Linux on a Samsung V20 CXVC

Last revised January, 17, 2005.

Samsung V20 cXVC
News:

I have installed Linux-Mandrake 10.1 (Community) on a Samsung V20 CXVC.
This is the report of the installation for various components:

Installation

There were no problem during installation. Note that I upgraded from version 10.0, so you won't perhaps get exactly the same result if you install from scratch.

HardDisk

No problem. DMA is activated by default (it was not in previous Mandrake installations...).

CD-RW/DVD

It works out of the box. I have even burned CD-RW at a 10x speed without problem with k3b (while it is supposed to support only 4x...).

Xfree86

Xorg 6.7 is used in Mandrake 10.1.

Graphic card

No problem at all.

Mouse

You have to installed the synaptics rpms in order to get all the fonctionnalities of the touchpad.
If you don't installed synaptics, you won't get tap-to-click.
With the synaptics driver, you can also configure very advance fonctionnalities. See here for more details.
I have disabled a lot of these fonctionnalities except the vertial scrolling with the right part of the touchpad. This is my XF86config file.
You can also scroll with the touchpad's wheel. But to do so, you need a patch for the linux kernel. To apply the patch, put it in the /usr/src/linux/drivers/input/mouse directory, and then:
cd /usr/src/linux
cd /drivers/input/mouse
patch synaptics.c synaptics-scroll-wheel.patch
And then compile your kernel as usual.

Sound

The sound was automatically detected, and it works very well (as far as I have tested...)

Ethernet card

It was automatically detected in Mandrake, no problem. 
Note that it is assigned to the /dev/eth2 device, whereas the IEEE1394 network is assigned to the /dev/eth0 device.

Modem

It is a winmodem, but a driver exists for Linux! You just have to install the slmodem. Mandrake provides binary packages for it:
slmodem-kernel-2.6.8.1-10mdk-2.9.9-1mdk
slmodem-2.9.9-2mdk
so that the installation is dead easy. Reboot and you just have to pick the /dev/ttySL0 device as modem.

Note: I have a problem when using this driver with one of my ISPs (Free). The error in wvdial or kppp is "NO CARRIER". The problem does not exist for another ISP, nor does it when using a PCMCIA modem. If you have an idea of the problem, drop me an e-mail.

PCMCIA

No problem.

USB 2.0

The 2 USB2.0 work well.
I have tried to connect a external HardDrive (LaCie PocketDrive, 40 GB), that was detected whithout problem, and that works with the speed of USB2.0.

IEEE1394 (firewire)

It seems to work, because I have nice messages at boot time.
But I did not tried any external devices.

APM and ACPI

The BIOS of this Samsung has an half implementation of apm (with just suspension to RAM working), and a buggy implementation of ACPI... Thanks SAMSUNG! I tried to e-mail them so that they provide a corrected BIOS, but without success.
In acpi, you don't have access to the battery, ac_adaptator, and thermal_zone information. It comes from a buggy DSDT table. For more information concerning ACPI on linux as well as an HOWTO to correct the DSDT table, look here and you will be pointed to a very good tutorial here.
If you just want your laptop working, perform the following steps (logged as root):
- take a corrected DSDT.aml file, (depending on your BIOS), and copy it to the /boot directory:
    DSDT.aml for the original BIOS and the corresponding dsdt.hex and dsdt.dsl files;
    DSDT.aml for the DE12 BIOS of 10/02/2003 and the corresponding dsdt.hex, dsdt.dsl, and uncorrected dsdt files.
- add a magic signature to the initrd image:
$ echo -n "INITRDDSDT123DSDT123" >> /boot/initrd.img
- then add the DSDT table to the initrd:
$ cat DSDT.aml >> /boot/initrd.img
- finally add a magic signature at the end of the file:
$ echo -n "INITRDDSDT321DSDT321" >> /boot/initrd.img
Don't forget to rebuild lilo:
$ lilo
And that is it! Reboot and you should be able to see the battery status and plenty of other information!

Suspend to disk or to RAM, energy management

For that, you have to install the suspend-scripts rpm.
- I have tried suspend-to-disk with pmsuspend2, and it seems to work well.
For the configuration of the Fn-F4 key, see the special keys section.
- I have not tried suspend-to-RAM.
- If the system go from ac_adaptator to battery, the /etc/acpi/actions/battery.sh script is runned. However, the is a problem the prevent the execution of this script. You have to correct the line:
status=`awk '/^state: / { print $2 }' /proc/acpi/ac_adapter/AC*/state`
to
status=`awk '/^state: / { print $2 }' /proc/acpi/ac_adapter/AD*/state`



Special keys

Some special keys are probably driven by the BIOS, and work without problem like:
- Fn-F3 to switch between laptop-screen and external screen;
- Fn-Up and Fn-Down to modify the screen luminosity
- Fn-F9 to Num-lock
Some other probably depend upon the OS and do not always work out of the box:
- Screen Print (Impr. écran on my french keyboard), to lauch a screen capture sofware.
   * In Gnome, <Print> is configured by default to launch a screen capture, and <Alt><Print> to launch a window capture. However, it seems ther is a bug in gnome-2.6 because even if the <Print> key IS recognized, no action is performed. It seems this bug will be fixed if you update your xorg package http://qa.mandrakesoft.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2146
   * It works in KDE.
- Fn-F4 to hibernate: to configure it, add the following file in /etc/acpi/events/ and the following file in /etc/acpi/actions/. You may need to change the permission with:
 chmod 755 /etc/acpi/events/suspend
 chmod 755 /etc/acpi/actions/suspend
It should be configured by default. This is a Mandrake bug: http://qa.mandrakesoft.com/show_bug.cgi?id=5698.
- Power Button to stop the system: like Fn-F4, it should probably send an acpi event, but it does not...
- Fn-PageUp, Fn-PageDown and Fn-LeftTopArrow to modify the volume
   * In Gnome, you can configure it in gnome-keybinding-properties (Applications>Desktop settings>keyboard shorcuts). Note however that it is not mapped in X as XF86LowerVolume and XF86RaiseVolume. The raw keysym value is used.
   * In KDE, you can configure that in Kmix, but it does not work with this keys-combination, probably because it is not mapped in X.
- The Window$ keys, to lauch the main menu.
   * in Gnome, you can configure it in gnome-keybinding-properties.
   * Works out of the box in KDE.
- Help (Aide in french), the F1 key.
   * In Gnome, it is already the default shortcut for the help in various applications. It is not configured as default to launch the help center on the desktop though.
   * In KDE, (in kmenuedit) it don't want to use the F1 shorcut for the help menu because it says it is already used as the "standard help" action. However, nothing happens if you press <F1> in KDE, and it does not seem to be the standard shortcut for the help in the applications...
- Fn-F10 (Arrêt Défil on my french keyboard), I don't know what it is supposed to do
- Fn-F11 (Pause), I don't know what it is supposed to do
- Fn-F12 (Attn), I don't know what it is supposed to do
- Syst, I don't know what it is supposed to do
- the multimedia keys for internet navigation, e-mail, and start.
See http://shift.free.fr/?item=ordi_clavier_logitech to configure them.
Note that I am able to configure the e-Mail key, but not the other keys. They don't produce an X event with xev.
   * In Gnome, the newly defined XF86Mail key is not detected. Strange.
   * In KDE, you can configure it in kmenuedit.

Comments ? Questions ? Suggestions ? Send an e-mail to: parrenin [at] ujf-grenoble [dot] fr.

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