Ubuntu 7.04 On Gateway MX3215 Laptop How-To
This how-to is a quick guide to getting Ubuntu 7.04 working on a Gateway MX3215 complete with wireless, sound and the Via 3d driver for X. Hey, I'm very much a novice, so there is nothing "professional" to this how-to. Also, note that everything in this how to came from somebody else's work - things I found either in the Ubuntu forums or via a Yahoo search. I never kept track of all the posts/sites I went through, so I'm sorry I cannot directly thank those people - just know the information provided is not original!!
If you plan on keeping Windows and being able to dual boot Windows or Ubuntu, you should be sure that about 35% of your hard drive is free, and defrag the disk under Windows first.
The first thing you will need to do is download the Ubuntu 7.04 LiveCD ISO image, the burn the image to a CD. Remember this is a CD image, so you can't burn it as a data disk, instead look for an option like "burn image" in your burning software.
If you won't have wired access to the internet once Ubuntu boots up, please follow this link and download the wireless driver from Gateway, then burn that to a separate data CD. The link is:
http://support.gateway.com/support/d...1&uid=16644933
You now have what you need to install Ubuntu, so place the LiveCD in your CD drive and reboot your computer - it should come up with a Ubuntu desktop. One of the options on that desktop is "Install" - click on it and the installation process will start.
You will be asked for things like your time zone, your name, computer name, etc., and eventually get to a screen asking about disk usage. If you are comfortable with working with disk partitions, you can select the manual option. Just to make things simple, I click on the top line, which automatically resizes your Windows partition down and uses the new empty space for your Ubuntu installation. After verifying your options, the installation process will begin.
When the installation completes, there will be a window asking if you want to continue running off the LiveCD, or if you want to restart and run your newly installed Ubuntu installation. Click on the restart, and when prompted, remove the CD from the drive and press enter. If you let things default from there, you will boot up you new installation of Ubuntu.
If you try it out a little, there are a few things you will notice:
- your touchpad is set of tapping
- your wireless doesn't work
- your sound doesn't work
- your screen has a strange resolution
Everything except the screen resolution are easy fixes. For the screen resolution, I can't provide instructions for you, just a link to what I used and the warning that go with it.
Getting Broadcom 43xx Wireless Networking To Work
In order to fix these things, it is best to get the wireless working first. If you have your laptop hardwired to a network you will need to do step (A). If you are not hardwired to a network you will need to do step (B).
(A) For those with a hardwired network connection:
- click on the following link and download Gateway's wireless driver package:
http://support.gateway.com/support/d...1&uid=16644933
You will want to save this download to disk. By default, my downloads went to my Desktop, which is fine for now.
(B) For those without a hardwired network connection:
- put the CD in the drive that contains the driver file you burned when first starting this how-to
- click on the file on the CD and copy it then paste it to your Desktop folder
Now resuming instructions for everyone:
On your desktop you should see the Gateway driver file you downloaded. Right click on this file and select open with another program, then select archive manager from the list
Once the archive manager opens, you will see a folder in the Window. Double click on that folder - this will show you the files in the compressed executable file. You only need 2 of the files in that archive:
- find the file "bcmwl5.sys" file. Single click on this file, then click on the "extract" button. It will default again to saving to your desktop - this is fine, just click the "extract" button on the window that popped up.
- repeat the above, but this time find the file "bcmwl5a.inf". Please note there is also a "bcmwl5.inf" file, but we want only the one with the "a" in it.
This step has placed the 2 driver files we need on your desktop.
Now put your LiveCD back in the CD drive. When it is spun up, you will get a window saying "A volume with software packageshas been detected. Would you like to open it with the package manager?" Click on the "Start package manager" button. You will be prompted for the administrators' password - just enter the password you used when you logged on. The Synaptic Package Manager window will open. Click on the "Search" button, then enter "ndiswrapper" in the search string string and click "search". Eventually you will see a list of the packages that have the word "ndiswrapper" either in their title or in the description. In this list, there are 2 files you need:
- locate the package named "ndiswrapper-common" and click on the box so the box has a check mark in it
- locate the package named "ndiswrapper-utils-1.9" and click on the box so the box has a check mark in it
- click the "Apply" button, and this will install the 2 packages. You may be asked if it is okay to use "x" amount of disk space - just answer "y" and press enter.
- when the installation has completed, click on the "X" to close out of the package manager.
This step has installed ndiswrapper and it's utilities, which you need in order to install the wireless driver. This package lets you use Windows wireless driver packages in Linux for wireless cards that aren't supported "right out of the box" by Linux and Ubuntu.
By default, there is a non-functioning version of the driver for the wireless card already in Ubuntu. You may have seen messages for it when you booted that included something about firmware not found for "bcm43xx". Before you can load and actually use ndiswrapper and the correct driver, you have to tell Ubuntu to ignore the default driver. To do this, click on "Applications", move your mouse down to "Accessories", then move your mouse over to "Terminal" and click once. This will open up a terminal window. In this window:
- type "sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist" and press enter (you can copy and paste everything between the quotes if you want to). This will open up an editor window. Scroll down to the very end of that file, press return a couple of times, then type:
# no firmware for default bcm43xx - use ndiswrapper instead
blacklist bcm43xx
then press return a couple of times again. You can copy and paste the 2 lines above if you want to. Click "Save" then close out of the editor window.
For ease, reboot your laptop now. When Ubuntu comes back up, continue with the next steps.
Click "Applications/Accessories/Terminal" again to open a terminal window.
- type "sudo ndiswrapper -i ~/Desktop/bcmwl5a.inf" and press enter.
- type "ndiswrapper -l" (that's a lower case "L") and press enter. The screen should say driver and the device are installed
- type "sudo depmod -a" and press enter. This collects all of the module dependencies needed.
- type "sudo modprobe ndiswrapper" and press enter.
Now check the network icon on your upper taskbar and it should show your available wireless networks. You should be able to click on the wireless network you want to connect to. If that network requires a "key", you will be prompted. Be sure to select the correct type of key, then enter in your key. If all goes as it should, you will then be prompted for a password for a default keyring. What this is is a file that Ubuntu holds the keys for the wireless networks you connect to. Enter in some password you can remember and verify it. I use the same password as I log on with, but if you're concerned about security you may want to come up with a different password. Once you've filled this in you will be prompted for the keyring password when you reboot or change networks.
Assuming everything has worked to this point, you now need to make ndiswrapper run when Ubuntu boots up otherwise your wireless won't work again. To do this:
- type "sudo ndiswrapper -m" and press enter.
You should now have wireless networking working!
Getting Control Of The Touchpad
You can now move on to getting you touchpad working as you want. To do this, you will need to do a couple of things in the terminal window. First you need to download and install the package that lets you configure your touchpad. This package is called "gsynaptics". To do this:
- type "sudo apt-get install gsynaptics" and press enter. Again, it might ask if it is okay to use "x" amount of disk space - just press "y" and then press enter.
When the installation has finished, you next need to tell the x window system that you can use it. To do so:
- type "sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf" and press enter. This is a rather long file with stuff in it that you don't need to worry about for now. Just look for a line that says "Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"". Now move the mouse down to the beginning of the line that says "EndSection" and click at the very front of that line, right before the "E" of "EndSection". Now press enter - this should give you a blank line. In that blank line type:
Option "SHMConfig" "true"
(You can copy and paste the above line). Then save the file and exit.
Now exit the terminal window by typing "exit" and pressing enter.
In order for the changes to the X windows configuration file you just made to take effect, you must restart X windows. There may be other ways, but I do this as I feel it is the safest:
- log out of Ubuntu (don't shutdown or anything, just logout)
- when the log on screen reappears, hold down ctrl alt and press backspace and then let go of the keys. If you edited the file correctly, the screen will blank out, maybe flash a time or 2, then the logon window will reappear. Go ahead and log on now.
To access the configuration utility for the touchpad now, click on "System/Preferences/Touchpad". The "General" tab allows you to enable or disable the entire touchpad. The "Tapping" tab allows you enable or disable the ability to tap on the touchpad instead of clicking a "mouse" button. The "Scrolling" button lets you define how you want the ability to scroll with your touchpad to work.
Okay, you've now got wireless networking to work AND can control your touchpad!2 down with 2 to go. This next one is EASY!
Turning On The Sound
To enable the sound, double click on the speaker on your top menu bar. This will open up the volume control panel. Click on "File", place your mouse over "Change Device" then move over to "Via 8237 (Alsa Mixer)" and double-click. Now click on "Edit", scroll to and click on "Preferences". This will open another small window. Scroll down in that window until you find "External Amplifier" double click it so there is a check mark in the box in front of it, then click "close". You will now be back on the volume control panel. Click on "Switches" then uncheck "External Amplifier" . This seems counter-intuitive to me, but it works! Now just click back on the "Playback" tab and turn all the volumes up all the way. I went ahead and activated all of the controls and max'd out the volume on them all. Now you can just close the volume control window. If you want to test sound, just do the following:
- click on "System/Preferences/Sound"
- the sound preferences window will now open
- click on the "Sounds" tab
- click on the "> Play" button after "Log out" and you should hear sound now
- you can now close the sound preferences window
Okay, so now you've got wireless networking, touchpad control and sound working.
Now before we move on, you should know I'm not that smart. I found all of these things by searching either in the Ubuntu forums or via a Yahoo search. It takes a lot of time and patience, but the answers are out there. I just followed someone else's work - so don't give me any credit!
Video Resolution
Now comes the more difficult of the choices - getting the video resolution you want. You can do this in the xorg.conf file only but you can also install the 2D or 3D drivers from openchrome if you want to.
Using the xorg.conf file only
This option is the easiest to get working, and allows normal video playback, etc.
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- open a terminal window via "Applications/Accessories/Terminal"
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- type "sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf" and press enter
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- press the fine button for the editor, enter "Generic Monitor" in the search for string and click the "find" button. Position your mouse to the end of the line and click, then press the return key to start a new line. Paste in the following These ranges are not accurate for the LCD panel, but since I cannot get a response from Gateway for the valid ones, you have to put these 2 lines in anyway.
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HorizSync 30-96
VertRefresh 30-160
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- press the "find" button for the editor, enter "Default Screen" in the search for string and click the "find" button. Now scroll down just a few lines. You will see lines something like this: Modes "800x600" with maybe some text after the "800x600". What you want to do is completely replace each of these lines (there will be several following) with the following: Modes "1024x768" "800x600"
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- click save and exit the editor
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- log out and wait for the log on screen to appear. Instead of logging on, hold down the crtl alt and backspace keys and then let go. This will reboot the windows manager so the changes will take effect. When the log on screen comes up again just log on and you should be at 1024x768 resolution. I have not gotten any replies from Gateway regarding the valid sync and refresh rates for each resolution. So what that means is that for now you won't be able to successfully change resolution from the default 1024x768.
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Using the openchrome drivers
Be advised that there are a couple of things you need to know regarding the driver:
- I have not been able to run Beryl or Compiz Fusion with it, so if you want desktop effects when you get done you are on your own!
- there is a known bug in the driver that is introduced starting with the 2D driver. I believe it is in one of the packages that is needed. This bug will prevent you from watching a video in such things as the players that show under "Applications/Sound and Video". Someplace along the line it messes up and to actually see the video you have to open 2 of the players and it will play in the 2nd as long as you are trying to play it in the first. This applies to DVD's as well! I have to thank Ubuntu user "tarek" for pointing out the 2 players thing or I would never have video!
Okay, so you really want 2D and 3D drivers loaded?? I direct you to the following......follow it very carefully, and expect an abort as noted in the 3D section. Follow the link it gives, then go back and finish up. Here's a link to read first:
http://wiki.openchrome.org/tikiwiki/...isplay+drivers
Still want the drivers? Follow this link:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/OpenChrome
I hope this helps someone. If you find an error please let me know!!
By the way, if you decide to run a virtual machine to run Windows in Linux, I would suggest you use VMWare Server - it's free and it works great. Just be sure you do 3 things:
- set your mouse to type "ps/2" and the device to "psaux"
- for ease, set the network type to "NAT". You may need to add a network device in the virtual machine setup to use the wireless
- you may need to edit the .vmx file that defines the virtual machine and change the line that say something like "scsi0 = enabled" to scsi0 = disabled" in order to boot Windows in the virtual machine.
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