A friend of mine recently bought a brand new Fujitsu Siemens AMILO M1437G featuring a ATI MOBILITY RADEON X700 and a 15.4″ WXGA display with a resolution of 1280×800.
After hours of trying different stuff, we finally managed to install Ubuntu 5.10 (The Breezy Badger Release).
The first think, we noticed, was, that the installed system won’t boot, it always hang during Starting hotplug subsystem… (the same thing happend with the live-cd).
Obviously, the driver for the Intel sound-chip caused the kernel to crash. We followed the instructions found at the Ubuntu Forums and made the system boot:
When GRUB comes up, press e to edit the boot-line that normal would start e.g.
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.12-10-386 root=/dev/sda1 ro quiet splash
to
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.12-10-386 root=/dev/sda1 rw init=/bin/bash
Then press b to boot with this settings. You will end in a root shell where you can add the intel driver files to the hotplug blacklist using nano or another text editor:
nano /etc/hotplug/blacklist
Simply add snd_hda_intel and snd_hda_codec to the end of this file (each in a new line). Save and close the editor, then reboot.
As the changes we made to GRUB were only temporary, your Ubuntu installation should now boot up fine and finish the installation.
After the installation went on fine, X failed to come up, so we installed the fglrx driver using another how-to from the Ubuntu Forums. After that, we had a running X, but we couldn’t switch to 1280×800 (which is said to be a bug in version 8.16.20) so we had to install the latest driver manually.
Luckily, we found another how-to, which helped us to get along with this. But life would be too easy, if this would have worked out of box. Instead of putting the .deb-files into the desired folder, they somehow stuck in /tmp, but after finding them there, the rest was quite trivial.
After X was now running on 1280×800, we only needed to make the sound working. The driver for the Realtek ACL880 can be found at the Realtek homepage after unpacking this archive, you’ll find an install script in the folder. Before running this, you propably have to install libncurses5-dev. Then type
./install
and wait, until the alsa config tool loads. If the test sound is played ok, everything is fine. The only thing, that’s left to do, is to remove the intel driver from the hotplug blacklist, now using gedit (as X is running):
sudo gedit /etc/hotplug/blacklist
and remove the lines with snd_hda_intel and snd_hda_codec we had added to make the system boot.
Now you’re AMILO should boot-up fine with your Ubuntu installation, sound and X working all fine.
did you manage to get the sound control button(sorry i’m not english and can’t find the word for this) located on the left to change sound level ?
I think you mean the volume-wheel located next to the dvd-drive (I’m not a negative speaker, either)?
We noticed, that I didn’t worked out-of-the-box, but it was already 01:00 a.m. so we decided to try this another time…
You could try to type xev in a terminal and then “move” the wheel. If this leads to a “KeyPress event” in the output, it*s possible to make it work within few minutes.
If your German is better than your English, you’re welcome to write in German, too.
Yes i mean the volume-wheel, xev didn’t show anything when moving the wheel so the problem must be deeper.
Sorry i don’t speak German at all but french if you can.
Hello,
I tried to install Ubuntu on my M1437G last night.
Your post helped me to pass the sound driver matters.
But I failed to have X to come-up (I tried with the link you give but it doesn’t work fine and I have no time to read through the 21 pages topic).
Could you detailed (as you did for sound driver matter) the way you’ve passed the X launch matter ?
Thank you !
@FTK:
I don’t have my friend’s amilo here, so I cann’t try around with that better. Perhaps it is an ACPI problem, but maybe the Kernel simply doesn’t support this wheel. You could ask for assistance at http://www.amilo-forum.de/forum,16,-Linux.html (in English).
@Franck:
We basically followed the instructions that can be found here: (read the warning!):
here we had to cd /tmp, but perhabs it works for you without…
Cheers Folks!
I’ve been playing with hoary and breezy on 1437g for several months now. I have it up and working with Breezy now (Hoary was fine too).
My tips, based on what I have found in several sources:
SOUND:
follow this how-to: http://doc.ubuntu-fr.org/materiel/chipset_intel_hda_realtek
Re-building the Ubuntu alsa-source and installing the deb it produces is enough. No need to use the plain source. Only the bloody volume wheel still doesn’t work, shame…
VIDEO:
1. Get X to work first (1280×800 too) – modify xorg.conf:
default driver “ati” is for some reason wrong, use:
Driver “radeon”
to be able to see something more besides the infinite blackness:
Option “MonitorLayout” “LVDS,AUTO”
to enable X11/XShm/Xv video output:
Option “VideoOverlay” “On”
2. now to get ATI 3D accel, with suport for 1280×800, use the Falcon’s “drivers” repo http://seveas.theplayboymansion.net/seveas
which contains an up-to-date precomplied breezy fglrx driver
DVD:
In the end of /etc/hdparm.conf add:
/dev/hda {
dma = on
}
OTHER HARDWARE
You might be getting pcmcia oops, see into /var/log/.
I don’t how serious those were, but removing all pcmcia-related packages “fixed” that. Anyway, 1437g doesn’t have pcmcia but expresscard. Are pcmcia drivers supposed to support it? I have no idea, but I don’t need my expresscard as for now. However it would good to know what’s up here. Anydody?
SOFTWARE:
1. The breezy-backport D4X 2.5.6 is crashing. Force downgrading to 2.5.0.
2. totem-gstreamer is no good for me – sluggish and problematic. Installing totem-xine fixed this.
3. When building custom kernel modeules make sure you use gcc 3.4, not the default 4.0 – Ubuntu kernel is built with 3.4, see /proc/version! You can safely accomplish this by managing symlinks to cc, c++, gcc, g++ and cpp in /etc/alternatives and /usr/bin.
NOW MY BIG PROBLEM:
How to enable the built-in card reader? I really need to read SD cards from time to time. And I have to run, yuck, windows for that. Any chances to enable it in Breezy?
Let’s stick together 🙂 ! I’m really glad I found this site. G’luck with your 1437g’s.
Maciek
Perhaps this is working with the 1437g, i’ll try to test this with my Inspiron and perhaps with the amilo the next time my friend is around…
Thanks for the link Martin. I’ll give it a try when time allows and will report back.
I`m really glad I found this site, I would have never managed to get Ubuntu running nice&smooth without your help. Thanks! 🙂
I managed to get my Inspiron’s SD-card reader running, read here.
Hi guys,
no problem with WLAN ?
I do not manage to get the IntelPro / Wireless 2200 BG to work
Any hint is appreciated,
Michael
Problems with extern hard-disk (USB)
Salut,
has anyone other problems with an extern hard disk? Mine doesn’t work. During installation of linux (Mandriva 2006) it is displayed as “sda”, so hardisk would be “sdb”. But I restarted and installed linux with the extern disk plugged off. Consequently my (local) hard disk is “sda”. Now, when I plug on the usb disk, nothing is displayed! Other devices, like USB-stick (mp3) do work fine!
Any ideas? Thank you very much!!! (Please protect me of being dependend on MS!!)
Sp:ctas
@Michael: Have you tried the howto posted at the Ubuntu Forums? Take exactly the same versions and this should work!
@Spectas: what does dmesg say after plugging the usb disk?
Hmm..
actually I didn’t change anything, but now I can mount my sdb (usb disk). Great. But while trying to use skype I realized a problem with my soundcard – /dev/dsp works fine for music/videos etc, BUT:
the mic-in doesn’t work – and there is no controller in the kmix/aumix program for it.
Do you think, I have to recompile everything? Argh…! I’m using linux since 1,5 years, but still these things are very difficult for me :-/
Thanks a lot!!
Sp:ctas
Hi Martin,
did you get APCI running? – I have an Amilo 1439 G laptop which is quite comparable to the 1437G one, only difference is an Nvidia graphics chip instead of ATI one.
I’m facing two issues now:
a.) My log is flooded with ACPI error messages
b.) I cannot get Suspend-to{RAM,Disk} running 🙁
IMO, second issue most likely depends on the first one, therefore my question.
Best,
Marcus
I have a problem, when I try install it:
checking for ALSA LDFLAGS… -lasound -lm -ldl -lpthread
checking for libasound headers version >= 1.0.9… not present.
configure: error: Sufficiently new version of libasound not found.
./install: line 47: make: command not found
./install: line 48: make: command not found
cp: no se puede efectuar `stat’ sobre «/usr/lib/libasound.*»: No existe el fichero o el directorio
bzip2: Can’t open input file test.wav.bz2: No such file or directory.
cp: no se puede efectuar `stat’ sobre «test.wav»: No existe el fichero o el directorio
Remove Folder…..
./install: line 89: alsaconf: command not found
Hi:
I’ve tried the instructions to get ride of the “hotplug subsytem” problem but I haven’t managed to edit the hotplug blacklist.
When I write: nano /etc/hotplug/blacklist I obtain “command not fout”
and if I try with sudo nano/etc/hotplug/blacklist (I’ve found it in another forum) the answer is “unable to lookup (none) via gethostname()”
This is the first time vIhave tried to install linux, and I have never worked before with it, so I don’t actually know what is wrong.
Thank you.
Have someone managed to set the sound correctly?
The output works fine, but the microphone (either the build-in nor the headset) doesn’t.
Any help?
Alvaro
@Miguel: do you have build-essentials installed?
@afernandez: try vi instead of nano, e.g. vi /etc/hotplug/blacklist
@Marcus Fischer & Alvaro: I don’t’ have my friend’s Amilo here, so I can’t have a look at this, sorry for this!
i dont know if i should ask this question here but does the same steps apply to Fedora core 2-3 installation.
thank you and sorry if i posted in a wrong place.
@ Thani, Hamad: Of course your welcome to ask this question here, but for me it seems very unlikely that someone could answer this question.
Why don’t you take the latets Fedora Core version? Version 2 is nearly two years old, support for notebooks increased a lot during this time.
As I haven’t used Fedora Core or Red Hat I can’t give you adivce in how to modify this how-to. But you should be able to modify this how-to to yourneeds on your own if you have basic knowledge on Linux and Fedora Core.
Hi guys,
thanks Martin for the sound post, I got to install it, I am having the same problem with Miguel. Something goes wrong in the ./install part in the end and there is no alsaconf to execute. I tried unzipping and executing it in the utils, partly worked but after reboot all is lost. Any ideas?
I am unzipping the files into a folder and running sudo ./install.. Can’t think of anything 🙁
I forgot to say that I have Amilo M1451G but the soundcard is with Realtek ALC 880 and it has the same errors with yours..
@Panos Yiotis: It would by interesting to know what exactly is going wrong to help you. Do you have libncurses5-dev (as mentioned above) installed?
OK Martin, I solved the thing, I will post a reference to another site, check it out too. Seems most of the problems are caused due to missing libs and/or files because of the ubuntu default installation.. here you go:
http://system76.com/knowledge/index.php/ALSA_1.0.10_Setup_on_Ubuntu_Breezy
Now I still can’t playback mp3s because I can’t install the gstreamer0.8-mad package due to dependencies and since I don’t have permanent internet I can’t configure and make work the repositories.. Anyways, it’s ok, thank for the help..
PS. I am still trying to configure the motorola SM56 modem in kubuntu but.. I converted the package on the web site of motorola to deb and installed it but still no good.. anyways, in case anyone encountered this thing too..
Hail
Did you finally get the SD card reader working with the sdhci patch on this Amilo?
@Metaborn: I haven’t tried because I don’t have it at hand. But I’m sure this should work with the how-to posted, at least if it’s a Ricoh or Texas Instruments controller. Why don’t you try it?
Because I have neither one of these :p
I have an amilo M1425 with a O2 Micro controller:
02:0b.0 CardBus bridge: O2 Micro, Inc. OZ711M1/MC1 4-in-1 MemoryCardBus Controller (rev 20)
02:0b.1 CardBus bridge: O2 Micro, Inc. OZ711M1/MC1 4-in-1 MemoryCardBus Controller (rev 20)
02:0b.2 System peripheral: O2 Micro, Inc. OZ711Mx 4-in-1 MemoryCardBus Accelerator
I dunno what’s in M1437G so I was curious. I’m still prospecting for drivers but up to now I found no one that succeeded to read a SD card, only someone waiting for a O2 Micro driver :
http://www.amilo-forum.de/topic,5775,-SD-Card-Reader-Amilo-Pro-2040-unter-SuSE-10-0-laeuft-nicht.html
I also found a driver here :
http://www.musclecard.com/sourcedrivers.html
but seems that it’s only for SC, not SD :/
Hi Martin,
Ich wollte eigentlich nur ein Riesen Dankeschön hier anbringen für deine gute Ausführung und die Linkverweise für die Problematik mit der Ubuntu Installation auf besagtem Laptop. Nach zwei Tagen herumärgern, hab ichs nun geschafft nach oben genannten Vorgehensweisen das System zu installieren und siehe da sogar eine graphische Oberfläche zeigt sich mir.
Noch viel Erfolg bei weiteren Hilfestellungen.
LG Cattie
Hi Team,
I am a new user of Ubuntu 6.10. I have a All in One printer (prining, copying a nd scanning) I already done with the printing, I have encounter problem on Scanning Driver. Anyway, the printer model is EPSON CX5900. I already download and install the iscan driver (Epson Driver) and the problem was the “imlibgdk”.
Any idea to resolve my concern.
Thanks.
Henry
Just to update this – the M1437G works pretty much out the box with Ubuntu 7.04.
Things that still don’t work though are the volume knob on the side (I can’t believe that knob isn’t just a variable resistor on the output amplifier – seems really bizarre for it to be software controlled…). The internal speaker system seems not to work either – I don’t know why this is.
For tips on using the Dual head, I’ve written some tidier docs on my blog than the ones on the net http://www.karnaugh.za.net/show?id=296
Full xorg.conf included if you’re a lazy copy-paster 😉
More info here
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LaptopTestingTeam/FujitsuAmiloM1437G
Just to correct the above the internal speaker works it just has to be enabled in the mixer.
Hello!
Did anyone manage to make the microphone work on M1437G + Ubuntu (7.10 maybe)? I`m having a very hard time with it. Any help appreciated. Thanks!