[ubuntu netbook remix] Setup Guide:- Toshiba Dynabook UX/ NB200 / NB205

[Ultim8Fury]

So you have a Toshiba NB200 / Dynabook UX / NB205. Some things don't work out of the box in Jaunty UNR 9.04. The following guide should help get as much as possible up and working. I'll try to keep it up to date.

WiFi -

First and foremost if you want WiFi to work in Linux the DO NOT turn it off in Windows. A mistake I made and have learnt from. Turning off the WiFi in Windows will disable the WiFi in Linux, completely. The best you can hope for then is that the interface shows up in ifconfig. It will not broadcast or detect any signals. You can ensure it's on by the presense of the the WiFi LED on the front of the machine.

Making WiFi work once activated is simply a matter of

sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-jaunty

Congratulations you've made WiFi work.


Sound -

This being linux there are, as always, many paths to the same destination, configuring sound is no exception.

The Easy and Partial Method.

The NB200 contains a Realtek ALC272 chip apparently this chip can be configured in many, many ways. The good news, the chip is supported in Linux by the ALSA drivers, the not so good news is that in UNR 9.04 the best you can currently hope for is headphone audio only. If you're willing to live without the latest software, apparently audio works fine in 8.04. Since the internal speakers on the NB200 are completely crap anyway, personally I'd rather have 9.04 and headphones.

update to the latest (1.0.20 ) Alsa drivers.

add the following repository to your sources.

https://launchpad.net/~rlinfati/+archive/ppa

Instructions for how to add the PPA are listed on the site so I won't go over them here. Using your favourite package manager perform the update or from the command line.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

When complete, edit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf using your favourite editor. Addthe following line to the bottom

options snd-hda-intel model=asus-mode4

adjust the levels in alsamixer and reboot. Plug in some headphones or external speakers and you're good to go.

Advanced but Complete Method

This method has been pointed out as fully working and will give speaker output, it is however significantly more involved and to my mind the speaker output just isn't worth the effort. However, for those that are willing to tinker, there is a detailed help tutorial here. The general gist of it though it to remove the pulseaudio sound sever and the ALSA drivers and run on the OSS driver with the esound server instead.

Video Playback Performance -

During playback of videos I noticed tearing of the material. After a little hunting I found that the problem is known about and fixed in the latest stable xorg release.

Add the following PPA

https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat/+archive/x-updates

As above update your package list and upgrade a quick reboot and video is crisp and smooth.

update:: further reading on video performance in intel based systems


Touchpad -

I couldn't seem to get the settings right on this for a few days, it was too sensitive and yet strangely sluggish at the same time. A bit of searching turned up the attached touchpad.fdi file.

Download the attached file touchpad.fdi.gz and unzip it. As root copy the file to where it belongs and reboot.

sudo cp touchpad.fdi /etc/hal/fdi/policy/

after the reboot

apt-get install gsynaptics

this program allows more complete setup of the touchpad than the included application but it requires the first step be performed before it will run. Something to do with SHMConfig option in the fdi file. I don't really understand it but I don't need to in order to know it made an appreciable difference.


Bluetooth -

Unknown, I don't think it works but I don't know enough about using bluetooth under Linux to make a comment.

Hibernate -

Suspend works from the moment the install is completed, however hibernate doesn't and whilst it's less used it's still nice to know it's there.

First you need to install uswsusp

sudo apt-get install uswsusp

This package give you access to two userspace utilities which allow suspend to disk and suspend to RAM. Since suspend to RAM works natively anyway I won't cover installing that portion however if you follow the link in the credits section it will take you to a tutorial covering that part.

Begin by backing up the Ubuntu default script for hibernation so that in the event everything goes wrong you can restore it.

sudo cp /usr/lib/hal/scripts/linux/hal-system-power-hibernate-linux /usr/lib/hal/scripts/linux/hal-system-power-hibernate-linux.bak

Then using your favourite text editor delete the contents of the file and replace it with

#!/bin/sh
/usr/sbin/s2disk

save the file and exit.

Find out where your swap partition is kept.

cat /etc/fstab

Note the line which tells you. Mine is /dev/sda6 yours may or may not be the same it depends on how you've partitioned your drive.

edit the grub menu to include the resume partition so that everything comes back the way it should.

sudo jed /etc/grub/menu.lst

( where jed is my favourite editor )

add the line

resume=/dev/sda6

where, as stated above sda6 is your swap partition. Save the file and exit.

sudo update-grub

and you're done.



Internal G-Sensors -

Fairly sure these don't work but I understandably didn't want to try too hard to crash the heads on my HDD. Under Windows they require a Toshiba supplied driver to function so it's safe to say that they probably don't work yet under Linux.


My only remaining issue that bugs me a little. Is that if I'm downloading something sizable and don't touch the laptop at all for a few seconds it seemingly freezes until you move the touchpad. The length of time is not fixed it could be 3 minutes it could be 3 seconds. But it won't do anything until you move the mouse. Very strange and I'm sure there must be a power management setting somewhere that's linked to inactivity but I've checked all the obvious ones and they made no difference.


At this point everything else should work as far as I can see.


Credits

Credit is due to the following people and websites who have both intentionally and unintentionally aided in the building of this guide.

Yorkzhang for the ALSA sound solution
Harty83 for the OSS and Hibernate solutions.
http://tjmcgrew.com/ - For WiFi solution
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/OpenSound - For OSS setup guide
http://jrobbo.com/blog/?p=37 - for Hibernate

[dimeotane]

If you think your webcam video is looking choppy, make sure you have enough bright light, to avoid getting slow frame rates.

If that doesn't solve the issue you may wish to try changing gstreamer-properties video output

see here: http://live.gnome.org/Cheese/FAQ#hea...7cf78ce00b2802

[harty83]

We've been discussing similar things here. You can get basic sound working via OSS but as pointed out, the speakers suck by nature so don't expect much when you get it working

I couldn't get hibernate working out of the box for the nb205 and had to use s2disk which works beautifully (and much quicker) than the standard.

I would love for someone to figure out how to get bluetooth working!!

Thanks,
Alan

[Ultim8Fury]

do you mind if I add the hibernate tip to my list ? I kinda want it to be a one-stop setup thread.

[harty83]

Originally Posted by Ultim8Fury do you mind if I add the hibernate tip to my list ? I kinda want it to be a one-stop setup thread.

Please do! You are welcome to put the OSS work around as well if you want.

Thanks,
Alan

[calibre97]

Heads up: Wifi still not working using Linux Mint 7 (based on Ubuntu 9.04). I've completely updated the system and installed the backports AND installed WiCD. At no step has wireless worked. Period. Granted, that's with Mint 7. Since I've got XP working fine on mine, I'll go ahead and try your setup guide using straight Ubuntu.

[solidus126]

Hello all,

A bit back I was working on documentation for setting up the NB205 with UNR. I started a (rather plain) wiki page on the Ubuntu documentation wiki directory:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupp...s/ToshibaNB205

It is fairly sparse at the moment, and I would love to see more edits made to it as time is a little lacking on my part. I personally have not tested hibernate, bluetooth, full speaker support, and etc.

I hope that the visibility of the wiki will make the information even easier to access for those in need, and it is in fairly good need of more edits from those who have tried the tweaks I have not.

Happy computing,

-solidus126

[harty83]

Just as a fyi for jaunty, uswsusp installs s2disk, etc in /usr/sbin rather than /sbin.

Thanks,
Alan

[phi.schmidt]

Thanks for these fantastic instructions! Worked perfectly for me. I have two remaining issues, and hope someone can help me. I suspect the issue is related to the NB200, but if it needs to be moved into a different thread, I'd kindly ask one of the admins to do so.

* Skype Audio: I can't get skype audio to work. Unfortunately most of my colleagues use skype extensively, and this is a crucial feature for me. In Options -> Sound Devices, I can see my headset is recognised. It lets me choose:

Sennheiser USB Headset (hw:Headset,0)
... or
Sennheiser USB Headset (plughw:Headset,0)

as Sound In, Sound Out, or Other Sound device, but I can't hear anything on the headphones. I did test general audio with the headset before - and can listen to audio.

I am not sure what information to post here in order to make it easier for others to troubleshoot, so please let me know how to find the information you would need to help.

* Less important: Video playback of youtube videos in Firefox is still very very choppy. If I download the files, I can play them at good quality using the standard Totem Movie Player 2.26.1 (Movie Player using GStreamer 0.10.22)

Thanks for any ideas, pointers, comments!

P

[Nick255]

Have you checked to see if the 2.6.30.3 kernel packages at http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa...ine/v2.6.30.3/ fix the issues with the wifi card not working if it is shut off in Windows? It might also help with the sound issue.