by Hope this is useful to some of you out there...
Linux on a Dell Latitude XPi
Specs:
Dual Scan Color 640x480 (tft 800x600 is available)
2 PCMCIA Slots
8MB expandable to 40
810 MB removable IDE HD
Trackball
1 serial, 1 parallel, 1 PS-2, 1 Ext. VGA
Docking station has above plus SCSI and Ethernet
Linux:
Slackware 3.0 installation, CD-Rom.
Linux does not support the ethernet in the Docking Station (SMC 91C92),
so I bought an IBM Credit Card ethernet adaptor.
This and my modem card worked out of the box with Slackware, except
the modem speaker is weird.
The SCSI is a tmc8xx (Future Domain) but at a weird address and IRQ,
and the BIOS string isn't automatically recognized. You can boot with
tmc8xx=0xde000,11
After booting, I recommend you rebuild the kernel with a modified seagate.c
(diffs below). This allows auto-detection to work, which is nice
when booting without the desk dock.
Installation from CD worked, although there are some problems with the
auto-detection at the beginning (it seemed to think there were 6 CD roms).
I haven't worked more on this.
X works on the internal screen at 640x480, and on the external at 640x480
and 800x600. I don't have a good 1024x768 yet; interlaced works but is
unacceptable. The chipset is a CL-GD7543 which is unsupported.
Attached is an XF86Config that is a starting point.
Bad Things:
The docking ethernet doesn't seem to work even under Windows. I'm using
WFW 3.11 and Chameleon NFS. The ethernet will work for a while then the
whole laptop will freeze up.
The SCSI init flakiness under linux is annoying; it may be a real problem
when I try more than one external device. I suspect that this is a linux
bug.
When the notebook is closed, it seems to have a heat problem. I've only
seen this under linux. The text mode display shifts to the right of the
screen and wraps around; it shifts to different pages and starting positions
every time a carriage return is sent. This will happen even when the notebook
sits on a bed for too long (not enough air flow). Works fine after it cools
off. Never seen any trouble in Windows related to this. Maybe linux is
on the ragged edge of timing?
Good Things:
Great keyboard.
The docking station is the reason I bought the machine. I hope that the
problems get resolved. It would be great if someone would write a driver
for the ethernet chip.
Good value for the money, reasonable weight.
Very modular -- removable disk, memory is easy to get to.
Seems pretty fast, I'll have to run Spec on it.
Wish list:
- Better X configuration
- Linux drivers for docking ethernet
- Dell doesn't provide disks for the Dell-installed software. Of course, I
managed to delete it all before backing anything up. If anyone has one
of these with the installed software intact, I'd love to see a list of
the software (and maybe get some of it from you :).
===
XF86Config -- significant changes
Modeline "640x480" 25.230 640 664 760 800 480 491 493 525
Modeline "1024x768" 44.9 1024 1048 1208 1264 768 776 784 817 Interlace
Modeline "1024x768" 72.16 1024 1056 1208 1264 768 776 784 817 +hsync +vsync
Modeline "800x600" 50 800 856 976 1040 600 637 643 666 +hsync +vsync
Section "Device"
Identifier "My Video Card"
VendorName "Unknown"
BoardName "Unknown"
VideoRam 1024
Chipset "CLGD5428"
Option "sw_cursor"
Option "fifo_conservative"
Option "noaccel" # probably not necessary
# Insert Clocks lines here if appropriate
EndSection
===
seagate.c context diffs:
*** seagate.c Mon Oct 23 11:05:21 1995
--- seagate.c-save Wed Aug 16 11:53:29 1995
***************
*** 62,68 ****
#ifndef IRQ
! #define IRQ 11 /* lfm */
#endif
#if (defined(FAST32) && !defined(FAST))
--- 62,68 ----
#ifndef IRQ
! #define IRQ 5
#endif
#if (defined(FAST32) && !defined(FAST))
***************
*** 183,189 ****
{"FUTURE DOMAIN CORP. (C) 1992 V8.00.004/02/92", 5, 44, FD},
{"IBM F1 BIOS V1.1004/30/92", 5, 25, FD},
{"FUTURE DOMAIN TMC-950", 5, 21, FD},
- {"Future Domain Corp. V1.0008/18/9364/32IBM F1 BIOS", 5, 49, FD}, /* lfm */
#endif /* CONFIG_SCSI_SEAGATE */
}
;
--- 183,188 ----
====
Regards,
Larry Meadows