Stefan Bellon's Home Page - Debian GNU/Linux on the HP Omnibook XT 1000

Specification

Mobile Pentium III 733/1133 MHz with SpeedStep Technology
256 MB
S3 Savage4 (1024x768 TFT display)
DVD/CD
PCMCIA
10/100BaseT NIC onboard
3 USB ports (USB serial adapter and USB floppy supplied)
56K modem
Infrared port

Kernel

I'm using the 2.4.x kernel because of some nice things like iptables, ACPI and more modern hardware support, despite me not liking it's VM. 2.2.x kernels did much better IMHO. Here's my config-2.4.19 in case you want to have a look at it. If you want to try out the ACPI patch below, make sure you take the Debian source of the kernel 2.4.19 as I got reports that it doesn't work with others without fiddling. You'll find it here (a link to a .tar.gz version is at the bottom of that page).

X11

The S3 Savage4/Twister chip sets are supported by the XFree86 servers. I choose to take the 4.x version which has even accelerated support via the savage driver. I suggest you take a look at http://www.probo.com/timr/savage40.html and decide for yourself whether to install the later Savage module or not. If you want to use e.g. OpenOffice.org, then you have to install it, otherwise your computer will crash. You can download my XF86Config-4 from here. But beware: I'm not responsibe for any loss of data or hardware failure, so have a look at it for yourself before using it. As I'm using GPM in repeater mode and have configured the X server to use /dev/gpmdata as input, it might be useful to let you take a look at my /etc/gpm.conf as well.
You may want to install the s3switch package as well so you can switch between LCD, CRT and TV output and so you can choose between NTSC, NTSCJ and PAL signal format (for TV out).

Sound

The sound chip is a VIA 686a which is supported by the kernel drivers, but only 1 second of audio plays and then it loops forever. With the ALSA drivers it works however (I only got the 0.9 version working, not the 0.5 one). For Debian, you need this /etc/alsa/modutils/0.9 (for ALSA 0.9beta12) which should be linked to from /etc/modutils/alsa.
Alternatively, if you applied the below mentioned ACPI patch, then even the kernel driver works and you don't need ALSA. You need to build the via82cxxx_audio.o module then. In order to make the module load automatically, you should add the following line to your /etc/modules.conf:
alias sound-slot-0 via82cxxx_audio
With Debian however you shouldn't edit /etc/modules.conf directly, instead place the line inside /etc/modutils/aliases and run update-modules afterwards.

Network

The onboard RealTek RTL-8139 works without problems with the kernel driver for it. Configure it as module and make sure that 8139too.o is loaded automatically by adding the following line to your /etc/modules.conf:
alias eth0 8139too
With Debian however you shouldn't edit /etc/modules.conf directly, instead place the line inside /etc/modutils/aliases and run update-modules afterwards.

USB

Configure USB support in your kernel and make sure you install the package murasaki. Then everything gets dead easy and you don't have to do anything else. Devices just get recognised if you plug them in. Even devices already plugged in at boot time are correctly recognised and initialized. This didn't work with hotplug, that's why I'm using murasaki.

Mouse

The internal touchpad is on /dev/psaux (major 10 minor 1) for me and speaks the IMPS/2 protocol (it has a "touch-wheel"). In order to make USB mice work, configure your kernel in a way that input.o, hid.o and mousedev.o are compiled. Then have a look at http://www.linux-usb.org/USB-guide/x194.html which is a good introduction of how to set up the USB mouse. If you're using murasaki there are good chances that you don't have to do anything additional at all.

Floppy

The XT 1000 has an external USB floppy. In order to make this work, you have to configure USB support in your kernel (in addition to the obvious core modules you need the usb-storage.o module), but you also have to configure SCSI support in your kernel. In particular, you need the modules scsi_mod.o and sd_mod.o as well (have a look at http://www.linux-usb.org/USB-guide/x498.html as well). Again, if you have murasaki then you should not have to set up anything here.

Modem

It's a PCI modem which shows up in lspci as
00:10.0 Communication controller: ESS Technology ES2838/2839 SuperLink Modem (rev 01)
I haven't spent any time in configuring it as I don't need it. But Ulrich Poeschl has an explanation of how to get it going on his page.

IrDA

Again, I haven't spent any time in configuring it. If you know how to do it, drop me an email.

PCMCIA

Not tested yet, as everything I need is included without having to use PCMCIA. But inserting a card into the slot showed the card in cardinfo, so I assume it works. And I have several reports that it's indeed working.

Firewire/IEEE 1394

Due to lack of Firewire devices I cannot comment on this. However I have reports that it works fine with the ieee1394 and ohci1394 modules.

APM

APM is not supported with the XT 1000, use ACPI instead.

ACPI

ACPI works with kernel 2.4.19 and the acpi-20020918 kernel patch from http://sourceforge.net/projects/acpi/. You may want to apply this patch in order to enjoy working ACPI (and sound with the kernel driver) in your XT 1000. Make sure you enable debugging for it, as otherwise it won't compile.
If you run acpid, here's my /etc/acpi configuration which shuts down the notebook if you press the power button and puts the notebook into sleep mode when closing the display lid (turning it back on with the power button). Please note that the configuration files are only suited for Debian and if you have murasaki installed as well. Otherwise you'll have to change the configuration a little bit for yourself.

Console

I configured the kernel to support VESA frame buffer console. Now I supply the parameter vga=791 when booting and get a nice-looking framebuffer console with lots more space on it.

One-Touch keys

The five "One-Touch" keys can be enabled with a small script named "omke" by Pavel Mihaylov or by a kernel patch named "onetouch" by Peter Soos. You can find both at http://sourceforge.net/projects/omke/.
An even nicer variant is to use a kernel module by the same two authors which can be found at the above URL as well. Compile and install the module as documented and then place the following line inside your /etc/modules:
omnibook
If you've installed any of the above, you can use xmodmap to map the generated scan codes onto key codes. The multimedia keys in front of the notebook and on the right side work even without the script. Here's my example ~/.xmodmaprc.
If you even want to experiment with my FVWM configuration, I'm using the standard Debian one which provides for hooks and here is my ~/.fvwm/post.hook file which makes use of the OneTouch keys mapped with the above ~/.xmodmaprc. For completeness, here's my ~/.xsession file so that you everything works together.

Bootloading

For bootloading the whole thing I have a three-stages setup. First of all I have installed the package mbr which installs another Master Boot Record (not the Windows one, do you trust it? ;-)). You can do this if you damaged your MBR as well, so you don't have to open the sealed rescue CDs. As I wanted to keep XP on the machine (only for the case that I have to make use of the warranty, so that I can show the supplier what's wrong with the notebook in XP and don't have to hear lame excuses like "That's Linux and we don't support that."), I had to take the way via the NT bootloader. This either loads XP or (by default) starts GRUB which then starts the Linux kernel. Complicated? Yes, but I don't have any maintainance work to do when compiling a new kernel. Due to GRUB nothing has to be changed (unlike LILO).

Problems

I've still got one problem left: The notebook turns itself off very rarely when pressing a key on the keyboard. This happens about once a day when intensively working with the notebook. The notebook runs days without turning itself off as long as you don't hit a key on the keyboard. I've got responses from other people who are suffering from the same problem as well (although there are also people saying that they've never had it happening for them). I'd like to collect people's reports and mail HP with a collection of the names and email addresses of those who have the problem. Perhaps we can achieve something if we're joining together. So, if you're experiencing the same (please check that you've got BIOS 1.09 installed first), please drop me an email. If you don't have the problem it would be still nice to hear that from you!

Ulrich Poeschl's XT1000 page

Dominik Meister's XT1500 page

Click here to go back to the index page.