Vlogcanic

The Hardware.

Th Sager NP8550P laptop is a repackaged Clevo 8500 which was in turn a machine picked up from Kapok. The very same machine was available under other brands and model numbers (ProStar, Metrobook). The motherboard in the 8500 series was also used in the 8600 and 8700 series –but it was reviewed several times in order to allow for faster CPU’s. It was available in many different configurations, here’s mine:

• CPU: Pentium III MMX 500 Mhz
• RAM: 256 MB
• Sound: ES1978 Maestro 2E
• Video: ATI Rage LT Pro AGP-133
• DVD-ROM: Torisan DVD-ROM DRD-U624, 8x max.
• HDD: Toshiba MK1011 GAV, 10GB.
• Trackpad: Alps GlidePoint Trackpad
• Various other devices such as: USB Ports, Wirefire port, Cardbus ports and controllers, etc.
• Kernel version: 2.6.17

All of the listed software works perfectly under Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft without any additional installation setup or tweaking.

Please note that this is a very old system dating back to the times when no modem, ethernet or wireless devices were included in motherboards –you’ll need a Cardbus or USB device to do that trick, more on that later.

Why move this laptop to Linux and why use Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft?

I got a bit fed up with Windows on this machine. There’s no way around antivirus software under Windows anymore which means that an old system like this will end up using a huge chunk of its resources just to keep the antivirus going and those are all resources you can’t use for yourself, so I decided it was time to move to Linux.

I wanted a distro light enough to run properly in my laptop and to perform basic desktop and multimedia tasks. I tried a bunch of LiveCD distros and narrowed my choices down to Ubuntu 6.06 and Ubuntu 6.10 because while they are not the lightest distros in existence they were light enough to use, they had a convenient set of features and their hardware recognition was just very good –all the hardware got recognized.

In the end I chose Edgy Eft because it is a little bit more efficient and responsive than Dapper Drake (6.06) .

Ubuntu is probably the easiest distro to get a hold of nowadays, all you need to do is to go to the distro homepage and find the get Ubuntu webpage. One click, and that’s it.

Note: I chose Edgy Eft because it has a better performance but the difference, while noticeable, is not dramatical. Since Dapper Drake (version 6.06) is a LTS release (which means it will supported longer, until 2009) you could also use it in this machine. The hardware recognition works just fine and most of the stuff in this post applies to Dapper Drake as well.

The installation process is graphical, fast, painless and straightforward. No hardware tweaks needed for the native hardware. You just boot from your LiveCD, start your session and click on the install icon on the desktop. Since there’s no root user in Ubuntu be sure to remember the user you’ll be asked to create while installing –that’s the guy who will have the root’s password you’ll keep needing

External hardware and power management.

• Battery: mine’s been dead for years now, so I removed it as it adds quite a bit of weight. In consequence I can’t tell you how Ubuntu sees it.
• Power management: as a proud owner of a Sager NP8550P you probably already know that cooling fan triggering has never been its greatest strength in any OS. Most Windows versions only trigger the fan if the CPU is already hot before booting. The good news with Ubuntu is that both versions do trigger the cooling fan when they are supposed to but not with the right rotation speed so the heatsink warms up anyway. I tried to fix it by disabling the acpi modules in favor of apm modules by changing the kernel’s boot parameters and it didn’t fix the problem despite the fact that it made a bit of a difference. The way to go here is to disable all power saving options directly from the BIOS –that will keep your computer cool, your sessions long and your system from becoming jumpy and unstable.
• Network Connection: as I noted earlier, there are no modems, network cards nor any way to connect to a network or the web without external devices. I am currently using a USB WiFi wireless adapter Encore ENUWI-G2 (chipset is Ralink RT73). As it’s well known, Linux and WiFi are not yet a marriage made in heaven, but I managed to make it work –in a limited way. The kernel can find a native module for this chipset but it doesn’t work so I had to blacklist said module and install a Win98 driver with NDISWrapper. This allows me to associate with open access points and to the internet, but I still can’t make it get along with encrypted connections.
  • Update (10-Oct): I have the WiFi usb adapter up and fully running now. The trick was installing the RutilT gadget. All the details are in here.
• 100MB zip drive: the NP8550P is able to accept a 100MB zip drive into the floppy disk module. It needs to be enabled through the BIOS. I don’t use it at all anymore as USB flash drives do the same and some better tricks so I don’t know how it works under Ubuntu. I’ll try it and update some time soon.

Overall performance under Ubuntu Edgy Eft.

Edgy Eft works well with this laptop once you disable power savings from the BIOS. It’s quite acceptable for desktop tasks (browsing the web, word processing, multimedia playback etc.) and every piece of internal hardware is working properly with native kernel modules –which means you don’t have to do anything but install normally.

However, you will soon find that you need an internet connection in order to install things as codecs and multimedia support because most of the software in the LiveCD is aimed to provide hardware support, some essential Linux apps (terminal, sys administration etc) and desktop applications (including OpenOffice 2.0). I’ll update with links to posts explaining how to install things as a useful ftp client, codecs, players and some other things.

Here’s the bottom line: I think it’s been a good move to put Ubuntu in this laptop. Everything I’ve tried so far (but the WiFi) is working better than it used to under other operating systems and the change has restored much usability to a very old machine. It’s basically back from the dead. However, I think a lighter distro could make things even better so I’ll keep looking for one that works with this hardware.

Stay tuned.

Xorg.conf

Here’s the verbatim xorg.conf file generated by Ubuntu, for those who are interested in it.

# /etc/X11/xorg.conf (xorg X Window System server configuration file)## This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using

# values from the debconf database.

#

# Edit this file with caution, and see the /etc/X11/xorg.conf manual page.

# (Type "man /etc/X11/xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)

#

# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*

# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg

# package.

#

# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated

# again, run the following command:

#   sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorgSection "Files"

FontPath	"/usr/share/X11/fonts/misc"

FontPath	"/usr/share/X11/fonts/cyrillic"

FontPath	"/usr/share/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"

FontPath	"/usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"

FontPath	"/usr/share/X11/fonts/Type1"

FontPath	"/usr/share/X11/fonts/100dpi"

FontPath	"/usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi"

FontPath	"/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc"

# path to defoma fonts

FontPath	"/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"

EndSection

Section "Module"

Load	"i2c"

Load	"bitmap"

Load	"ddc"

Load	"dri"

Load	"extmod"

Load	"freetype"

Load	"glx"

Load	"int10"

Load	"type1"

Load	"vbe"

EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

Identifier	"Generic Keyboard"

Driver		"kbd"

Option		"CoreKeyboard"

Option		"XkbRules"	"xorg"

Option		"XkbModel"	"pc105"

Option		"XkbLayout"	"us"

Option		"XkbOptions"	"lv3:ralt_switch"

EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

Identifier	"Configured Mouse"

Driver		"mouse"

Option		"CorePointer"

Option		"Device"		"/dev/input/mice"

Option		"Protocol"		"ExplorerPS/2"

Option		"ZAxisMapping"		"4 5"

Option		"Emulate3Buttons"	"true"

EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

Driver        "wacom"

Identifier    "stylus"

Option        "Device"        "/dev/wacom"          # Change to

# /dev/input/event

# for USB

Option        "Type"          "stylus"

Option        "ForceDevice"   "ISDV4"               # Tablet PC ONLY

EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

Driver        "wacom"

Identifier    "eraser"

Option        "Device"        "/dev/wacom"          # Change to

# /dev/input/event

# for USB

Option        "Type"          "eraser"

Option        "ForceDevice"   "ISDV4"               # Tablet PC ONLY

EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

Driver        "wacom"

Identifier    "cursor"

Option        "Device"        "/dev/wacom"          # Change to

# /dev/input/event

# for USB

Option        "Type"          "cursor"

Option        "ForceDevice"   "ISDV4"               # Tablet PC ONLY

EndSection

Section "Device"

Identifier	"ATI Technologies, Inc. 3D Rage LT Pro AGP-133"

Driver		"ati"

BusID		"PCI:1:0:0"

EndSection

Section "Monitor"

Identifier	"Generic Monitor"

Option		"DPMS"

HorizSync	28-51

VertRefresh	43-60

EndSection

Section "Screen"

Identifier	"Default Screen"

Device		"ATI Technologies, Inc. 3D Rage LT Pro AGP-133"

Monitor		"Generic Monitor"

DefaultDepth	24

SubSection "Display"

Depth		1

Modes		"1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"

EndSubSection

SubSection "Display"

Depth		4

Modes		"1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"

EndSubSection

SubSection "Display"

Depth		8

Modes		"1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"

EndSubSection

SubSection "Display"

Depth		15

Modes		"1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"

EndSubSection

SubSection "Display"

Depth		16

Modes		"1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"

EndSubSection

SubSection "Display"

Depth		24

Modes		"1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"

EndSubSection

EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"

Identifier	"Default Layout"

Screen		"Default Screen"

InputDevice	"Generic Keyboard"

InputDevice	"Configured Mouse"

InputDevice     "stylus" "SendCoreEvents"

InputDevice     "cursor" "SendCoreEvents"

InputDevice     "eraser" "SendCoreEvents"

EndSection

Section "DRI"

Mode	0666

EndSection