jordswart.org

Alright, I’ve done it. Have been playing around with Feisty and got it all to work on my precious Dell D830. I had a lot of problems with Feisty (you will find the links on the left) so when Gutsy came out I hoped everything would be fixed (it did have the new intel drivers).

Well I was wrong. The problems with Gutsy on my Dell are just too big. My wireless is failing all the time. Compiz doesn’t really work (applets don’t start, settings are not saved). Too much to tell.

So I did it, I switched to hardy. Better to have an unstable release that kinda works than a stable release that just kinda doesn’t work. At least now I know I can’t blame anyone. So as time will pass I will post some updates about my experiences with Hardy.

A couple of weeks ago, I got a new Laptop for work: a Dell D830 with Santa Rosa Chipset. A nice machine, but it couldn’t run Kubuntu with Beryl and all the nice graphics features I use to make Vista look pale.

To solve the issue I backported a couple of packages from gutsy to feisty (all amd64) and stored the debs in a repository. You can read all about it here. The page features a description on how to build the packages. It also has the link to connect to the repository.

Getting video to work
In kaffeine go to Settings->Xine Engine Parameters. Then select video and xshm from the dropdown list. Same trick should be available in other players as well.

Getting the cdrom to work
Out of the box Feisty will not interact with the cdrom. To fix this do the following:
$ sudo modprobe -v ide-generic
To make sure you don’t always have to modprobe yourself edit your /etc/modules files and append the following line:
ide-generic
You also want DMA access for your drive. Too bad it won’t work. Theoretically it should work like this:
hdparm -d 1 /dev/hda
But that line produces an error on my machine. Seems to have to do with the ICH7 (Intel Chipset). We probably need to wait until this gets fixed in the kernel.

You need to tell the kernel to use libata for atapi. Since Ubuntu uses initrd during boot the following will ensure this (please note, adding this as a kernel boot option will not work):
$ sudo -i
# echo "libata atapi_enabled=1" >> /etc/initramfs-tools/modules
# update-initramfs -u

Now make sure the piix module is loaded on boot:
# echo "piix" >> /etc/modules
# exit

In case you still have “ide-generic” in your /etc/modules it might be a good idea to remove that line.

Now edit your /etc/hdparm.conf file, find the section describing /dev/hda and remove the remarks. It should then say:
/dev/hda {
mult_sect_io = 16
write_cache = off
dma = on
}

Other options are ok as well. Now reboot and things should be working. Test with:
$ hdparm /dev/hda

Install some extra tools to make live easier
ksynaptics: an applet to modify the settings of the touchpad (use gsynaptics if you are on Gnome)
$ sudo aptitude install ksynaptics

arno-iptables-firewall: a very easy to configure firewall script(!). It automatically protects all my network cards (eth1 and eth0), something I haven’t been able to set up with most of the GUI tools out there.

The configuration file can be found in /etc/arno-iptables-firewall/firewall.conf. If you sepcify eth0 and eth1 as external connection cards and don’t specify any internal ones, nothing can go wrong (well, ok, it is a firewall, so yes you can render your machine unusable). Don’t forget to open the ports you want open to the rest of the world.
$ sudo aptitude install arno-iptables-firewall

Start Beryl as a KDM session
Create the following file /usr/bin/startberyl.sh with the following contents:
#!/bin/sh
export KDEWM="/usr/bin/beryl-manager"
exec startkde

Save the file and make it executable:
chmod +x /usr/bin/startberyl.sh

Create the file /usr/share/xsessions/Beryl.desktop with the following contents:
[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Beryl
Exec=/usr/bin/startberyl.sh
Icon=
Type=Application

Save the file. Next time kdm is started you will have the possibility to start a “Beryl” session. This way one can switch between a normal KDE session and a beryl session upon login.

Install flash for Firefox (64 bit) and konqueror
This information is from this website. The site describes how to install flash for Firefox using nspluginwrapper. Since everything is described very well there, I am not going to copy it here.

One remark though. The howto instructs the following:
$ cd ~/.mozilla/plugins

That didn’t work for me, I had to execute the following:
$ cd /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins

Back to main page.

Since information on Google seems to be a bit hard to get and I wanted a central point for all the information, here it is.

Please note:
This information modifies files on your computer. After modification your computer may not work anymore which may result in loss of data. If this, or worse, happens don’t complain, you have been warned.

(K)ubuntu version
The question is what to use for this installation. My personal choice is to use Kubuntu. So everything here has only been tested with that particular distribution. Since nothing I have done has anything to do with either KDE or GNOME, everything should apply to all variations of ubuntu.

The second question was, what version should I use. Gutsy has the advantage that it supports OpenGL 3D effect (screensavers, beryl and Google Dekstop) out of the box. Feisty will freeze if you run those applications. But Gutsy still is very unstable and has a lot of issues. So I went with Feisty and decided to do some backports of the important packages.

Last but not least I asked myself the question whether it should be a 64 bit or a 32 bit installation. Since I have a 64 bit machine it didn’t make sense to me to go with a 32 bit installation. If you have a 32 bit installation, please refer to Ross Burton’s blog for ready compiled packages. This howto will describe how to build the 64 bit packages. It should work for 32 bit as well, but since you can just download them I don’t think you would like to do that.

Now without further delay, here comes the howto install Feisty 64 bit on a Dell Latitude D830 with Intel GPU and all the 3D graphics you could ever dream of.

Installing (K)ubuntu
To install (K)ubuntu on the DELL Latitude D830 forget about all fancy graphical interfaces. You will have to use the text installation provided by the alternate CD, so download that one. I went for the AMD64 distribution, but you might as well go for the 32 bit one, since that will save you some compatibility problems. Then again, why buy a 64 bit machine if you are not going to use it…

Getting X to work
After the installation is done and you reboot the machine you will be prompted by a nice command prompt. Since the cdrom will not function correctly there are a few steps you will have to execute:
Open the file /etc/apt/sources.list and remark the first line, listing your Feisty CD as an installation source. Then install all updates for feisty:
$ sudo aptitude update
$ sudo aptitude dist-upgrade

and install the xserver-xorg-video-intel package by typing
$ sudo aptitude install xserver-xorg-video-intel

Then open your xorg.conf and change the device from vesa to intel. After this change save the file and restart kdm. Things should be better. If restarting kdm doesn’t work, try rebooting the pc.

X is a little bit blurry
No it is not you, you do not need any glasses. After starting X everything will look a bit blurred. We will fix that issue later when we update the intel driver. So for now, you just have to live with it.

Getting the latest intel drivers
The default intel GPU drivers in feisty will freeze your pc as soon as OpenGL is running (Beryl, Google Earth) so these need to be updated. This is probably the hardest part of the installation since it involves updating parts of your x-server installation. I did warn you about blowing up your laptop, didn’t I?

You can achieve this in two ways. The first way would be to install gutsy packages on feisty. This can be achieved by using a debian process called pinning, which involves making changes to your apt.conf. More information can be found here. This is a very easy and very quick process, but it will also upgrade your libc6.

Since I think one should only upgrade the packages really needed, I decided to compile the packages needed for my libc6. This also makes sure that other packages depending on that library will not run into conflicts.

For the update I followed the following procedure:

Open your /etc/apt/sources.list and append the following line (make sure you use your own mirror location):
deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy main restricted

Save the file and execute:
$ sudo aptitude update

Make a root directory for your sources:
$ mkdir ~/xorg

Install the dependencies needed to build everything:
$ sudo aptitude install fakeroot dpkg-dev
$ sudo apt-get build-dep mesa
$ sudo apt-get build-dep libdrm2

Install the libxdamage packages
$ mkdir ~/xorg/libxdamage
$ cd ~/xorg/libxdamage
$ apt-get source libxdamage
$ cd libxdamage-1.1.1
$ dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -b
$ cd ..
$ sudo dpkg -i libxdamage1_1.1.1-3_amd64.deb libxdamage-dev_1.1.1-3_amd64.deb

Install the mesa packages
$ mkdir ~/xorg/mesa
$ cd ~/xorg/mesa
$ apt-get source mesa
$ cd mesa-7.0.0/
$ dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -b
$ cd ..
$ sudo dpkg -i mesa-swx11-source_7.0.0-0ubuntu2_all.deb mesa-common-dev_7.0.0-0ubuntu2_all.deb libgl1-mesa-dev_7.0.0-0ubuntu2_all.deb libgl1-mesa-dri_7.0.0-0ubuntu2_amd64.deb libgl1-mesa-glx_7.0.0-0ubuntu2_amd64.deb libglu1-mesa_7.0.0-0ubuntu2_amd64.deb mesa-utils_7.0.0-0ubuntu2_amd64.deb

Install the libdrm2 packages
$ mkdir ~/xorg/libdrm2
$ cd ~/xorg/libdrm2
$ apt-get source libdrm2
$ cd libdrm-2.3.0/
$ dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -b
$ cd ..
$ sudo dpkg -i libdrm-dev_2.3.0-4_amd64.deb libdrm2_2.3.0-4_amd64.deb

Install the x11proto-print-dev packages
$ mkdir ~/xorg/x11proto-print-dev
$ cd ~/xorg/x11proto-print-dev
$ apt-get source x11proto-print-dev
$ cd x11proto-print-1.0.3.xsf1/
$ dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -b
$ cd ..
$ sudo dpkg -i x11proto-print-dev_1.0.3.xsf1-1_all.deb

install the xorg-server packages
$ sudo apt-get build-dep xorg-server
$ mkdir ~/xorg/xorg-server
$ cd ~/xorg/xorg-server
$ apt-get source xorg-server
$ cd xorg-server-1.3.0.0.dfsg/
$ dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -b
$ cd ..
$ sudo dpkg -i xnest_1.3.0.0.dfsg-6ubuntu3_amd64.deb xprint_1.3.0.0.dfsg-6ubuntu3_amd64.deb xprint-common_1.3.0.0.dfsg-6ubuntu3_all.deb xserver-xorg-core_1.3.0.0.dfsg-6ubuntu3_amd64.deb xserver-xorg-dev_1.3.0.0.dfsg-6ubuntu3_amd64.deb

Install the xorg-server-video-intel packages
$ sudo apt-get build-dep xserver-xorg-video-intel
$ mkdir ~/xorg/xserver-xorg-video-intel
$ cd ~/xorg/xserver-xorg-video-intel
$ apt-get source xserver-xorg-video-intel
$ cd xserver-xorg-video-intel-2.1.0/

The following is no longer needed with the 2.1.0 driver
This is where we patch the driver to be less blurry. If you like the blurry effect, please skip this part.
$ vim src/i830_lvds.c

Find the following line (line number 230):
pfit_control = (PFIT_ENABLE |
VERT_AUTO_SCALE | HORIZ_AUTO_SCALE |
VERT_INTERP_BILINEAR | HORIZ_INTERP_BILINEAR);

And replace it with the following:
pfit_control = 0;

Save the file (:x). And continue the installation.

$ dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -b
$ cd ..
$ sudo dpkg -i xserver-xorg-video-intel_2.1.0-1ubuntu2_amd64.deb

Edit your /etc/apt/source.list again and remove (remark) the gutsy line we added above.

Now reboot and see if X is still running… if not you are in deep trouble.

Installing Beryl
Installing beryl is easy. Just type:

$ sudo aptidute install beryl beryl-manager

Then start it by typing beryl-manager in a konsole

Using my repository
I just setup a repository with the above packages as debs. Please note that I am on a limited download rate, so if you want to install them on a 1000 machines, please setup your own mirror. Please note all packages are amd64!

To use the repository, you should add the following to your /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://ubuntu.jordswart.org feisty backports

You will also need to add my key to your list of trusted keys:

wget http://ubuntu.jordswart.org/falcon.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -