Installing openSUSE on Dell Studio 1535

[suncoolsu]

Also the laptop which have the AUO as the LCD manufacturer wont work for ATI card as well…

[oldcpu]

@suncoolsu

It was my LCD Monitor manufactured by AUO - Manufacturer: AUO Model: 8174 Serial#: 0. This brand doesnt seem to work with the present variety of intel driver.

Its unusual now adays to see this sort of problem.

When you state you are restricted to 1024x768, is that on openSUSE or on Mandriva? Last I read you had left openSUSE for Mandriva.

@suncoolsu

Can you guys fix that?

We are just regular users like yourself, who volunteer our time to help. Maybe someone who knows something about Intel X3100’s can chime in - Assuming you are correct about various bug reports (and I don’t have the time to independently confirm this) I don’t know anything re: the level of detail needed to sort xorg (nor other) driver problems.

You could raise a bug on openSUSE, but if this is an xorg driver problem then that will be considered an “upstream” problem, and the bug report may just be closed as a result. Still, it probably does not hurt to raise the bug report.

@suncoolsu

Regarding the problems with headfones and media keys:
Kde4.1 has its issues - it crashes a lot (u can expect that - I am fine with it). The media keys (the one at the top which u can press to control volume etc.) wont work - its the KDE problem as its still under development. Headfone issues presist.

On my Dell Studio 1537, the volume keys “just work” under KDE-4.1.2 but they do not work consistently under KDE-3.5.10. I have not tried to sort the difference.

I’m currently focused on liaising with trying to support fixing the headphone sound and headphone mute problem. I’m spending a fair amount of time running tests suggested by one of the alsa dev’s, followed by running diagnostic scripts, and then providing the output of the scripts to the dev, in the hope that they can come up with a fix.

I take it you have not tried openSUSE-11.1 yet, to see if the updated kernel makes a difference for your Intel X3100.

Sorry to read your Studio 15 experience has not been very good. Mine turned out quite well so far on openSUSE-11.1 (even the headphone problem is not too bad, as I have a work around with some functionality). I still have things to configure, but they require I change my PC kernel configuration, and I can’t do that as changing my kernel configuration will change the baseline for my sound test, messing up the support I am giving to resolve the sound problems.

I am reasonably confident that when I no longer am needed to support the sound test, that I will be able to change my configuration to a recent openSUSE-11.1 (beta/release-candidate) kernel, and configure my webcam and hopefully blue tooth device.

My deadline to get things function is 31-Dec-2008, as on 1-Jan-2009 I fly out to a different continent, and I wish to have a fully functional laptop then, when I fly out.

So its been fairly smooth for me with my Dell Studio 15, but then again, I spent a lot of time researching specific hardware before I went ahead and ordered a very specific Studio 15 configuration.

[oldcpu]

@suncoolsu

In the end I am stuck with a pretty primitive Laptop which has 1025x768 display

suncoolsu, out of curiousity, what do you get when you open a gnome-terminal or a kde konsole and type:
xrandr

for example, I get (with my ATI radeon 3450 and the radeonhd openGL driver):

oldcpu@studio1537:~> xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1440 x 900, maximum 3840 x 1200
VGA_1 disconnected
PANEL connected 1440x900+0+0 331mm x 207mm
   1440x900       60.0*+   60.0     58.9
   1920x1080Scaled   60.5
   1680x1050Scaled   60.3
   1400x1050      60.0
   1400x1050Scaled   60.3
   1440x960Scaled   60.4
   1280x1024      60.0
   1280x1024Scaled   60.5
   1280x960       60.0
   1280x960Scaled   60.4
   1280x854Scaled   60.4
   1280x720Scaled   60.4
   1152x768Scaled   60.3
   1024x768       60.0
   1024x768Scaled   60.4
   800x600        60.3     56.2
   800x600Scaled   60.3
   768x576Scaled   60.4
   854x480Scaled   59.8
   720x480Scaled   59.8
   640x480        59.9
DVI-D_1 disconnected

[oldcpu]

@oldcpu

suncoolsu, out of curiousity, what do you get when you open a gnome-terminal or a kde konsole and type:
xrandr

Also, what does the following give? (note it is case sensitive):cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf | grep Driver

[oldcpu]

@suncoolsu

Now i discovered what my problem was:
It was discovered on ubuntu launchpad bugreport the reason for my problem. It was my LCD Monitor manufactured by AUO - Manufacturer: AUO Model: 8174 Serial#: 0. This brand doesnt seem to work with the present variety of intel driver.

Now that you have pointed this out, I have seen many references to this.

Is there any chance of your calling Dell, noting this problem, and seeing if you can sweet talk them into an exchange with a Dell Studio with an LCD screen by a different manufacturer?

[suncoolsu]

Screen 0: minimum 640 x 480, current 1024 x 768, maximum 1024 x 768
default connected 1024x768+0+0 0mm x 0mm

   1024x768       61.0*
   800x600        61.0
   640x480        60.0

This is my output for xrandr. and following is the grep for xorg.conf

    Driver "kbd"
    Driver "mouse"
    Driver "synaptics"
    Driver "vesa"

I use mandriva - But since I know now that its KDE 4.1 which can give me 1024x768 - i will soon shift back to ubuntu (i love that distro) - Mandriva themes are too fancy for me … i liked openSUSE tho (basically the greenery - its a good color)

I tried sweet talking Dell guys to restore my lcd but they are too smart for it - I bought my laptop with Windows Vista and thot (i thot myself too clever ) i cud zap it as soon i was running ubuntu. But it never happened. Now Windows Vista (a sucker) runs perfectly on this kind of monitor (which is defective in the first place) i wonder how :((. But all the linux distros have the problem with the driver for intel which causes the WSoD problem. I am keeping my fingers crossed as the bug report in ubuntu bugzilla says - “the fix is in progress” (beleiev me we have struggled a lot for this to happen). Hope that my LCD is not too bad after all to be fixed by these guys … Atleast it works with Vista - it wont be too hard to configure it for Linux (ubuntu in particular).

When i bought the laptop i rsearched for the config compatibility and everyone was fine with it. Probably i was one of the first guys on ubuntu forum to complain abt it. Later Dell recognized it as an issue when a lot of guys who bought ubuntu on dell studio and ended up with the same WSoD problem. Later they realzied that it was the problem of AUO model - since then they have stopped using these LCDs on ubuntu laptops

anywaz the story is sad -I was unlucky i think

gluck with ur venture

[oldcpu]

@suncoolsu

Screen 0: minimum 640 x 480, current 1024 x 768, maximum 1024 x 768
default connected 1024x768+0+0 0mm x 0mm

   1024x768       61.0*
   800x600        61.0
   640x480        60.0

This is my output for xrandr. and following is the grep for xorg.conf

    Driver "kbd"
    Driver "mouse"
    Driver "synaptics"
    Driver "vesa"

Thats pretty clear to me. Max resolution of 1024x768 with the Vesa driver.

@suncoolsu

I use mandriva - But since I know now that its KDE 4.1 which can give me 1024x768 - i will soon shift back to ubuntu (i love that distro) - Mandriva themes are too fancy for me … i liked openSUSE tho (basically the greenery - its a good color)

I’m not one for distribution hopping. … I’ve only had 2 Linux distributions installed for any period of time (Red Hat from 1998 to 2001, and SuSE/openSUSE from 2001 to current data). I find Linux is Linux and what works on one distribution tends to work on the other, albeit one has to spend some time applying the fixes one distribution figured out to the other. If one stays away from state of the art hardware, then compatibility differences do not happen much.

This Dell Studio 1537 that I have is the only PC that I have ever purchased that is close to the cutting edge.

@suncoolsu

I am keeping my fingers crossed as the bug report in ubuntu bugzilla says - “the fix is in progress” (beleiev me we have struggled a lot for this to happen). Hope that my LCD is not too bad after all to be fixed by these guys …

I suspect a fix is coming, … its just a matter of time - a few months to a year (worst case my guess).

If its any consolation, when I installed Red Hat on my Compaq LTE-5200 laptop in 1998, I ran in Run Level 3 for the first week. Then 640x480 for the next week or two. Then 800x600 for many months. And finally, I was able to cox 1024x768 with 256 colours out if it after almost 1/2 year. And I remained at 1024x768 until 2001 (when I purchased a newer PC).

[suncoolsu]

Holy Molly Mother of God Hope this doesnt happen to me

[suncoolsu]

I don’t know if its helpful on opensuse or not but this is how i fixed the resolution on Ubuntu - by adding a modeline in xorg.conf and 915resolution patch

After Months of frustration using the 800x600 resolution, installing most of the popular distros and visiting every linux forum to find a solution for my PoS laptop (aka Dell Studio) I have finally got my laptop in working condition with 1280x800 resolution.

This HOW TO assumes that you have ubuntu running in 800x600 with Vesa as the driver:
Steps:
1.Open xorg.conf - sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf
2.Go to the Section “Monitor” and add the following modeline (dont worry if u dont understand what modeline is)
Code:

Section “Monitor”
Identifier “Configured Monitor”
Vendorname “Generic LCD Display”
Modelname “LCD Panel 1280x800”
Horizsync 31.5-50.0
Vertrefresh 56.0 - 65.0
modeline “1280x800@60” 83.46 1280 1344 1480 1680 800 801 804 828 -hsync +vsync
EndSection

3.Save xorg.conf and kill X (done by pressing Ctrl Atl Backspace simultaneously
4.Login ur display should have improved,
5.type xrandr on terminal - The output wud look something like this
Quote:

Screen 0: minimum 800 x 600, current 1280 x 800, maximum 1280 x 800
default connected 1280x800+0+0 0mm x 0mm
1280x800 60.0*
1024x768 61.0
800x600 61.0

6. If the resolution marked * is not 1280x800 - You need to use the 915resolution patch further.
7. Follow the steps mentioned below.

1.Enable the extra repositories in Synaptic.
2.Using Synaptic, download 915resolution
3.In a console, type in sudo 915resolution -l
4.You should get something like this:

roger@roger-laptop:~$ sudo 915resolution -l
Password:
Intel 800/900 Series VBIOS Hack : version 0.5.2

Chipset: 915GM
BIOS: TYPE 1
Mode Table Offset: $C0000 + $269
Mode Table Entries: 36

Mode 30 : 640x480, 8 bits/pixel
Mode 32 : 800x600, 8 bits/pixel
Mode 34 : 1024x768, 8 bits/pixel
Mode 38 : 1280x1024, 8 bits/pixel
Mode 3a : 1600x1200, 8 bits/pixel
Mode 3c : 1920x1440, 8 bits/pixel
Mode 41 : 1280x800, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 43 : 800x600, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 45 : 1024x768, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 49 : 1280x1024, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 4b : 1600x1200, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 4d : 1920x1440, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 50 : 1280x800, 32 bits/pixel
Mode 52 : 800x600, 32 bits/pixel
Mode 54 : 1024x768, 32 bits/pixel
Mode 58 : 1280x1024, 32 bits/pixel
Mode 5a : 1600x1200, 32 bits/pixel
Mode 5c : 1920x1440, 32 bits/pixel
Mode 60 : 512x771, 8 bits/pixel
Mode 61 : 512x771, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 62 : 512x771, 32 bits/pixel
roger@roger-laptop:~$

The ideal resolution and colour depth for my Acer TravelMate 4101 laptop is 1280X800 with a colour depth of 32 bits.

As you can see from the above, it is already listed as Mode 50. However in my case, if that mode is chosen in 915resolution, the system breaks badly. I’m not sure if this is universal, or not.

5.What you need to do is choose a mode which is further up the list and a resolution/depth that you’ll never use (Mode 30 is ideal)
6.Type in a terminal the resolution and colour depth that you want. In my case I wanted 1280X800 at 32 bits/pixel. So I typed:
7. sudo 915resolution 30 1280 800 32
8.The program comes back with confirmation that the new resolution has been patched to Mode 30, in this case.
9.Now all you have to do is to modify your /etc/default/915resolution file to correspond to the above patch.
10.In a terminal type: sudo gedit /etc/default/915resolution. You should get a screen like the one below:

915resolution default

find free modes by /usr/sbin/915resolution -l

and set it to MODE or set to ‘MODE=auto’

With ‘auto’ detection, the panel-size will be fetched from the VBE

BIOS if possible and the highest-numbered mode in each bit-depth

will be overwritten with the detected panel-size.

MODE=AUTO

and set resolutions for the mode.

e.g. use XRESO=1024 and YRESO=768

XRESO=
YRESO=

We can also set the pixel mode.

e.g. use BIT=32

Please note that this is optional,

you can also leave this value blank.

BIT=

11.Now simply edit this file by changing MODE to the MODE that you selected. In this case it was MODE 30
12.Set XRESO=1280 (Or the Horizontal resolution that you selected)
13.Set YRESO=800 (Again set to whatever you selected earlier)
14.Set BIT=32 (Again to the colour depth you chose previously.)
15.Save the file and re-start.
16.The system should boot-up in the new mode and it should also appear as an option in the System>Preferences>Screen Resolution menu.

8. Again check using xrandr - this time output should have changed to 1280x800.
9. If not - change resolution option in the System>Preferences>Screen Resolution menu to 1280x800.

HTH
B.