Linux on a Toshiba Satellite 1695 CDT Laptop
Last modified: Tuesday, 07-Nov-2006 19:02:12 CST
The RedHat 7.2 Installation: Contents
I originally purchased my Toshiba Satellite 1695 CDT during September 2000. At the time there were a wealth of pages discussing configuring Linux on other Toshiba laptops, but none about the 1695. I originally installed Mandrake 7.1 on the 1695 last fall and wrote up a page to share my experiences with the installation and configuration.
Last fall there were a couple of nagging things that annoyed me about trying to dual-boot Linux and Windows 98 on the device. Windows kept trying to corrupt the CS4281, so even with a paid OSS license, sound was iffy. Linux had only buggy support for my 10/100 network card, which kept corrupting the PCMCIA controllers. And Windows sure liked to freeze a lot, which meant a lot of the “yank the power cord, remove the battery” shutdowns.
Finally I got annoyed enough and bored enough to blow away the entire drive and install RedHat 7.2, a more modern distribution with greatly improved hardware support. Hopefully this similarly renovated page will help you out with your 1695.
This may also assist users of the Toshiba Satellite 1715 CDT, which appears to be the 1024×768 resolution replacement for the now-discontinued 800×600 1695. Isn’t progress great?
Questions, comments, feedback? Drop me a line. I love to hear success stories!
This page is simply for informational purposes. If you screw up your laptop, it’s not my fault. Blame big neutrinos, the MPAA, the RIAA, the CIA, or the Loch Ness Monster, but please don’t come after me.
Okay, now let’s have some fun!
I used a boot floppy provided with RedHat 7.2 to boot and load the CD for installation.
I decided that I was sick and tired of Windows wrecking my laptop, so I blew away my entire disk. I chose a laptop class installation. This leaves you with one large root (/) partition and one swap partition. It also includes some laptop-specific packages and enables things like APM. You can always install additional packages once installation is complete.
The installation process itself is pretty trivial any more — pick specific packages if you so desire, but otherwise it’s just a matter of watching the little progress bars go. Make sure to set a root password and make yourself one or more user accounts.
There is but one caveat: Do not configure X at this time, and do not choose to boot into X/graphical mode! Getting X just right can be tricky on desktop hardware, and it’s even worse on laptops. Don’t worry, we’ll get X going once the installation is complete.
Once installation is complete, remove the boot floppy and RedHat CD(s) and reboot. You should be able to boot successfully to a command prompt.
execve failed for /etx/X11/X (errno 2)
When I first tried to run startx after installation, I got the error:
execve failed for /etx/X11/X (errno 2
This means that the /etc/X11/X symlink is broken. Go ahead and do:
# rm /etc/X11/X # ln -s /usr/X11R6/bin/XFree86 /etc/X11/X
This will establish the correct symlink for XFree86 4.x. If you are running XFree86 3.x, do this instead:
# ln -s /usr/X11R6/bin/X /etc/X11/X
Run startx from the command prompt to test out the configuration.
# startx
Try as I might, I could not a working X configuration file using standard approaches (configuring during installation, running Xconfigurator, running xf86config, manually editing my XF86Config, etc.). None of the generic configuration settings would even remotely work. I was about to despair, until I hit upon the best aspect of XFree86 4.1.
Just run X -configure to automatically generate a working XF86Config file! You can copy the newly created XF86Config into /etc/X11/XF86Config and go from there. Some additional tweakage will be necessary; edit the Screen section to add DefaultDepth 24 so that we will default to using 24-bit color.
Run startx from the command prompt to test out the configuration.
You may get an error while trying to start X that /dev/mouse does not exist or does not work, which will prevent X from starting. In RedHat 7.2, /dev/mouse is symlinked to /dev/input/mice, which doesn’t seem to work right on the 1695. Just edit your XF86Config and make sure the mouse input device section looks like this:
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "PS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Emulate3Buttons"
EndSection
Alternatively, you could remove the /dev/mouse symlink and re-link it to /dev/psaux.
Run startx from the command prompt to test out the configuration.
First make sure that X is going to run correctly by running startx from the command prompt. If all is well, exit the graphical environment and edit your /etc/inittab file. Change the default runlevel setting (which should be the first option in the file) from this:
id:3:initdefault:
to this:
id:5:initdefault:
This will make the default runlevel 5, which will start X automatically when you boot up. Save the changes to the file and reboot and you should get a graphical login prompt and boot into X by default.
Here is my XF86Config file, the result of the earlier steps. It seems to work pretty well for me as I am able to run the 1695 in its full 800×600, 24-bit color glory.
The 2.4 series kernel has support for the Crystal Audio CS4281 sound chip that’s in the 1695. Sound should work perfectly after installation completes. You will no longer need to purchase an OSS sound package license.
RedHat 7.2/kernel 2.4 has support for the Linksys PCMPC200 EtherFast 10/100 CardBus PC Card. As long as PCMCIA support has been installed, the card will work right out of the box — just plug it in and go.
RedHat 7.2/kernel 2.4 has great out-of-box support for USB, at least where I am concerned. I use gphoto to grab pictures from my Kodak DC280 digital camera. Just specify the device /dev/usb/dc2xx0 in the gphoto configuration and it’s ready to go! I also have a USB flash memory card reader, which gets treated just like a SCSI device. All you have to do is plug in the card reader, stick a card in the slot, and do:
mount /dev/sda /mnt/flash
The 1695 sports a Conexant winmodem, so no native Linux support is available. However, Conexant promises to provide a Linux driver by the end of 2001, so we may luck out.
Toshiba reports that Satellite 1600 series laptops manufactured from February 2000 through September 2000 may not be able to accurately recognize a high temperature condition, and thus fail to adequately cope. A BIOS update from Toshiba, along with more details, is available at Toshiba’s website.
I have not had a chance to try out this BIOS update, but I think it’s definitely needed, as I have experienced some truly bizarro behavior in the 1695 that I believe to be temperature related.
RedHat 7.2 ships with a 2.4 kernel that is unfortunately from the middle of the infamous wacky VM saga. Consequently it will deal with your memory in some very poor ways, including killing off processes it doesn’t think deserve memory. It’s loads of fun when it decides that X needs to die while you are in the middle of doing something. Thankfully the VM problems seem to be getting sorted out, but you will have to be adventurous and download a newer kernel. Be careful what kernel you download, because some of them (2.4.11, 2.4.15) are bad news! Richard Gooch’s Kernel Newsflash ought to be of some help sorting things out.
If you can be patient, I expect that RedHat will eventually have some new kernel RPMs that will be safe to use.
Even though the 1695 has been discontinued, you can still purchase additional memory compatible with the 1695 directly from Toshiba.
I will post more details on the memory upgrade when I get motivated enough to buy and install some.
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