This page is obsolete: I have run many current distributions on my Toshiba by now. They all work like a charm, right out of the box.
What is much better is that using the 3D-window-manager Beryl, this more than three years old piece of hardware gives me a genuine Wow-Grade 3D-Desktop with all the bells and whistles! I wrote about it here.
— Stefan Waidele jun. 2007/10/22 18:33
I bought this laptop Mon, Sept 22nd 2003.
I started installing Linux Fri, Sept 26th 2003.
Recent changes have been in the SuSE-Section. SuSE 8.2 took me
only about 2 hours until I had almost everything running.
I hope you will find this usefull. Feedback is wellcome.
Last update: Mon, Oct, 20th 2003, 23:11
The Satellite 5200-903 is described here: de.computers.toshiba-europe.com/...
These are my experiences installing different linux-distros to my brand-new laptop. As you will notice below, I did not put too much efford into investigations if the initial install did not work well.
Debian Woody - Did not work, maybe
because of the old Kernel 2.2x
SuSE 8.2 - Works, and is the
installation I am using.
Knoppix Version Linuxtag 2003,
incl. Skyrix - Did not work.
Knoppix 3.3 - Works. With this
installation I got used to the hardware and compiling
Kernels. This section has most details for configuration and
also most of the 'debugging output'.
I did not get the sound to work, which I (now) think
is due to the 2.6Test4 Kernel I was using.
RedHat 8.0 (Provided by Peter Biermann)
If anybody has installed Debian, Mandrake, RedHat, Slackware or any other flavor of Linux to this machine I would be interested to get the hints. I will include useful instructions or links to this page.
Many thanks to Peter Biermann, who sent me his notes on how to install RedHat 8.0. I have translated them into english and included them here.
Before you can install any anlternative OS, you need to change the boot-order. There is no regular bios-setup. A Windows-Setup can be reached by pressing that funny Toshiba-i right next to the 'internet-button' (which is right next to the power-button).
My first try was Debian Woody. The base install seemed to go just fine, but at reboot, there was a kernel-panic. :(
SuSE installed fine in graphics mode, but when booted into
the installed OS, the screen went 'kinda shifty'. There where
huge grafic errors, even in console-mode :(
I went ahead to install Knoppix and learned a lot while
configuring things by hand (See below). But since I did not
get the sound running, I tried SuSE again:
I booted into installation from the DVD and this time I chose the "Video-Mode" 1400x1050. This time the installation worked like a snap! No graphic problems, Sound and network worked right away!
For ACPI to work, I recompiled the kernel from SuSE-sources, V2.4.20 with the Toshiba-Options mentioned in the Knoppix 3.3 section.
The NVIDIA installation worked after 'export IGNORE_CC_MISMATCH=1'. But running sax2 after crashed the display. So I made some changes to /etc/X11/XF86Config by hand. These are described in the NVIDIA-Readme. But the 3D did not work yet, although I noticed a speedup in 2D.
So I copied the Knoppix3.3 XF86Config-4, renamed it and made the changes there: NVIDIA worked, as was proven by their logo when starting X11. 3D seems to work, too, since 'tuxracer' runs at playable speed and with breathtaking mountains :) 'gears' gives me the following FPS:
stw@laptop:~> gears 20955 frames in 5.000 seconds = 4191.000 FPS 22124 frames in 5.000 seconds = 4424.800 FPS 22122 frames in 5.000 seconds = 4424.400 FPS 22117 frames in 5.000 seconds = 4423.400 FPS 21952 frames in 5.000 seconds = 4390.400 FPS ----- Maximizing the Window to 1400x1050 (minus KDE-Panel) 3074 frames in 5.000 seconds = 614.800 FPS 1664 frames in 5.001 seconds = 332.733 FPS 1664 frames in 5.001 seconds = 332.733 FPS 1664 frames in 5.001 seconds = 332.733 FPS 1658 frames in 5.000 seconds = 331.600 FPS ----- Restoring the window to original size 19029 frames in 5.000 seconds = 3805.800 FPS 22111 frames in 5.000 seconds = 4422.200 FPS 22088 frames in 5.000 seconds = 4417.600 FPS 22063 frames in 5.000 seconds = 4412.600 FPS
You can find more details in the Knoppix 3.3 section below, since I did that before I got SuSE to work.
For the neat little cPad check out this site: www.dietmar-kuehl.de/Xcpad
Installation using /usr/local/bin/knx-hdinstall went fine. System booted ok. But after I had done a 'apt-get update && apt-get upgrade' The system would hang on boot with 'ttyS0: LSR safety check engaged!' printed twice. <ctrl>-<alt>-<del> would reboot in an orderly manner, but since the upgrade had given me some errors during configuration, and the Knoppix 3.3 download was already at 85%, I did not investigate any further.
I ran Knoppix 3.3 with the cheat-code 'knoppix screen=1280x1024' and it worked really well. 'knoppix screen=1400x1050' also works, but I was not that brave before installing to HD :)
Sidenote: According to gimp and my ruler, the display has a resolution of 116.9, so I guess it is 117. But you probably don't need this, unless you use gimp. And then you can calibrate yourself.
So with Knoppix running from CD I did a
/usr/local/bin/knx-hdinstall and rebooted from CD. I changed
/etc/X11/XFConfig-4
including the 1400x1050 resolution and
restarted X11.
'DefaultColorDepth 24' also worked, while 'DefaultColorDepth
32' would not work.
So using the 'vesa' X11-driver works for regular usage.
The cPad worked right away as mouse, using 'Emulate3Buttons'
The integrated networking device worked without further configuration. knx-hdinstall offered DHCP as default, but I assigned the appropriate ip-addresses myself.
Sound does not work yet.
Windows sais there is a 'Yamaha AC XG Audio Device' and a
'Yamaha XG WDM Softsynthesizer'
The PCMIA-Slot appears to work. Inserting a card produces
messages in /var/log/messages, and at removal the system
beeps.
I did not really check the function yet, since I am new to
WLAN on Linux and want to read up on it later. I do not have
other PCMIA-cards other than my WLAN.
APCI works with the kernel described later. KDE shows me the AC/Battery Status correctly and
/proc/acpi/toshiba has information in it.
APM is not supported by the hardware.
I am not able to check the sd-card reader since I do not have an sd-card.
The internal modem is not recognized by SuSE8.1, so I guess it is a winmodem and will not work with linux.
Knoppix uses V2.4.22, but I was not successfull compiling a workable 2.4.22. So I went for 2.6test6. I am sure that with more experience in compiling kernels you will be successfull with 2.4.x
There is CONFIG_TOSHIBA which
is for the special Toshiba-BIOS.
The help mentions
www.buzzard.org.uk/toshiba
for further information, but the site is unavailable.
The option CONFIG_ACPI_TOSHIBA seems to address the issues
other users have reported with LCD brightness
memebeam.org/toys/ToshibaAcpiDriver
I dissable paralellport and other ports not available on this
laptop
For IR there is no option for the HP-IR module reported by
WinXP, so I try the CONFIG_TOSHIBA_FIR option as module. The
module will be called 'donauboe.o' (Did not test IR yet)
I did not find the Yamaha AC XG Audio Device reported by WinXP.
My ~/linux-2.6.0-test6/.config probably is not fully optimized, but it works.
make oldconfig make xconfig make bzImage modules su make modules_install cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/my.bzImage emacs /etc/lilo.conf lilo lilo -R homemade reboot
eth0 uses the e100-module, which is listed as 'alternative' to the original 'Becker-Driver'. I needed to 'modprobe e100' in order to make it work by hand. Now I have added 'modprobe -q e100' to /etc/init.d/network so it's called at bootup. A 'dpkg-reconfigure etherconf' helped to do the rest.
APCI works. Buring boot, there are affirmative messages, KDE
shows me the AC/Battery Status correctly and
/proc/acpi/toshiba has information in it.
Also try this
root@laptop:~# echo "brightness:0" > /proc/acpi/toshiba/lcd root@laptop:~# echo "brightness:1" > /proc/acpi/toshiba/lcd root@laptop:~# echo "brightness:2" > /proc/acpi/toshiba/lcd root@laptop:~# echo "brightness:3" > /proc/acpi/toshiba/lcd root@laptop:~# echo "brightness:4" > /proc/acpi/toshiba/lcd root@laptop:~# echo "brightness:5" > /proc/acpi/toshiba/lcd root@laptop:~# echo "brightness:6" > /proc/acpi/toshiba/lcd root@laptop:~# echo "brightness:7" > /proc/acpi/toshiba/lcd
I have yet to install the NVIDIA-Driver.
DVD-RAM works (even though it is not mentioned in the specs!) with the UDF-module.
root@laptop:/home/stw# modprobe udf root@laptop:/home/stw# mount -t auto /dev/sr0 /mnt/ root@laptop:/home/stw# df -h Filesystem Gr��e Benut Verf Ben% Eingeh�ngt auf /dev/hda3 4,0G 2,8G 1,1G 73% / /dev/sr0 4,3G 2,7G 1,7G 62% /mntI have yet to try the DVD-Writer in regular CD/DVD - R/RW mode. The dvdrecord-output looks promising: