Test Report, 1.9.47 on Toshiba NB205

[Don B.]

Ver. 1.9.47 (Development)

Hardware:
Toshiba NB205-310 http://www.mobilewhack.com/toshiba-mini-nb205-unveiled/
Upgraded with 2GB SODIMM
Note: Audio chip is a Realtek ALC-272, found via lspci as:

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82891G (ICH7 Family) High
Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
Subsystem Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff6e

Hard drive was partitioned as
/dev/sda1 - 20GB, reiserfs
/dev/sda2 - 1GB swap
/dev/sda3 - ~139GB, ext4 for data

This netbook was obviously designed for extreme power efficiency, and
incorporates one annoying feature, apparently in the motherboard
firmware, which is a frequent "falling asleep" in the absence of
keyboard or mousepad input. This is a big annoyance during
installation and initial package upgrading, when there are long
periods when no keyboard input would otherwise be required. It is a
minor annoyance during booting, when it requires a couple of touches
to get it all the way to the login. It is not particularly noticeable
during normal use - assuming one uses the NB205 for normal netbook
activities. I assume the Windows motherboard driver gives it a
frequent "poke" to keep it from falling asleep during booting -- but
Linux users will have to tickle it to the login prompt.

Elive Development Ver. 1.9.47 installed from a Live CD without
incident -- it correctly detected all the hardware in the Toshiba, and
automatically selected a very suitable video mode. After running
updates and starting to play, I noticed that merely moving the mouse
cursor on the desktop caused the menu to appear. A little research
found a useful touchpad definition for HAL, which I installed in /etc/
hal/fdi/policy. Get it here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1215665
Then I installed gsynaptics and used it to disable the tapping mode.
That fixed the menu pop-ups. I next installed wicd, rebooted, and was
amazed to discover that wireless networking (roaming mode) was fully
functional -- no twiddling /etc/network/interfaces or /etc/
wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf needed. I only had to enter my WPA
PSK in wicd, and I was connected to my wireless router. Excellent
work! I installed samba, with the wireless networking running, used
the new smb-browser to explore my local network, found my shared
folder on my sidux desktop, and was able to mount it and access my
data. Very nice!

The major challenge with this netbook, for Linux users, is audio. The
bottom line: you will be using the Open Sound System (OSS). Allegedly,
according to the Ultim8Fury post linked above, the ALSA driver can be
convinced to operate the headphone for you, but I was interested in
speaker output, so I didn't bother with ALSA, except to confirm that
you get no speaker output from ALSA, with or without the "model=asus-
mode4" option.

So, you must (a) download the OSS .deb file for i386 architecture from
http://www.opensound.com/download.cgi and install it, (b) dpkg-
reconfigure linux-sound-base and change it to OSS, (c) install the
asound2-plugins package, (d) use scite to make a /etc/asound.conf file
as said here: http://insanecoding.blogspot.com/2009/05/perfect-sound-with-oss-version-4.html
, and (e) reboot the system. Upon reboot, I opened the audacious
player, opened "Preferences", and changed the audio plugin to OSS. I
also installed the flashplugin-nonfree package. With these, audio
plays correctly on the NB205 in audacious and in flash video via the
Iceweasel browser. Now the bad news -- speaker output level, at max
volume, is painfully low. The audacious pre-amplification and level
adjustment capability didn't seem to make a lot of difference. This
low speaker volume issue has been a criticism of the NB205 running
Windows as well, so it is not necessarily a Linux or OSS issue. I'm
not experienced with OSS, so I'm going to research the subject and see
if I can learn how to tweak up the level.

Finally, I installed VMware Player 2.5.3 and my Windows XP Pro VM,
just to see how the Atom N280 CPU and Elive would do with that load.
There were no issues installing VMware or running the VM. Win XP is,
as expected, a little less lively under the Linux OS than it would be
if natively installed, but it is not unacceptably slow. I have a
proprietary database that I sometimes need to run on Win XP, so this
is good news for personal productivity. I previously tried this on an
Asus Eeepc 701/4G, and even when overclocked to 900MHz, it doesn't
have the guts to run the VM acceptably.

Conclusion: Elive Development performs well, and without any obvious
bugs, on the Toshiba NB205. Lack of a suitable option for the ALSA snd-
hda-intel driver requires use of OSS, but it has a good driver and
performs well. The power conservation firmware necessitates user
tickling of the mousepad during installation and booting -- it is only
a minor annoyance once installation and configuration are complete.

Other thoughts:

1. A SSD would be very cool in this netbook -- it should perform
faster, and use less power, than the hdd. Christmas!

2. Linux kernels since 2.6.28 support the ext4 filesystem, and it
appears to be in stable condition for a year or more, so maybe the
Elive installer could accept installation on ext4, for the Development
version.

That's my report.

[Joel Davila]

Very nice report.

2009/10/5 Don B. <donbn...@aol.com>

--
----
Joel Dávila (505)8816-9911
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Joe74
http://teoten.wordpress.com/
------------
"Is there something safer as /home/?
I don't think so...
Are you ok at C:\Documents and Settings\?"
-------

[Don Boyd]

When I saw it online, I noticed one typo.  The audio chip's designation is 82801G, not 82891G.  Sorry.

I also figured out how to use ossxmix and turn the volume up to a reasonable (for netbooks) level.

Don

http://www.landofthebuckeye.net/

-----Original Message-----
From: Joel Davila <633...@gmail.com>
To: elive-...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Mon, Oct 5, 2009 7:09 pm
Subject: [Elive Testers: 441] Re: Test Report, 1.9.47 on Toshiba NB205

Very nice report.

2009/10/5 Don B. <donbn...@aol.com>

Ver. 1.9.47 (Development)

Hardware:
Toshiba NB205-310 http://www.mobilewhack.com/toshiba-mini-nb205-unveiled/
Upgraded with 2GB SODIMM
Note: Audio chip is a Realtek ALC-272, found via lspci as:

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82891G (ICH7 Family) High
Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
Subsystem Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff6e

Hard drive was partition ed as

asound2-plugins package, (d)20use scite to make a /etc/asound.conf file

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