln -s /dev/mouse /dev/psaux

APM/ACPI:

1) Go to 'General setup'
2) Enable 'Power Management support'
3) Enable 'ACPI support'
4) Enable 'ACPI Bus Manager' and 'System', 'Processor', 'Button', 'AC Adapter', 'Embedded Controller', 'Control Method Battery', 'Thermal'
5) Enable 'Advanced Power Management BIOS support'
6) Enable 'Enable console blanking using APM'

IrDA:

... to be inserted ...

AGP:

The AGP bridge isn't fully supported by kernel-2.4.16 so you must:

1) Go to 'Character devices'
2) Enable '/dev/agpgart (AGP support)'
3) Enable 'ALI chipset support'

And pass this parameter to the kernel: agp_try_unsupported=1

PCMCIA:

1) Go to 'General setup'
2) Go to 'PCMCIA/CardBus support'
3) Enable 'PCMCIA/CardBus support'
4) Enable 'i82365 compatible bridge support'

If you want to contact me, write to salvestrini@vizzavi.it or salvestrini@users.sourceforge.net