| Last Update: Thu Jan 03 16:32:22 CET 2002 |
Note! This is not an official website from Fujitsu-Siemens. Fujitsu-Siemens do not support using Linux on their notebooks! If you look for official information about Fujitsu-Siemens notebooks, please go to the company's homepage: http://www.fujitsu-siemens.com
Second note! This description only deals with the installation and usage of the Amilo M-6100. Other (newer) models of the Amilo seems to use a Via chipset, so I can't say anything about these models!
I bought my Amilo-Notebook from the Deutsche Telekom AG (a german telephone company). It is a normal notebook manufacted by Fujitsu-Siemens, exactly the model is "Amilo M-6100". The notebook is a very good beginner's notebook: fast enough, offers long battery-power, offers a good display and it is more or less cheap. And of course: Linux supports most of the hardware-components!
Well, BLAH BLAH BLAH, let's begin! ;-)
Fujitsu-Siemens sells the Amilo M-Notebook in different configurations. But don't worry: The chipsets and hardware-manufactors are allways the same. The notebooks only differ in the size of the TFT, the CPU-Speed and in the installed RAM.
The next table shows all components with which the Amilo is shipped.
Output from "lspci -vx" can be found here.
| Component | Manufactor | Version | Support | Driver | Comment |
| Bios | Phoenix | NoteBIOS 4.0 Rel. 6.1 | Yes | - | |
| CPU | Intel | Mobile Celeron (Coppermine) 850 Mhz | Yes | Kernel 2.2.x or 2.4.x | Also available: Celeron 650/750 Mhz, PIII 800/900/1000 Mhz |
| Chipset | Intel | Intel 82440 MX | Yes | Kernel 2.2.x or 2.4.x | |
| Memory | ? | 128 MB RAM | Yes | - | Also available: 64, 256 MB, always 1 bank free |
| Storage (HDD) | Fujitsu | MHM2100AT UltraATA 10 GB | Yes | Kernel 2.2.x or 2.4.x | Also available: 5 and 20 GB |
| Storage (CD-ROM) | QSI | SCR-242 24x (UltraATA) | Yes | Kernel 2.2.x or 2.4.x | Also available: DVD or CD-RW (only 1 possible) |
| PCMCIA | Texas Instruments | TI PCI 1420 | Yes | Kernel 2.4.x or PCMCIA-Driver-Package (see text) | |
| Display | ? | 14.1“ TFT-XGA Display | Yes | - | Also available: 12.1“- and 15.1“-Display |
| Graphic | Silicon Motion | SM 720 Lynx3DM 4 MB | Yes | siliconmotion.o (XFree 4.x) | Also available: 8 MB Ram |
| Audio | SigmaTel | STAC9721 (AC97), Build in 440MX Chipset | Yes | Alsa i810 (see text) | |
| Mouse | ? | ? | Yes | PS/2 | Touch pad with 2 buttons |
| IRDA (Fast) | |||||
| USB | Intel | Buid in 440MX | Yes | Kernel 2.4.x | 2 USB-Ports |
| Modem | Lucent (? See text) | MC97 (Build in 440MX) | No | - | Maybe supported in a later Version |
| Power | Sanyo | Li-Ion 56Wh, 1900 mAh | Yes | - | Also available: Ni-MH 38.4 Wh, 4000 mAh, only buy a Amilo with the Li-Ion! |
FIXME: Under construction!
From http://www.linuxmall.com/refund/:
"You might be entitled to a refund for Microsoft Wind*ws and any other related OEM software that may also be included if you have installed Linux, a BSD, BeOS, OS/2, Solaris, NetWare, Wind*ws NT, or another OS on a machine which came preloaded with MS-Wind*ws*."
The Linuxmall "pages and web sites offer a place to learn the whys and hows, and to communicate and organize with other consumers who don't like paying the "Microsoft tax" for any OEM software they don't want and have never used on their machine. This is only an issue because so many OEMs flatly refuse to sell a machine without Microsoft's OS on it, some saying that their agreements with Microsoft require them to pay Microsoft for an OS for that machine, and include one as well. Some OEMs even go so far as to say that they may not pre-load any non-MS OS. We feel this is monopolistic, strong-arm, and restrictive of consumer choice."
The whole information: http://www.linuxmall.com/refund/.
My notebook was shipped with an "amputated" version of Wind*ws ME(R). Amputated means that it is a so called recovery version of Wind*ws ME(R) (no full installation-cd, it's only possible to recover a broken system to it's originaly shipped state). So, if you want to use your notebook in a dual-boot-configuration, you should convert your amputated version to a normal bootable Wind*ws-CD. It's very easy since all manufactors put the whole needed stuff on the harddisc and only manipulates the setup.exe from the original Micro$oft-CD. But in fact they put the original setup.exe on your harddisc, too (renamed in setup.ex_ or something like that). At least, in germany this procedure is legal! You have the right to make such a "normal" Wind*ws-CD, if you own a licence-key. In fact you are even allowed to sell your Wind*ws-Version!
The procedure of creating a full-verion-CD is very easy, since the german PC-magazine c't created a little batch-script that do all the work for you. You can download the script-files at: http://www.heise.de/ct/ftp/01/12/230/default.shtml. After you've executed this script, you'll find a new directory "CDIMAGE" on drive c:\ which contains the complete Wind*wsME-Installation-CD.
The whole article about "Befreit!" can be found in c't issues 10/2001 and 12/2001 (german only).
Fujitsu-Siemens has installed only one big partition on the Amilo-harddisc. So if you want to install Linux, you have to create at least 2 new partitions, one Root- and one Swap-Partition.
If you don't want to use the Wind*ws-installation any more, you can delete the Wind*ws-partition and use the whole available space for your Linux-installation. All modern distributions will do the partition-work for you during installation-process. You only have to choose "Use complete harddisc" are something similar (depends on your Linux-distribution).
In that case do not accept the "Micro$oft-Tax" and get the money back for your Micro$oft-Version, which you do not want and you have never used! Further information: http://www.linuxmall.com/refund/.
If you want to use Wind*ws and Linux, you need space! Unfortunately, if you delete the Wind*ws-partition and create the new ones, you will loose all (Wind*ws-) data and you have to reinstall your Wind*ws, too.
Of course it is possible to create a smaller Wind*wspartition, reinstall Wind*ws and after that, install Linux on the rest space available. That means much work. But there's another way: It is possible to resize the Wind*ws-partition without any lost of data. You need gnuparted, which is available as a complete bootdisk at: http://www.gnu.org/software/parted/.
Download the bootimage and create a new bootable floppydisc:
dd if=partboot.img of=/dev/fd0 bs=1440kNow boot the system with your new bootdisc. After the bootprocess has finished, you have to start the parted-software:
parted /dev/hdaGNU Parted 1.4.11 Copyright (C) 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This program is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. GNU Parted's development is supported by Conectiva, www.conectiva.com Using /dev/hda Warning: The operating system thinks the geometry on /dev/hda is 1222/255/63. Therefore, cylinder 1024 ends at 8032.499M. You should check that this matches the BIOS geometry before using this program. (parted)
First have a look at the acutal partitiontable:
print(parted) print Disk geometry for /dev/hda: 0.000-9590.273 megabytes Disk label type: msdos Minor Start End Type Filesystem Flags 1 0.031 9585.659 primary FAT boot, lba (parted)
You see that there is one FAT32-Partition which starts at 0.031 and ends at 9585.659 MB. The size may differ if you have a different harddisc installed. Example: You want your Wind*ws-partition to have a size of 4 GB (4000 MB) and use the rest of your harddisc for the Linux-Operatingsystem. Ok, you have to use the following command:
resize 1 0.031 4000The syntax is: resize MINOR START END. Well, that's it! Quit the software with quit and reboot your system.
First of all: You have to choose one of the latest available distributions! Older versions of XFree86 and the Linux-kernel lack some important features and include some bugs which are able to crash your system! I first tried Red Hat 7.1 (I like RH on desktop systems), but the XServer crashes very often, so I think the XFree86-Version (maybe only the xserver) did not work well. After this, I tried Mandrake 8.1RC1 (Release Candidate 1). Mandrake uses the newest software available, so this distribution includes XFree86 4.1.0 and Kernel 2.4.8. MDK 8.1 works very well (of course there are still some bugs due to the BETA status, but they do not effect the laptop-support). Unfortunately I don't like Mandrake very much, so I decided to install SuSE Linux 7.2. This distribution includes XFree Version 4.0.3 and Kernel 2.4.4.
Kernel 2.4.4 is really out of date, so first you should update the kernel. This is needed if you want to use the kernel-PPPoE (to conncect an adsl-line) and is recommended if you want to use a Cardbus-Driver (most modern PCMCIA-Cards).
You can download the latest kernel-rpm-package from SuSE and install it with yast. The latest package is available at: http://www.suse.de/de/support/download/updates/72_i386.html. At the moment (27.09.01) this is SuSE-kernel 2.4.7
Of course you also can download the latest kernel-sources from kernel.org (at the moment kernel 2.4.9) and compile the kernel by yourself. That is the way I prefer (but it is not a MUST).
To make your own compiled kernel compatible with the SuSE-kernels, you should use the config-file on which the SuSE-kernels are based on. This file can be found in /boot/vmlinuz.config:
cp /boot/vmlinuz.config /usr/src/linux/.config
Now you can compile the kernel as usual with make dep clean bzImage and make modules modules_install. Don't forget to include your new kernel into your lilo-configuration. Maybe you also have to generate an initial ramdisk image (mk_initrd with options -k and -i, see mk_initrd -h for more details). Further details are described in the SuSE handbook and in the Kernel-HowTo.
Well, nothing spectacular here. All distributions I tried recognize the chipset "out-of-the-box. The Chipset is an SM720 (Lynx3DM) from Silicon Motion. The name of the XFree86-driver is siliconmotion_drv.o.
When configuring the screen, my distribution offers a "Standard LCD 1024x768 at 70Hz". Well, if your distribution does not, you can input the horizontal and vertical ferquencies by yourself:
| Frequency | MHz/kHz |
| Horizontal | 31 - 65 |
| Vertical | 58 - 78 |
XFree86-Output: XFree86.0.log.
XFree86-Options: XF86Config.
Again, nothing spectacular here. All distributions I tried support the Texas Instrument TI PCI 1420 out-of-the-box. Old PCMCIA-cards need the PCMCIA-Driverpackage from David Hinds.
I only have one PCMCIA-card, an ethernetcard based upon the RTL 8139 chipset. This is a newer cardbus-card (32bit). Most of these cards do not need the extra driverpackage any more. I compiled support for the Texas Instrument chipset "hard" into the Kernel and used the RTL8139-driver for "normal" ethernetcards. The driver works very well and stable.
Getting the sound enabled on my linuxsystem was a little bit more tricky. You have to use the same driver as for the Intel i8xx-chipsets. There exists a Kernel-OSS-Driver, but unfortunately, this driver is not able to set the correct sampling frequency (the 440MX which is build into the Amilo only supports a frequency of 48000). So the output sounds terrible! Furthermore, the OSS-sound-subsystem often hangs, so there was nothing but silence...
Well, don't worry! There exists another free project supporting a lot of soundcards under linux: The Alsa-Sound-Project. SuSE-Linux uses these drivers per default, but most other distributions also include support for Alsa-sound-drivers.
The Alsa-Driver works very well with the 440MX-Soundchip! So first you have to configure your system using the alsadriver. With SuSE-Linux (and maybe also with other distributions), start "alsaconf":
You have to choose the driver for the Intel i8xx-chipsets. After configuring, you will have a nice working soundsystem ;-)
A little hint for KDE-users: Due to the fact that the 440MX-soundchip only supports a frequency of 48000, you should give this argument to the KDE-Soundserver:
With this option, the KDE-sounds will sound much more clearlier. All other sound-software I tried (xmms, enlightenment's esd and some other players) do not need any extra options.
Well, I still try to get the internal winmodem working, but untill now without any success :-( It is a little bit confusing:
So, untill now, I tried the Lucent-driver (from linmodems.org). This driver don't work. Well, I found a PCTel-Driver, too (which looks like it has support for the Intel i8xx-chipset), but I haven't had the time to give it a try. But I will update these pages if I will know more.
Well, maybe you have a look at http://www.linmodems.org by yourself. I don't really need the internal modem, so maybe it will take quite a long time till I spent more time to get these things working.
The Linux Kernel 2.4 (I use 2.4.7) supports the USB host controller which is built into the Amilo notebook. The controller is manufacted by Intel. SuSE Linux (7.2) supports this controller out-of-the-box. If your distribution do not recognize the usb-controller by itself, you have to compile a kernel with usb-support for UHCI (Intel PIIX4, Via...). The following image shows all options which are being used by SuSE's default kernels:
I only tested 2 USB devices, a printer (HP Photosmart P1000) and a Logitech Cordless Mouse (USB and PS/2). Both devices works fine (configured with YaST2). Hotplugging (connecting and disconnecting without rebooting) works fine as well. So at boottime the systemlog shows: