Dell Precision M50 mini-HOWTO

[Michael Robinson <robinson@netrinsics.com>]

Everything works, but some parts are a bit fiddly:

Video
--------------------
    Use the NVIDIA drivers:
    http://download.nvidia.com/XFree86_40/1.0-2960/NVIDIA_GLX-1.0-2960.tar.gz
    http://download.nvidia.com/XFree86_40/1.0-2960/NVIDIA_kernel-1.0-2960.tar.gz

    If you plan to be able to use APM to suspend and resume, you will 
    need to hack the kernel module according to the instructions found
    at <http://vergil.chemistry.gatech.edu/~park/dell.html> (note that
    you must disable AGP in the kernel):

    Advanced Power Management

    1. Current status: suspend-to-ram works, even within X! (but AGP is
      completely disabled). Suspend-to-disk remains untested, but should work
      if you set your partitions/bootloader correctly.

    2. Make sure you configured APM into your kernel and that you have
      the APM daemon running.

    3. Note that the current nVidia driver prevents any APM activity. In
      order to activate suspend-to-memory or suspend-to-disk, you must edit
      the nv.c source file. First, search for the word "avoiding", you should
      come across a block of code like this:

      #else
          case PM_RESUME:
              case PM_SUSPEND:
              //    printk("NVRM: avoiding suspend request, don't want to
              //    shutdown!!\n");
                  return 1;
      #endif
              default:
              //    printk("NVRM: received unknown PM event: 0x%x\n", rqst);
                  return 1;
          }
          return 0;
      }
      #endif

      Change both return 1 statements to return 0 statements. It should
      now look like this:

      #else
              case PM_RESUME:
              case PM_SUSPEND:
              //    printk("NVRM: avoiding suspend request, don't want to
              //    shutdown!!\n");
                  return 0;
      #endif
              default:
              //    printk("NVRM: received unknown PM event: 0x%x\n", rqst);
                  return 0;
          }
          return 0;
      }
      #endif

      Save the file and run make.

    4. In your XF86Config-4 file, make sure under the "Device" section
      that you have a line:

        Option "NvAGP" "0"


Sound
--------------------
    Use the i810_audio module.

    The volume keys do not work automatically.  Any OSS-supporting mixer
    (such as the "setmixer" package) can substitute.


Internal modem
--------------------
    Use the PCTel linmodem driver:
    http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/pctel-linux/pctel-0.9.4.tar.gz

    ./configure --with-hal=i81x

Internal network
--------------------
    Use the 3c59x module.