Toshiba Satellite 5200-801

Intel Pentium 4-M (Northwood) 2 GHz (1,2 GHz)
Intel i845 CAM
512 MB RAM
60GB HDD (Hitachi)
DVD-R/-RW
67 mAh Li-Ion Accu (max 3,3 h)

Since Silvester 02/03 I'm the owner of this Notebook. I'm quite impressed how easy it was to install Linux and to make it usable. This time I decided to install Gentoo Linux 1.4 (rc2). It was pretty straight forward, if you follow the install-instructions from the gentoo-project. The following will describe experiences I made so far.

Since mid '04 im using GNU/Debian unstable.

BLOG

12/11/05

As of the release of kernel version 2.6.14 the patches for the toshiba_acpi module cannot be appied. I have created a new one. It works for me.

08/07/05

This site needs a fresh-up. Some devices like firewire and bluetooth are working now.

20/08/03

I'm told that there are problems with the current firewire-driver. more...

08/07/03

I have corrected some missleadings in the USB-section

29/06/03

Updated XFree-section to fit to a 4.3-environment. The old setup resulted in "no modelines left" (Thanxs to Alberto Bert)

24/06/03

I forgot to list the specs to the network-controller, it is a Intel-pro compatible codec in the ICH. I also added the bluetooth-driver to the matrix.

03/06/03

I had a copyright-error in my Bloetooth-section. It was Nicolas Bettenburg who modified the toshiba_acpi-module. Sorry for that

23/05/03

I've added some notes about activating Bluetooth

08/05/03

Some notes about dealing with acpi are supplemented

April 03

After many mails I have added a description of adding sound-support. It includes a description on dealing with acpi.

Februar 03

This site is added to my Domain

Graphics (X11 / NVidia binary driver)

The notebook has a very recent GPU from NVidia. Since version 4.3 it is supported by the nv-module. Mut there are two more methods getting X11 wirking The first is using the binary driver from NVidia. This has some advantages as well as some disadvantages. First of all you have full 3d-accelleration support and the visual quality is good as well. You can easily activate the multi-monitor-support. The main disadvantage is that it is a binary driver and that it does not support any powermanagement-features. For installation-description follow the instructions at Nvidia Linux area. The second way is using the framebuffer-driver, supported by the XFree86-project. Just replace nv or nvidia in the "Device" section by fb. that should do...

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Touchpad

There you have the choice, weather you drive it native with border-sensitivity or with a driver, that can lay programs in the little underlaying display. This display is one of the finest gimmics of the touchpad. So I suggest you use the cpad driver from rob miller.The installation-instructions there are quite straight forward. There are some scripts, where you can put serveral things on the display.
As standard the touchpad supports PS/2 as the protokoll. With this you will have the sensitive edges, the cpad-driver does not support. For additional information look into the USB-section

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Keyboard

Most keyboard-controller from Toshiba has a nasty bug. Some key-presses result in doubled letters. The workaround is to deactivate all acceleration and write your own Xmodmap-file. I've got a well working one from here (thanx alot). Follow Thorstens instructions and your fine. (Thats why I have a us-keymap in my XF86Config)

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Sound

(NEW) As of kernel 2.6 acpi is included and working in most parts. In this kernel there is a module for recent toshiba (toshiba_acpi.ko). It includes support for setting brightness, fans and with the bluetooth-patch activating bluetooth-support. though sound is no problem anymore.

I've received serveral mails recently regarding the sound-support. So I've decided to write a more detailes report. Here it is:

The soundchip is a AC'97 codec, supported by the intel8x0 driver vom alsa as well as by the i810_audio driver from the kernel. It needs ACPI to be activated correctly. Though it is possible that, without ACPI you will not hear any sound. The reason of this is the following:

This Notebook does not have an PCI-IRQ-table in its bios. Toshiba referes to ACPI and has dropped any old-style BIOS-parts. While there are no lagacy-devices onboard (except the IR-port) there semes to be no need for it - Windows supports ACPI for years. But Linux still has some problems. The ACPI-stack is still in developement and will be included in the 2.6-series of the kernel comming this summer. But you can activate it with the patches from the ACPI-project. Some may say there is ACPI-support in the stock-kernel, and yes it is. But it is very rudimentary and has to be replaced by the patches to achieve full functionality.

If you have SuSE 8.1 and higher, you are fine. It has ACPI-support included. Check, if there is a acpi-directory in the /proc-diectory. As I have read in the SuSE-support-forum they have changed the directories underneath, so standard-programs do not find the entries. (This policy, changing any source to make it incompatible to other distros, makes me suggest not to use SuSE, It is just like the dirty stuff from Redmond). Activate ACPI by passing 'pci=acpi' to the kernel.

All others should create their own kernel. I describe how to do this in my ACPI-section.

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PCMCIA

As usual this part is a bit tricky. First I've tried to use the cardbus-driver, that came with the pcmcia-cs-package, but while loading the module into the kernel I've got a kernel-oops. the module seems to probe on some ports, where other devices are hanging. Because I'm a bit lazy, I did not go on the hunt but checked out the yenta-socket-driver that comes with the kernel. It works fine and I'm able to use my 3com Wireless XJack card. The controller in this card (for the 3crshrw196, 3crshrw596, 3crwe62092b) is an Atmel-chip. Your can find the driver here.

There are no more changes to the configuration. Set the environment, that suites your needes and you go...

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USB

USB did work from the start, as it has to :-) . The cpad is connected to one of the NEC-USB 2.0 controller onboard. The notebook has 3 external USB 2.0 plugs, utilised by the ehci-driver, that comes with the kernel since 2.4.18. You need to add ohci-support as well as uhci-support as modules into the kernel to use USB 1.1-devices. For 2.4.21 big improvements are promised, we will see.
My mouse (Logitech MouseMan Traveller) is the alternative device for X11. It uses the IMPS/2 protokoll and uses /dev/input/mice as device (include input-support with mice and, if needed for keyboard in the kernel!). If the device-file does not exist, do a 'mknod /dev/input/mice c 13 63'. Then you will have control over two mice at one time.

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Firewire

With the firewire-patch from here you can use firewire, without the fw-controller will not be correctly initialized. Thanx to rob miller!

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Modem

As most notebooks this one has a ac'97 softmodem. I dont know if there are drivers available, but as im a broadband-user, it is not of big interest for me.

(NEW) Enrico Rubboli told me, that there are drivers available at http://www.smlink.com. Thanx :-)

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APM/ACPI

Quite easy. Install the acpid-daemon and you are done. On some distros you have to set acpi=on in the bootloader. thats all...

Toshiba says, this notebook has a modern bios. That means, you have no apm, not even a "fake-signal". So you have to deal with the acpi-patches. But these patches will not bring you suspend or hibernation. There is the swsusp-patch, but Im not able to use it, because the X11-driver from nvidia does not support it. This driver is the only driver, that supports the gf460go, so no suspend yet.

(NEW) There were some requests of describing, how to apply the acpi-patches and activate them in the kernel. Normaly I'm not a friend of telling newbies how to compile your own kernel, because the distributions has their own kernelpatches and maybe patching the kernel will fail. You are warned, all you do is at your own risk. No warrenties from my side!
As the basement I will use the stock-kernel from kernel.org with the proper acpi-patches from sf.net/projects/acpi (look at the kernel-version the patches are made for! Don't get the patch because it is the most recent, get the proper one for YOUR kernel!) At the moment I'm using kernel version 2.4.19 with the patches from september '02.

After some Mails in the last cuple of days, im adding this note: Do not use kernel 2.4.20 with the acpi-patches! The patches up to those for the 2.4.21-pre4 do have a bug that causes the keventd to set the system under full load. This is told to be fixed in the patches for the final 2.4.21-kernel.

Now follow these steps:

The acpid-daemon recognises scripts in /etc/acpi/events. These scripts describes reactions to acpi-events. You can store programs and scripts in /etc/acpi/actions, which represents your desired actions. Start the daemon on your system-startup to get its functionality

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Bluetooth

Apply this one to kernel 2.6.14 and higher.

Apply this patch to the toshiba-acpi-driver, recompile and follow the orders here. Bluetooth now works :D

Ok, the tools I've provided last, do not work. I've spend some time trying to activate them, w/o success. But after some googling I've found a site with a patch to the acpi_toshiba-module. I will try it and report, if it works.

The reason, why the tools don't work is, that they depend on the toshiba-module which does not work together with acpi.

(NEWS) Much better news: Nicolas Bettenburg helped me in getting Bluetooth working. He modified the module I've found and now it is very easy to get Bluetooth working. Here you can find the source of the module :-)

At the moment I'm trying to integrate the patch from aKpi to it and modify aKpi to activate bluetooth with a nice checkbox. I will report soon...

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CD-Writer

The Notebook has a DVD-R/-RW writer built in. At the moment I'm only using the DC-R/RW capabilities. This goes the standard-way: activate the scsi-ide support in the kernel, include the modules for scsi-cdrom and scsi-generic, and you will be able to write cds using the cdrtools.

There are, as far as I know, two tools available to write DVD-R/RWs, CDRecord-Pro and the dvdrtools. CDRecord-Pro is free for non-commercial use, but it needs to be liscensed. Dvdrtools is a very young project. I will not pass a judgment on the tools while I'm not using them. Maybe some other will tell me his efforts.

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Tools

Im using some tools, that makes life easier. One of the most important tools is gkrellm. It is a monitor for the system you can expand with plugins. My favorite plugins are "pccard" to monitor my pccards status, "wireless" for my wlan-card, "volume" for my mixer and "gkxmms" for remote controling xmms.
The recent acpid is for handling acpi events. You can power of by pushing the power button and react on the lid-switch.

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Links