Samsung series 9

[sloosley]

Forgive me, please, I'm not trying to hijack the thread, but I've been following this thread, since I'm wanting to pull the trigger on a new Samsung Series 9 13 inch laptop.

I'd be curious to know how everyone likes their new machines. How does it stack up? Is it meeting your expectations? Thanks!!

[coleman_ian]

I've spent a while messing around with Natty on the Samsung 9 Series and wanted to share my experiences here. I am focusing on Kubuntu 32bit 11.04 in this write-up.

I've tried a variety of installations, both 32 and 64 bit, 10.04, 10.10 and 11.04, ubuntu and kubuntu, none of which worked perfectly out of the box (wireless being the main problem). I also tried Fedora and CrunchBang but Ubuntu offered the best out-of-box experience.

I noticed that installing from my USB CD drive I had to plug the data line into the right USB port and the power line into the left, which is apparently to do with the left USB being USB3.0.

My issues are:

- Wireless was not working at all (although it worked in ubuntu 11.04 32bit, but for some reason did not detect my wireless network even though it detected other wireless networks in the area). Strangely, wireless worked on the kubuntu live disc but not on my install.
- Keyboard backlight adjustment does not work. (Fn F7/F8 )
- Sleep function when closing the laptop lid - the laptop did not wake up and required a hard-shutdown. When I open the laptop lid, the blue power LED is fading in and out, presumably indicating sleep mode. I press the power button and the LED goes solid blue, but the screen and keyboard backlights remain off, and the harddisk LED goes on for about half a second then remains off. From here I must hard-shutdown (push the power button for five seconds).
-wireless on/off keyboard function key does nothing (Fn F12) but turning wireless off in network manager does work.

Things that worked straight away:
-accurate display resolution (did not work on 10.04, stuck in 1024 x 768 )
-sound
-screen brightness adjustment keyboard function keys (Fn F2/F3)
-volume adjustment keyboard function keys (Fn F10/F11)
-volum mute keyboard function key (Fn F9)
-trackpad on/off keyboard function key (Fn F5)
-wired ethernet connection
-mouse vertical scrolling on the trackpad
-webcam (tested by opening video settings in kopete, and it worked straight up)
-bluetooth (tested with HTC Desire, worked perfectly)
-headphones jack

Things I have not yet tested (I'm sure there are more):
-USB 3.0 speeds
-HDMI output
-64bit 11.04 distros

If anyone wants me to do some tests please feel free to ask and I will do my best to provide info. Overall support for this laptop by ubuntu out of the box is very good. But wireless is the big killer for me so any help with that is much appreciated.



MY ATTEMPTS TO FIX WIRELESS SO FAR:
any help fixing this is much appreciated

The samsung 9 series laptop uses the Broadcom BCM43225 device, which is listed in the broadcom-STA-common package (which is not installed by default and I do not install it). On a fresh install, wireless was not working at all. I managed to get the wireless card to detect wireless networks in Kubuntu using the info earlier in this topic. I ran the command

sudo apt-get --reinstall install bcmwl-kernel-source

and this enabled me to see wireless networks, which I could not see with a fresh install. However it did not detect all the networks in the area, and my network was one that was not detected. To try to fix this I removed the version of bcmwl-kernel-source and downloaded an older version of bcmwl-kernel-source from

http://packages.ubuntu.com/maverick/bcmwl-kernel-source

and installed it by double clicking the downloaded deb package. This 'fix' was from http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1700897&page=2

Unfortunately there was no difference running the maverick version. My network still did not show up. I also tried the lucid version but the install caused crashing so I replaced them with the natty version again.

The networks that are currently detected are all about 20-35% strength and have a variety of security (WPA-PSK and WEP).

My network is detected and I can connect to it with Kubuntu 10.04 32bit installed and with bcmwl-kernel-source reinstalled.

I have a Dlink DIR-855 router which I doubt is the problem since every other device (including three desktops with wireless cards, four laptops and four mobile phones) works fine with that router. The network is not hidden.

Any suggestions of how to investigate this problem would be most welcome, as a laptop without wireless network is pretty-much pointless.

The output of lshw -C network is

*-network
description: Wireless interface
product: BCM43225 802.11b/g/n
vendor: Broadcom Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
logical name: wlan0
version: 01
serial: 00:1b:b1:28:33:16
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=brcm80211 driverversion=2.6.38-8-generic-pae firmware=N/A latency=0 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn
resources: irq:16 memory:c0600000-c0603fff
*-network
description: Ethernet interface
product: RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller
vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
logical name: eth0
version: 06
serial: e8:11:32:45:7e:1d
size: 100Mbit/s
capacity: 1Gbit/s
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=full ip=192.168.2.198 latency=0 multicast=yes port=MII speed=100Mbit/s
resources: irq:40 ioport:2000(size=256) memory:c0404000-c0404fff memory:c0400000-c0403fff

[b16a2smith]

I've spent a while messing around with Natty on the Samsung 9 Series and wanted to share my experiences here. I am focusing on Kubuntu 32bit 11.04 in this write-up.

I've tried a variety of installations, both 32 and 64 bit, 10.04, 10.10 and 11.04, ubuntu and kubuntu, none of which worked perfectly out of the box (wireless being the main problem). I also tried Fedora and CrunchBang but Ubuntu offered the best out-of-box experience.

I noticed that installing from my USB CD drive I had to plug the data line into the right USB port and the power line into the left, which is apparently to do with the left USB being USB3.0.

My issues are:

- Wireless was not working at all (although it worked in ubuntu 11.04 32bit, but for some reason did not detect my wireless network even though it detected other wireless networks in the area). Strangely, wireless worked on the kubuntu live disc but not on my install.
- Keyboard backlight adjustment does not work. (Fn F7/F8 )
- Sleep function when closing the laptop lid - the laptop did not wake up and required a hard-shutdown. When I open the laptop lid, the blue power LED is fading in and out, presumably indicating sleep mode. I press the power button and the LED goes solid blue, but the screen and keyboard backlights remain off, and the harddisk LED goes on for about half a second then remains off. From here I must hard-shutdown (push the power button for five seconds).
-wireless on/off keyboard function key does nothing (Fn F12) but turning wireless off in network manager does work.

Things that worked straight away:
-accurate display resolution (did not work on 10.04, stuck in 1024 x 768 )
-sound
-screen brightness adjustment keyboard function keys (Fn F2/F3)
-volume adjustment keyboard function keys (Fn F10/F11)
-volum mute keyboard function key (Fn F9)
-trackpad on/off keyboard function key (Fn F5)
-wired ethernet connection
-mouse vertical scrolling on the trackpad
-webcam (tested by opening video settings in kopete, and it worked straight up)
-bluetooth (tested with HTC Desire, worked perfectly)
-headphones jack

Things I have not yet tested (I'm sure there are more):
-USB 3.0 speeds
-HDMI output
-64bit 11.04 distros

If anyone wants me to do some tests please feel free to ask and I will do my best to provide info. Overall support for this laptop by ubuntu out of the box is very good. But wireless is the big killer for me so any help with that is much appreciated.



MY ATTEMPTS TO FIX WIRELESS SO FAR:
any help fixing this is much appreciated

The samsung 9 series laptop uses the Broadcom BCM43225 device, which is listed in the broadcom-STA-common package (which is not installed by default and I do not install it). On a fresh install, wireless was not working at all. I managed to get the wireless card to detect wireless networks in Kubuntu using the info earlier in this topic. I ran the command

sudo apt-get --reinstall install bcmwl-kernel-source

and this enabled me to see wireless networks, which I could not see with a fresh install. However it did not detect all the networks in the area, and my network was one that was not detected. To try to fix this I removed the version of bcmwl-kernel-source and downloaded an older version of bcmwl-kernel-source from

http://packages.ubuntu.com/maverick/bcmwl-kernel-source

and installed it by double clicking the downloaded deb package. This 'fix' was from http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1700897&page=2

Unfortunately there was no difference running the maverick version. My network still did not show up. I also tried the lucid version but the install caused crashing so I replaced them with the natty version again.

The networks that are currently detected are all about 20-35% strength and have a variety of security (WPA-PSK and WEP).

My network is detected and I can connect to it with Kubuntu 10.04 32bit installed and with bcmwl-kernel-source reinstalled.

I have a Dlink DIR-855 router which I doubt is the problem since every other device (including three desktops with wireless cards, four laptops and four mobile phones) works fine with that router. The network is not hidden.

Any suggestions of how to investigate this problem would be most welcome, as a laptop without wireless network is pretty-much pointless.

Man, That is so unfortunate, I am using the last beta they had, also the thing is, I have tried and tried

 sudo update-manager -d

and I get nothing. But as for wireless everything is working. Not to insult your intelligence but are you checkign the additional drivers in the system menu?

[b16a2smith]

Ladies and gentlemen, also pleas read this:

I installed Maverick Meerkat first and did a distro upgrade and EVERYTHING except the few Fn keys works. Try that, The natty installer I was having issues with GRUB, so please try that I bet it helps.

[coleman_ian]

b16a2smith, I had installed the additional drivers, with no success.

I have installed Kubuntu 10.1032bit and after running

sudo apt-get --reinstall install bcmwl-kernel-source

my wireless network is detected and working.

Now I'm upgrading to Natty 11.04, hopefully the wireless will remain working.

Thanks so much for the suggestion of upgrading from 10.10, it seems to have been the solution I needed.

Edit:
After the upgrade the wireless card was no longer recognising my network.

Edit 2:
After more experimentation, I have found that the wireless stopped working after upgrade on Kubuntu, however on Ubuntu my wireless continued to work.

Many thanks b16a2smith. Strange the difference between KDE and Gnome, I suspect it's something to do with the network manager, but am satisfied enough to use Gnome for now.

[b16a2smith]

b16a2smith, I had installed the additional drivers, with no success.

I have installed Kubuntu 10.1032bit and after running

sudo apt-get --reinstall install bcmwl-kernel-source

my wireless network is detected and working.

Now I'm upgrading to Natty 11.04, hopefully the wireless will remain working.

Thanks so much for the suggestion of upgrading from 10.10, it seems to have been the solution I needed.

Edit:
After the upgrade the wireless card was no longer recognising my network.

64 bit?

[davisford]

natty 64-bit desktop on this laptop. installed via usb 2.0 port. created an installer usb HDD with the iso. tweaked the bios to boot from usb HDD, and it worked right out of the box.

i blew away the whole disk. if i want windows, i'll run it in virtual box. if i need to restore it, they provided me with a system restore dvd, but i have no interest in dual-booting anything.

enable two finger scroll in System Preferences -> Mouse

I just turned on compiz but haven't really tested it yet. The broadcom restricted network driver is enabled. wi-fi no problem.

Can't move windows though -- if i grab the title bar of a window and try to drag it, it doesn't work. going to mess with it some more to see if i can figure out why.

haven't tried all the function keys yet, but i love the size and feel of this thing.

----------- edit

ok, i've played around with it a bit. camera works ok - tried it with skype video. audio ok, but not with skype...not sure why. skype app complains about pulse audio, but if i just play some tunes embedded in a website it sounds fine. probably just have to tweak skype settings.

compiz/unity -- new facelift in 11.04 is...buggy. some nice stuff, some annoying stuff. my biggest issue with respect to this laptop in particular is the touchpad. i haven't had an issue with two-finger scroll or secondary click if you configure these in the Mouse settings UI. my issue is still that i can't click-drag a window by it's title bar. it doesn't work. i get around it by double-click the title bar, and dragging...which is actually a little more fluid, but still it bothers me that click-drag doesn't work. every place you expect to use click-drag doesn't work (e.g. corner of a window to re-size). again, you can get around it with double-click drag.

Function keys aren't mapped as far as i can tell (brightness, volume, etc.) The OS handles brightness levels perfectly for me, tho. 15 seconds w/o activity and the screen starts to fade to save battery. quick swipe and it is back to full brightness. i don't think it uses ambient light sensor -- doesn't seem to or i don't have it configured.

SSD is awesome -- boots to desktop in like 15 seconds

haven't tried HDMI port yet. USB is fine. programmed an arduino through it.

[hleinone]

audio ok, but not with skype...not sure why. skype app complains about pulse audio, but if i just play some tunes embedded in a website it sounds fine. probably just have to tweak skype settings.

For me Skype audio worked out-of-the-box...

Function keys aren't mapped as far as i can tell (brightness, volume, etc.) The OS handles brightness levels perfectly for me, tho. 15 seconds w/o activity and the screen starts to fade to save battery. quick swipe and it is back to full brightness. i don't think it uses ambient light sensor -- doesn't seem to or i don't have it configured.

...and also sound, brightness and toggle touchpad shortcuts. Keyboard backlight is always on though, and its brightness controls are not functional.

I have found double-click drag good enough for my dragging purposes.

[blueyed]

I had to "apt-get install --reinstall bcmwl-kernel-source" myself.

When trying to only remove it I've run into:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...wl/+bug/776439

Jockey ("restricted drivers installation") failed with something about a blacklisted module in the log.

There are quite a lot bugs for the bcmwl package, see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bcmwl .

[b16a2smith]

Well my trackpad crapped on me. I had to return it and just went with a 2011 MBP 13", no problems with Natty so far except wireless. But the good news is I am happy with the hardware.