{"id":517,"date":"2007-04-17T21:49:59","date_gmt":"2007-04-18T02:49:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2007\/04\/17\/dell-inspiron-640m-linux-support-getting-a-little-better"},"modified":"2007-04-17T21:50:03","modified_gmt":"2007-04-18T02:50:03","slug":"dell-inspiron-640m-linux-support-getting-a-little-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2007\/04\/17\/dell-inspiron-640m-linux-support-getting-a-little-better","title":{"rendered":"Dell Inspiron 640m Linux support getting &#8220;a little&#8221; better"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today I upgraded my kernel, so am running 2.6.20-1.2944.fc6 and am pleased to announce that on the Dell Inspiron 640m, brightness control works. Well, sort of. I can reduce brightness and increase brightness, but <b>increasing brightness<\/b> (Fn+ UpArrow) while in X, still <b>causes X to crash<\/b>. All that&#8217;s recorded is:<\/p>\n<p><code>Apr 18 11:54:23 hermione kernel: atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0x8b on isa0060\/serio0).<br \/>Apr 18 11:54:23 hermione kernel: atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e00b &lt;keycode&gt;' to make it known.<\/code><\/p>\n<p>As long as <tt>video.ko<\/tt> is loaded, I can hit Fn+F8 quite successfully, and get video out working now. Its in mirror mode as opposed to a stretched desktop, but I&#8217;m somewhat thankful as GNOMEs panel is still retarded when it comes to shrinking down (watch it go apeshit on you). However, <b>repeated attempts<\/b> (say, 8th time pressing the Fn+F8 key combo and it cycles between displaying on the onboard LCD, mirroring, just the external LCD, and so on) will cause the <b>entire display driver to crash<\/b>. Nothing will then be viewable, so a reboot is in lieu.<\/p>\n<p>The <b>sound control<\/b> via hardware buttons still <b>do not work<\/b> (they used to back in the 2.6.18 days, afaik). Both the hardware and the Fn-key combos don&#8217;t work.<\/p>\n<p>So I decided I need to be a good open source citizen, and report some bugs. <a href=\"https:\/\/bugzilla.redhat.com\/bugzilla\/show_bug.cgi?id=236866\">#236866<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/bugzilla.redhat.com\/bugzilla\/show_bug.cgi?id=236867\">#236867<\/a>. I also updated the <a href=\"http:\/\/kb.arenatechniques.com\/index.php\/DellInspiron640m\">Fedora on the Dell Inspiron 640m<\/a> wiki page.<\/p>\n<p>For what it is worth, Desktop Effects has decided to stop working (to amuse myself I tried to enable it today). Its now nice to note that I can give presentations using my Linux box again, and things will be working (quite unlike my <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/bytebot\/statuses\/18494431\">last experience<\/a>) . I&#8217;m also excited to note that Ubuntu Feisty Fawn is coming out tomorrow, and at the same time annoyed that I&#8217;ll be travelling and don&#8217;t want to futz with my main work machine. Rob Weir will be glad to note that its only <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2005\/05\/02\/ole-ole-ole-ubuntu-boleh\">taken 2 years<\/a> for me to start seeing the light.<\/p>\n<p>Technorati Tags: <a class=\"performancingtags\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/linux\" rel=\"tag\">linux<\/a>, <a class=\"performancingtags\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/fedora\" rel=\"tag\">fedora<\/a>, <a class=\"performancingtags\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/dell\" rel=\"tag\">dell<\/a>, <a class=\"performancingtags\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/dell%20640m\" rel=\"tag\">dell 640m<\/a>, <a class=\"performancingtags\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/inspiron%20640m\" rel=\"tag\">inspiron 640m<\/a>, <a class=\"performancingtags\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/xorg\" rel=\"tag\">xorg<\/a>, <a class=\"performancingtags\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/crash\" rel=\"tag\">crash<\/a>, <a class=\"performancingtags\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/brightness%20control\" rel=\"tag\">brightness control<\/a>, <a class=\"performancingtags\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/video%20out\" rel=\"tag\">video out<\/a>, <a class=\"performancingtags\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/sound\" rel=\"tag\">sound<\/a>, <a class=\"performancingtags\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/hardware%20buttons\" rel=\"tag\">hardware buttons<\/a>, <a class=\"performancingtags\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/\" rel=\"tag\"><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon-text sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-email\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-email sd-button share-icon\" href=\"mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20Dell%20Inspiron%20640m%20Linux%20support%20getting%20%22a%20little%22%20better&body=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bytebot.net%2Fblog%2Farchives%2F2007%2F04%2F17%2Fdell-inspiron-640m-linux-support-getting-a-little-better&share=email\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to email a link to a friend\" data-email-share-error-title=\"Do you have email set up?\" data-email-share-error-text=\"If you&#039;re having problems sharing via email, you might not have email set up for your browser. 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Well, sort of. I can reduce brightness and increase brightness, but increasing brightness (Fn+ UpArrow) while in X, still causes X to crash. All that&#8217;s recorded is: Apr 18 11:54:23 hermione kernel: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon-text sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-email\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-email sd-button share-icon\" href=\"mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20Dell%20Inspiron%20640m%20Linux%20support%20getting%20%22a%20little%22%20better&body=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bytebot.net%2Fblog%2Farchives%2F2007%2F04%2F17%2Fdell-inspiron-640m-linux-support-getting-a-little-better&share=email\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to email a link to a friend\" data-email-share-error-title=\"Do you have email set up?\" data-email-share-error-text=\"If you&#039;re having problems sharing via email, you might not have email set up for your browser. 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Simply put, the week before going to foss.in (i.e. last week), I got tired with my tried daily usage of Ubuntu (besides, I went through Feisty Fawn and Gutsy Gibbon). So I went with Fedora 8. You've got to love\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":468,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2007\/02\/11\/fedora-core-6-on-the-dell-inspiron-640m","url_meta":{"origin":517,"position":1},"title":"Fedora Core 6 on the Dell Inspiron 640m","date":"11\/2\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Downloaded the 64-bit version of FC-6, something I've never done before. Booted, skipped the CD test, and got caught out with: mini-wm: Fatal IO error 104 (Connection reset by peer) on X server :1.0.Rebooted, to try the graphical installation again, since this is an Intel graphics card, there shouldn't really\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":471,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2007\/02\/16\/the-2619-12911-fedora-kernel-lets-the-dell-640m-sleep-thoughts-on-smolt","url_meta":{"origin":517,"position":2},"title":"The 2.6.19-1.2911 Fedora kernel lets the Dell 640m sleep; thoughts on smolt","date":"16\/2\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The 2.6.19-1.2911 kernel that just got released makes my Dell 640m very happy. It can now sleep (suspend) without any problems and wake up just as well. Marked improvement over the previous kernel, so I'm actually getting laptop mileage out of this. It still has outstanding issues. The ACPI video\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":469,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2007\/02\/11\/enabling-dma-on-the-dell-inspiron-640m-in-fedora-core-6","url_meta":{"origin":517,"position":3},"title":"Enabling DMA on the Dell Inspiron 640m in Fedora Core 6","date":"11\/2\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Continuing in configuring the Dell Inspiron 640m (notice that no matter what you use, even Windows or OS X, you'll never end up configuring these things on the first day), I needed to enable DMA. Running hdparm \/dev\/hdc I could verify this, so just adding options libata atapi_enabled=1 to \/etc\/modprobe.conf\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":701,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2008\/01\/25\/dell-warranty-rocks","url_meta":{"origin":517,"position":4},"title":"Dell warranty rocks","date":"25\/1\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"When buying my Dell Inspiron 640m, I wanted to ensure I was getting a good warranty. It turns out, I finally had to use it, and all I can say is that its been a pretty great experience!The left mouse button on my touchpad decided to give up the ghost,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":557,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2007\/05\/22\/today-i-am-a-virgin","url_meta":{"origin":517,"position":5},"title":"Today, I am a virgin","date":"22\/5\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"An Ubuntu-on-my-main-desktop virgin. Or more accurately, Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 7.04 on a Dell Inspiron 640m laptop (2GHz Core 2 Duo T7200, 2GB RAM, 120GB disk). hermione is no longer a Fedora Core machine, its all Ubuntu now.Getting The SoftwareA few weeks ago, I'm pretty sure they offered PowerPC downloads that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}