Kubuntu 10.10 on a Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t

In order to replace my Palm Lifedrive, which was used as WiFi, Address-book and Wikipedia-Reader I bought a Lenovo netbook with Tablet Functions. Okay a different type of device, but I need no cell phone and traditional PDAs are gone 🙂

It was delivered to me practically to the release date of Kubuntu 10.10. This time it was not so smoothly as expected. Read the details:

Disclaimer

This page is nothing more than my personal experiences with my netbook . This is nothing official from any vendor! I am not responsible for anything you do with your hard- and software. For any support contact the respective vendors! Please respect the legal notice.

Who should read the following description? The machine runs mostly “out-of-the-box”. All the rest is due to you. Be willing to learn, follow instructions form Ubuntu geeks, accept to fail and start again. At least you should know:
  1. How to operate apt or Adept Manager
  2. Read Readme-Files and HowTos
  3. Read Error-Messages and use search machines to find a solution

A good resource for hints, tips and questions is http://ubuntuforums.org/

Preparations

In Germany you can not buy this netbook without Windows 7. Again I had to pay „taxes“ for something I do not need. I still hope some market regulations will help customers in the future. The package comes without any media. Neither operating system, nor a recovery CD or DVD. There is a one key recovery function which needs some hard-disk space. As I do not need a thing called Windows at all, I kicked it from the hard-disk, but before I and made a backup of the complete hard disk using the Kubuntu Live CD.

Let’s go: Boot the laptop from Kubuntu Live CD, attach a external USB-hard-disk, open a shell e.g. by pressing Alt+F2 enter “konsole” and now you can use the dd-command for low-level backup. Just as example:

sudo dd if=/dev/sda | gzip --fast -c | \
   split -d -b 650m  - /media/disk/lenovo-s10-3t/sda_image.gz.

restore (hopefully) with somewhat like:

sudo cat  /media/disk/lenovo-s10-3t/sda_image.gz.* | \
   gunzip -c | sudo dd of=/dev/sda

Please! Do this on your own risk. Learn about dd in advance (Google is your friend). Be aware the whole process will some hours (in my case 4 hours), because there is a 250 GB storage to be processed at low-level. Finally on my USB-hard-disk it was about 48 GB backup data.

Installation of Kubuntu 10.10 „Maverick Meerkat“

In my notebook there is a Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N450  @ 1.66GHz CPU, so I used the 64-bit (amd64) version of Kubuntu (http://www.kubuntu.org/download.php).

The desktop version of Maverick crashed all the time when it came to the disk partition screen, so I tried the alternate version, which worked. Also a try is to repair the MBR (Master Boot Record), boot the live CD and

sudo apt-get install mbr
sudo install-mbr /dev/sda

++ Graphics card — Intel GMA 4500M

XServer starts with the correct resolution and 3d support.

+ Power management — ACPI

Battery sensor works, lid close, screen power save and automatic shutdown on low energy level. Sadly just a few of the ACPI controlled key as described in paragraph Keyboard.

++ Suspend to ram

Works as designed, I do not know if really every device is up and running again after suspend but it seems so USB, network, no complains from my side.

++ Suspend to disk, hibernate

Works as designed, check suspend to ram. Honestly I have to say suspend to disk with 2 GB main memory is nearly as fast as boot from scratch 🙂

++ Touchpanel and -pad in keyboard

The „Cando Corporation Cando 10.1 Multi Touch Panel with Controller“ and „SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad“ are running. I did not played around with multi-touch, but seems to work.

I have been told there is an gravity control for the screen rotation, which currently does not work. A replacement could be a script assigned to a key like
rotate this is my version of the script in this thread: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1415915

++ USB

No complains.

+ Keyboard

Keys like Brightness, Volume work. Other function keys not. Sadly some of them would be important such as WLAN. Also no key on the display frame works. They would be handy for screen rotate.

++ Network — LAN

The cable interface „Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM57780 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe (rev 01)“ works.

+ Network — WLAN

Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11b/g LP-PHY (rev 01)

You need the non free driver: System > Administration > Hardware Drivers works for me. If not follow the instructions as noticed in http://www.broadcom.com/docs/linux_sta/README.txt

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get --reinstall install bcmwl-kernel-source

To be honest, I missed the hardware switch at the right edge, here you switch the device on. Sadly my WPA secured connection with an old Netgear router does not work (with my other Kubuntu 10.10 hardware it works). One posting in the Ubuntu forums describes the same experience, I had no time to play and make it work.

+ Audio

Works as designed: „Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)“

To support headphone and microphone plug, add following lines

sudo vim /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf
options snd-hda-intel model="olpc-xo-1_5"
options snd-hda-intel model="ideapad"

++ SD/MMC card reader

My SD-cards are mounted, works.

++ Lenovo EasyCamera

I tried it with Skype, should be fine with other software as well.

Any hints?

Please send me any hints, new tips, report errors, etc. via e-mail werner@wernerroth.de. Please no support requests, thanks!

Links

Good starting points for Linux on Notebooks/Laptops are:
http://tuxmobil.de/

http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/

Kubuntu Karmic Koala knackt

Die Soundkarte meines Lenovo R61i ist an der Stereoanlage angeschlossen, seit Kubuntu 9.10 knackte es in regelmäßigen Abständen aus den Lautsprechern, während ich Musik hörte war das knacken nicht zu vernehmen, die Auflösung des Problems ist recht simpel.

„Kubuntu Karmic Koala knackt“ weiterlesen

Verwenden der Java und Flash 64 bit Plugins unter Kubuntu 8.10

Sowohl Adobe, als auch Sun haben nun native 64 bit Plugins für Firefox, Opera, etc. herausgebracht. Beide sind noch Alpha bzw. Early Access funktionieren aber schon (Update 6.2.2009 das Java Plugin ist nun offiziell released). Neben dem Nachteil, dass das Zeug noch brandaktuell ist, muss man nun selbst auf die Aktualität der Software achten. Das automatische Systemupdate (aller Systembestandteile!) ist ja gerade ein Vorteil von Debian basierten Distributionen. Für experimentierfreudige Menschen folgt hier eine Anleitung. Die anderen Nutzen bitte: Firefox 64 bit Java, ICA und Flash Plugins auf Kubuntu 8.10: „Verwenden der Java und Flash 64 bit Plugins unter Kubuntu 8.10“ weiterlesen

Kubuntu 8.10 Drucker einrichten

Natürlich kann bei einem Unix-System immer alles via Kommandozeile gemacht werden, dass treibt vielen Leuten zu Unrecht Angsschweiß auf die Stirn, jedoch fehlt in KDE4 noch die hübsche Oberfläche, um Drucker einzurichten. Macht nichts: Im inneren Eures Systems schlummert schon seit langem eine ansehnliche Web-Oberfläche des Drucksystems CUPS. „Kubuntu 8.10 Drucker einrichten“ weiterlesen

Medibuntu Pakete in Kubuntu 8.10 nachrüsten

Zum Video schauen oder auch für proprietäre Pakete wie Skype, Googleearth, Acroread etc. bieten sich die Pakete aus dem Medibuntu-Projekt an. Eine Liste der Pakete findet Ihr unter http://packages.medibuntu.org/intrepid/index.html „Medibuntu Pakete in Kubuntu 8.10 nachrüsten“ weiterlesen