Installing Linux on the Tecra M2

Overview

I installed Debian Woody on this laptop, and did extensive upgrades of the kernel and other software to support the hardware. In order to repartition I had to determine by trial and error that the product recovery CD would install and not repartition provided it was given a partition greater than 10GB in size. I set up a dual boot system with lilo on the master boot record and gave XP 11GB, reinstalling it with the product recovery CD before I installed linux. Because I had no wired net and needed to download quite a few packages using the wireless network, I had to download most software with XP and load the ntfs module so that I could read packages off the NTFS filesystem with linux, until I got the bleeding-edge wireless working. I apologize for the spartan formatting of this page. After a web search, I have found nothing about linux on the Tecra M2, so I decided to post this early, before we have it all working. The Debian 2.4 installation kernel worked well enough to get me started, but I didn't use many Debian packages for the kernel and drivers, the hardware is too young for that. Now there are some more pages about the Tecra M2 on the web. My favorite is in The Netherlands.

A useful trick

Although it isn't obvious, Toshiba has provided a way to access the BIOS without Windows. You can hit ctrl+esc during the "Toshiba" startup screen. You can also select a temporary boot device by striking the F12 key at the Toshiba splash screen. Many thanks to Paolo Cravero for providing this information.

Working Hardware

Video

I installed a binary distribution of XFree 4.4.0 used the free "nv" driver to support the video chip, which is a "GeForce FX Go5200 32M/64M". Switching to text consoles was not possible for any user except root without adding the following to /etc/X11/XF86Config: 
Section "ServerFlags"
   Option "HandleSpecialKeys"  "Always"
EndSection

Switching to a text console (ctrl-alt-F1) and back to X (alt-F7) clears up video corruption that occurs on this laptop after it blanks its screen.

Ethernet

supported by the eepro100 module

Builtin Wireless

I compiled and installed the ipw2200 module from http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/ but I got compilation errors with insufficient arguments to IPW_DEBUG_ORD until I commented out two debug options in the Makefile: 
# CONFIG_IPW_DEBUG=y
# CONFIG_IEEE80211_DEBUG=y
It was this module which forced me to upgrade to a 2.6 kernel, a step that required an upgrade of modutils and module-init-tools. These are the versions I installed: firmwarehotplug-0.1, hotplug-2004_03_29, ipw2200-0.12, ipw2200-fw-2.0, and wireless_tools.27.

My kernel upgrade required the following source packages be download and compiled: linux-2.6.9, module-init-tools-3.1, and modutils-2.4.27.

Power Management

ACPI didn't permit suspend, but APM works if you disable ACPI and unload the usb host module (uhci_hcd). Battery charge state is reported. Unfortunately the power management isn't that reliable, it sometimes restores the keyboard to an unusable state. At that point you need to shutdown, but cannot type anything. We have avoided filesystem corruption by having a "shutdown now" available for cutting and pasting as needed.

USB

USB is supported with the uhci_hcd, usblp and usbhid modules. Suspending with the uhci_hcd module running seems to cause an IRQ conflict on resume, which disables USB and the wireless card until you reboot. The work-around is to unload the uhci_hcd module before suspending. Before I had USB support a USB mouse functioned, but without the scroll wheel. I suspect the BIOS was emulating a PS/2.

Sound

supported by the snd_intel8x0 and snd_mixer_oss modules

Parallel Port

I have built parport and parport_pc modules and finally these are working, after I visited the BIOS and enabled the parallel port. Evidently XP can still use a parallel port that has been disabled, and the only way to enable it is with BIOS - reachable with control-escape from the Toshiba boot screen.

PCMCIA slots

I have built PCMCIA support into the kernel and installed pcmcia-cs-3.2.8. An ethernet card was detected upon insertion and functioned. Our modem card still does not work. Kernel 2.6 pcmcia insertion events are silent, and generally produce no debugging output.

Things that don't work yet

Internal modem

I downloaded and installed SmartLink drivers These compiled without any problem, except that I could not find the ALSA header file needed to use them with the open source kernel module snd_intel8x0m. So I used the slamr module. When I ran minicom, I could issue commands that got the modem to dial (silently) but I had real trouble making a stable connection. I got a ppp link on one occasion that lasted a few minutes, and I dialed about a dozen times.

External video

The external video hotkey (Fn-F5) does something, sending a signal to an external monitor, but that signal doesn't seem to be normal video. The resolution the monitor sees isn't at all similar to the resolution on the LCD screen. We have tried several video modes and a text console with similar results.

This machine has no serial port, PS/2 port or floppy drive. The DVD worked fine as a data disk, and we are able to watch movies using ogle. We added a serial and PS/2 ports with suitable adaptor cables that we ordered from usbgear.com. Their website specifies cables that are supported by linux, and in this case it was accurate. If you need more details, email me, my username is sjg, and my mail exchanger is strike.colorado.edu, where you found this web page.

This page was written December 16, 2004 and revised January 30 2005.