Dell Inspiron 1720

[ChickenWing88]

my mac book recently suffered a untimely death, so to day i started looking for FreeBSD compatible 386 lap top computer and found out that The dell Inspiron 1720 (http://laptop.bsdgroup.de/freebsd/index.html?action=show_laptop_detail&laptop=12834) was compatible.

Are there any known gotchas with freebsd 8.o on the aforementioned model in the Inspiron n ote book series?

[Maxamoto]

So I can only assume most of that works in 7.2 would also work in 8x branches. Said assumption takes into consideration things are known to break.

This laptop was a challenge with the 6x series, but 7x has only made it more tempting for me to nuke the WinXP partition forever. Just can't seem to rid myself of my UT3 addiction. That said, my 1720 has a 256MB Nvidia 8600M, 3GB RAM (with 4, X would never start. Limitations of x86 arch, I've been told), 500GB SATA drive, and so on. Funny thing with this laptop: Vista won't install with Flash Cache enabled in the BIOS. FreeBSD and XP have no issues with whatever "Flash Cache" is. Not that I would ever curse this beautiful laptop with Vista, anyway. Or 7, for that matter.

Here's my kernel config:


cpu I686_CPU
ident corben

makeoptions COPTFLAGS="-O2 -pipe -funroll-loops -ffast-math"

options SCHED_ULE
options PREEMPTION
options INET
options INET6
options SCTP
options FFS
options SOFTUPDATES
options UFS_ACL
options UFS_DIRHASH
options UFS_GJOURNAL
options MD_ROOT
options NFSCLIENT
options NFSSERVER
options NFSLOCKD
options NFS_ROOT
options MSDOSFS
options CD9660
options PROCFS
options PSEUDOFS
options GEOM_PART_GPT
options GEOM_LABEL
options COMPAT_43TTY
options COMPAT_FREEBSD4
options COMPAT_FREEBSD5
options COMPAT_FREEBSD6
options KTRACE
options STACK
options SYSVSHM
options SYSVMSG
options SYSVSEM
options _KPOSIX_PRIORITY_SCHEDULING
options KBD_INSTALL_CDEV
options ADAPTIVE_GIANT
options STOP_NMI
options AUDIT

# To make an SMP kernel, the next two lines are needed
options SMP # Symmetric MultiProcessor Kernel
device apic # I/O APIC

# CPU frequency control
device cpufreq

# Bus support.
device eisa
device pci

# ATA and ATAPI devices
device ata
device atadisk
device ataraid
device atapicd
device atapifd
device atapist
options ATA_STATIC_ID

# SCSI peripherals
device scbus
device ch
device da
device sa
device cd
device pass
device ses

# atkbdc0 controls both the keyboard and the PS/2 mouse
device atkbdc
device atkbd
device psm
device kbdmux
device vga
device splash

# syscons is the default console driver, resembling an SCO console
device sc

device agp

# Add suspend/resume support for the i8254.
device pmtimer

# PCCARD (PCMCIA) support
# PCMCIA and cardbus bridge support
device cbb
device pccard
device cardbus

# Serial (COM) ports
device sio
device uart

# Parallel port
device ppc
device ppbus
device lpt
device plip
device ppi

# PCI Ethernet NICs that use the common MII bus controller code.
# NOTE: Be sure to keep the 'device miibus' line in order to use these NICs!
device miibus
device bfe

# Wireless NIC cards
device wlan
device wlan_wep
device wlan_ccmp
device wlan_tkip
device wlan_amrr
device wlan_scan_ap
device wlan_scan_sta

# Pseudo devices.
device loop
device random
device ether
device sl
device ppp
device tun
device pty
device md
device gif
device faith
device firmware

# The `bpf' device enables the Berkeley Packet Filter.
# Be aware of the administrative consequences of enabling this!
# Note that 'bpf' is required for DHCP.
device bpf

# USB support
device uhci
device ohci
device ehci
device usb
device ugen
device uhid
device ukbd
device ulpt
device umass
device ums
device urio
device uscanner
device ucom
device uark
device ubsa
device ubser
device uftdi
device uipaq
device uplcom
device uslcom
device uvisor
device uvscom

# FireWire support
device firewire
device sbp
device fwe
device fwip
device dcons
device dcons_crom

# Sound Support
device sound
device snd_hda


And my xorg.conf:

# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig: version 1.0 (buildmeister@builder65) Thu Apr 16 19:28:41 PDT 2009


Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Layout0"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Files"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/misc/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic/"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/TTF/"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "dbe"
Load "extmod"
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

# generated from default
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/sysmouse"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

# generated from default
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "keyboard"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "Unknown"
HorizSync 28.0 - 33.0
VertRefresh 43.0 - 72.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
VideoRam 256000
Option "RenderAccel" "True"
Option "UseFBDev" "True"
Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "True"
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
Option "NoRenderExtension" "False"
Option "NoFlip" "False"
Option "UseEdid" "True"
Option "NvAGP" "1"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Device0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True" # Added
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection


# I added this
Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection




And the /boot/loader.conf:

if_wpi_load="YES"
wlan_load="YES"
wlan_amrr_load="YES"
firmware_load="YES"
wpifw_load="YES"
legal.intel_wpi.license_ack=1
nvidia_load="YES"
linux_load="YES"
kern.maxdsiz="734003200"


And of course, the /etc/rc.conf:

font8x14="NO"
font8x16="NO"
font8x8="NO"
keyrate="fast"
gnome_enable="YES"
dbus_enable="YES"
hald_enable="YES"

ifconfig_wpi0="DHCP"

linux_enable="YES"


I use a simple script in rc.d to connect to my wireless. Yes, I know the AP is in the script, and I don't care. I'm a soldier stationed in Iraq, and if you want to go through the trouble of coming over here to hack it, more power to you ;)

ifconfig wpi0 ssid "iConnet-P105L9"

make it executable, and dhcp in rc.conf will take care of the rest. Nice thing is, the wireless switch on the left side of the laptop actually works, as does the WiFi LED light on the right side of the number pad.

The only thing I haven't gotten to work on this thing are the built-in webcam and the SD card reader. But I suppose I really haven't tried that hard. If I really, really must see my wife and daughters back in Germany, I can head down to the MWR for a free video teleconference session. Now that I think of it, I believe I did get the webcam working with the help of qemu a while back. But that's not the same as native support.

Sound was a little tricky. had to add hint.pcm.0.config="gpio1" to device.hints. and then run "mixer vol 100" to actually hear anything. A pleasant change from 7.0 and 7.1 to 7.2 was that the snd_HDA driver actually mutes the speakers when you plug in headphones. I suppose if the driver hasn't been totally rewritten in 8 you could expect the same behavior.

Video support with the Nvidia driver from ports renders a luscious desktop with Gnome + compiz. Crashes every now and then, but I'm known for pushing this thing pretty hard and compiz has never been known to be rock solid. Video performance has been excellent overall.

Feel free to ask me as many questions about this laptop as you can think of. Keep in mind though, I don't track the 8 branch. I'm not that daring, and all it does is piss the forum moderators off with all the questions it generates. If the guys who made the OS say 7.2 is stable for everyday use, then I'll take their word for it.

[gnemmi]

There's something I'd like to know, does ACPI work for you?

I specially interested on s3 and s4 (suspend to ram and suspen to disk).

Thanks for you informative post

Regards

[Maxamoto]

Haven't been brave enough to try it :P

Give me a day or two to test it and I will get back to you. Right now I'm running portupgrade -aRr, and I'm sure you know how long that can take...

[gnemmi]

Sure thing !
Take your time mate !

Regards :)

[Maxamoto]

Okay, here's my findings:

added "device acpi" to kernel config, recompiled, rebooted. From Gnome, opened term and changed hw.acpi.lid_switch_state=s4 and closed the lid. Crash, crash, crash. No dump, just a reboot. I don't believe this model supports S4BIOS, but I think I saw a knob for it that I might try when I feel a little more comfortable with it. It might produce different results...

However, hw.acpi.lid_switch_state=s3 rendered a nicely suspended-to-RAM system that sat there, patiently waiting for me to open the lid. When I opened the lid, it continued to sit there, looking at me. I hit the power button. X crashed and dumped me to a login term, but I think with some fiddling it might actually work the way it was supposed to (meaning, bring back the state it was in when I closed the lid, with Gnome running and so on). For what it's worth, hitting the sleep button on this lappy also produced the exact same effect with the same X crash upon resume. So, looks like suspend-to-RAM needs to be done from a term environment. Hope this helps!

[gnemmi]

Thanks for the reply !
Pretty informative ...

So, basically, ACPI on the Dell Inspiron 1720 is just as hosed as on the Dell Inspiron 1318 :/

I wonder if it throws a "Fatal trap 9" if you boot it up without ACPI ...

Best Regards