Gateway M275 with Ubuntu Hardy Heron (8.04.1)

[PBrn46]

Hi Scott,

I've had problems on my M275 from 8.04 all the way back. There were shutdown issues (won't fully shut down until I press power), startup issues (takes 1 full day to start up), and many more.

I have hit-and-miss chances when it comes to installing Ubuntu (I've tried installing it into this computer for a long time now). At the end, Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) worked out the best. There were no startup or shutdown issues. The only problem I am facing is the use of video playback while I have Compiz Fusion (Advanced Desktop Effects) running. The video card is fairly old, and didn't work so well in Windows anyways, so every time I want to playback video I just turn off my desktop effects.

For your Windows problems, the laptop actually ships with Windows XP Tablet PC Edition (which I suspect is XP Pro with some extra tablet features). I'm not sure whether that would be the cause of all your tablet issues. I have the original driver CD's that's shipped with my (two) M275's, both for the Tablet PC Edition.

-Bo

[MGaddict2000]

Are you saying you got 8.10 installed on an M275? From all the threads I've looked at it seems people couldn't get the CD to even boot up, myself included. Did you have to change a setting in the startup?

[PBrn46]

I didn't have to change any settings for the 8.10 CD to boot. The bios settings were very simple in the machine also, so I don't remember changing anything there. Although, in my experience of installing Ubuntu on any machine, there were some times where I have to change some bios settings to match.

I had troubles partitioning with earlier versions though, it was a little buggy. I usually ended up erasing the entire thing and only having Ubuntu installed.

[newfangled]

Just want to say thanks very much for this thread. I picked up one of these laptops, and this has been very helpful.

I actually was able to install Intrepid without any problems. I don't have the newest bios, if that makes a difference. I think I've got 48.03.01 (but don't feel like restarting to check), just went with the defaults, and I have no way to upgrade it regardless.

This is my first attempt to put ubuntu on a laptop, so I've got a few questions:

For screen rotation using the intel driver, what needs to be done to also rotate the touchpad/stylus? Is the guide that was posted earlier for the Thinkpad X61 the best place for that?

Has anyone had success with the bezel buttons? My brightness button does work within ubuntu. I'm not sure what it's supposed to do, but in ubuntu it cycles through three settings - high, high and low? None of the others seem to register at all though. The quicklaunch buttons do register, but that's not much help when it's folded over.

And has anyone tweaked their harddrive powersave/access settings? I find that the drive clicks on fairly frequently, even when I'm not doing anything. There's a tonne of information out there about laptop harddrive settings, and I'm currently wading through it. Just wondering if anyone else has settings they like.

When I shut the laptop down it seems to work fine. There are no errors, only the battery light is on, it will boot back up with no problems, and everything looks good. There's still a quiet hum though, which might be from the harddrive? If I unplug the AC adapter it goes away. I've never seen a laptop do that before, so is that normal, or is ubuntu confused and this is part of the larger shutdown problems? I've had ubuntu on desktops before and have had no end of problems with shutdown/hibernate/suspend. Here, it looks like everything works fine...except for the hum.

I also find that the laptop case gets pretty warm. My fan is almost never on, and from some playing around Gkrellm it looks like the fan only kicks in when the cpu temp hits 60C. So presumably it knows what it's doing, and it doesn't look like it's possible to control the M275's fan speed through lm-sensors. Just wondering if anyone else has done any investigations?

Thanks again.

[newfangled]

Just in response to my own thread, I did get the rotation of the screen and tablet working by following some of the other threads about the thinkpads. It went so much smoother than I expected.

I also installed easystroke for mousegestures when in tablet mode. I preferred it to brightside or gestikk.

Have played around with laptops-tools, although not enough to really know if it's had an effect on harddrive access.

Anyone else having the heating problem though? I really am surprised how warm the case gets. And I'd love to have the ability to manually ramp up the fan.

[PBrn46]

Don't worry about the heating problems as it isn't a problem. The tablet was originally designed to be that hot, since it was designed close to when the Centrino processors were first released. Under Windows and Linux it is the same. There are no software and bios controls for the system fan, and it is indeed controlled by the hardware only.

It wouldn't harm the processor or most other parts (I believe the processor is rated at over boiling temperatures). The only downside is that the heat will degrade the battery overtime. I have two batteries, one is running at 48% efficiency the other at 55%.

Cooling pads might help. =D

-Bo

[newfangled]

Thanks PBrn46. That's good to know.

What about the not-quite-shutdown? Is that normal too? Other notebooks I've had are dead silent when they're shutdown. This one's definitely doing something, though. Is that normal?

(oh, and ubuntu thinks I have 19min of battery, although I haven't done a calibration yet. Battery is not a huge issue since the machine is mostly going to be an ebook reader, and for websurfing while on the couch)

[PBrn46]

If the AC adapter isn't plugged in, it shouldn't make any noise at all after shutdown. In my experience with earlier versions of Ubuntu I would not be able to shut down fully (the screen would go black, but I have to force the shut down -- power light was still on though). I haven't had any power issues in 8.10 though.

[newfangled]

I don't know if anyone else has this problem (or which ubuntu versions it affects) but I found that the brightness settings weren't very useful. I had either low (which was too low for most circumstances) or high (which is brighter than needed, and tends to make the bezel warm).

After some searching I found this:
http://www.ubuntu1501.com/2007/12/ba...tness-fix.html

There are few suggestions in there, but the one I went with was posted by d00d:

1. backup /etc/acpi/video_brightnessup.sh
and /etc/acpi/video_brightnessdown.sh

2. sudo gedit the first one

3. replace everything in it with...

And then there's a script.

Under Intrepid this lets the backlight be set from 0 up to 100. The brightness applet still doesn't work, but the above link also has a replacement that I haven't tried.

[newfangled]

^ after thinking a little bit more about that brightness script above, I'm pretty sure that it doesn't actually do anything. Maybe I'd only tried Fn+F8, and not actually FN+the arrow keys? Whoops. So it can be ignored.

I did write up a script to control the fan speeds though. Not sure if this will be useful for anyone else, but battery and noise aren't huge concerns for me, and sometimes I'd prefer if the laptop was cool to the touch. This goes from no fan, to Fan0, to Fan0&1, back to no fan:

#!/bin/sh

fan0status=$(grep "status:" /proc/acpi/fan/FAN0/state |awk '{print $2}')
fan1status=$(grep "status:" /proc/acpi/fan/FAN1/state |awk '{print $2}')

case "$fan0status" in

off)
echo -n 0 > /proc/acpi/fan/FAN0/state
;;

on)
case "$fan1status" in

on)
echo -n 3 > /proc/acpi/fan/FAN0/state
echo -n 3 > /proc/acpi/fan/FAN1/state
;;

off)
echo -n 0 > /proc/acpi/fan/FAN0/state
echo -n 0 > /proc/acpi/fan/FAN1/state
;;
esac
;;
esac

To make this work without entering a password you do have to edit the sudoers file. My laptop is pretty secure and unimportant, but ymmv. There are instruction here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=140696