Linux on the M11x

[soleblaze]

Finally got around to installing Arch last night. (Started on Gentoo, then decided I don't want to put that much time into it.) I haven't setup X yet, but I did get 2.6.34-rc3 on there. If you have both nouveu and the intel drivers enabled in the kernel and not as modules than it says it switches and doesn't give a kernel dump.. However, if I had nouveu as a module than it gave me a screen of errors and logged me off. If I had both installed as modules it would just get a black screen when it enabled them.

I'll be trying it with X tonight. I have a feeling it's not actually switching. After that I'll send Airlied an email about it.

[fnord0]

Finally got around to installing Arch last night. (Started on Gentoo, then decided I don't want to put that much time into it.) I haven't setup X yet, but I did get 2.6.34-rc3 on there. If you have both nouveu and the intel drivers enabled in the kernel and not as modules than it says it switches and doesn't give a kernel dump.. However, if I had nouveu as a module than it gave me a screen of errors and logged me off. If I had both installed as modules it would just get a black screen when it enabled them.

I'll be trying it with X tonight. I have a feeling it's not actually switching. After that I'll send Airlied an email about it.

good 2 hear from ya soleblaze! glad to hear u went with arch, as I love this distro! best of luck with everything, hope we can get some progress on the linux front! keep us posted

[soleblaze]

Yeah, it's not switching properly. Also was able to get it to crash while both are built into the kernel. I've emailed Arlied my dmesg.

[fnord0]

Yeah, it's not switching properly. Also was able to get it to crash while both are built into the kernel. I've emailed Arlied my dmesg.

good, good (EDIT: well, good that u contacted the man, not good its not switching properly!) I found this page = linux-hybrid-graphics.blogspot.com ... at the top of the page, the following is posted ::

Testers needed:
If you have a Linux switchable graphics laptop and a bit of time for testing, please have a look at this Howto:
asusm51ta-with-linux.blogspot.com
Then subscribe to hybrid graphics linux and report back on your testing via the mailing list:
launchpad.net/~hybrid-graphics-linux
Meanwhile, we are still gathering technical information to improve Linux support for hybrid graphics systems. If you have a switchable graphics laptop, please submit your laptop's DSDT.dsl information as an attachment to this bug report:
bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/312756
To compile your DSDT information, install if you haven't already the acpidump and iasl tools:

sudo apt-get install acpidump iasl

or

sudo yum install pmtools iasl

Then run the following commands:

sudo acpidump > acpidump.txt sudo acpixtract acpidump.txt iasl -d DSDT.dat ls -l DSDT.dsl

This will create a DSDT.dsl file that you can attach to the bug report. Finally, for posting the information in the bug report, you can check the laptop and graphics card model identifiers with these commands:

sudo dmidecode -s system-product-name sudo dmidecode -s system-version lspci -vnnn | perl -lne 'print if /^\d+\:.+(\[\S+\:\S+\])/' | grep VGA

This information will allow the full development of hybrid graphics features for Linux. Thanks for your help!

so I did just that = subscribed to the hybrid graphics linux mailing list, and submitted my m11x's DSDT.dsl information as a bug report @ bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg-server/+bug/312756

then @ this site = launchpad.net/~hybrid-graphics-linux I saw the request go out for ::

ACTIONS:
We are looking for students with basic Linux kernel/graphics notions interested in applying for the X.org Open Source PRIME multi-gpu support Google Summer of Code 2010:
wiki.x.org/wiki/SummerOfCodeIdeas
We are looking for Linux users with Nvidia Optimus-enabled laptops willing to provide debugging information for Open Source PRIME multi-gpu support features being worked on. Please join the team by clicking on "Join" on the right, fill in this doodle:
www.doodle.com/63fyczzrxqaquhqx
and send an email to the mailing list specifying your laptop model with these commands:
sudo dmidecode -s system-product-name
sudo dmidecode -s system-version
lspci -vnnn | perl -lne 'print if /^\d+\:.+(\[\S+\:\S+\])/' | grep VGA

soo I joined that team as well, and filled out the "doodle", then sent the hybrid-graphics-linux launchpad.net's mailing list my bug report(s)... hoping by sharing this info, it will get others to lend their support too PRIME may or may not benefit m11x directly, but still by sharing multi-gpu info, maybe this could contribute to getting the multi-gpu switching capability in xorg?!

for now, I've been working on implementing a script on my archlinux install to allow me to have BOTH nvidia + intel drivers living together happily ala' this guys setup, but decidedly more arch-style like our french brethren

the american arch forums have some good suggestions too (script-wise)::
bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=78565
bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=92530

keep us all posted
btw, I cant get the one realtek driver u linked to work with 2.6.33 arch, gotta try and locate a possibly newer driver, or tweak with the current? lemme know what u do with that please

[soleblaze]

btw, I cant get the one realtek driver u linked to work with 2.6.33 arch, gotta try and locate a possibly newer driver, or tweak with the current? lemme know what u do with that please

haha, I was about to ask you if you've gotten audio working. There's one in AUR, but it fails on a gameport section. Not sure if the alsa drivers on the alsa website work for this card..I'll take a look at that and see if the ones in 2.6.34-rc3 work. (Not currently running that since the broadcom sta won't compile on it)

Thanks for sending out those bug reports. Probably the proper way to do it ;D I'll have to subscribe to those mailing lists.

EDIT:

Looks like sound works in 2.6.34. I'm still trying to get alsa-driver 1.0.22.1 to compile with 2.6.33.

[soleblaze]

Ok, the alsa driver snapshot works.

Download the latest snapshot from: http://www.alsa-project.org/snapshot/

tarjxvf it then cd to the directory. run:

./configure --with-cards=hda-intel
make
make install

and reboot. I also ran alsaconf (I have alsa-utils installed) but I don't think that's neccessary.

[soleblaze]

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item&px=ODE1OQ Looks like alsa 1.0.23 was just released. Should be able to install this instead of the snapshot. (Although I'd be surprised if much is different if you installed the snapshot last night. I'm not going to bother to upgrade right now)

[fnord0]

good call soleblaze... I just went ahead and manually re-built all the alsa-* packages that were upgraded to 1.0.23, and specifically built the alsa-driver-1.0.23 as u suggested, and the audio is working in 2.6.33!

figured I'd post my version of the detectgpu script I decided to go with on the latest arch x86_64, I will probably use this setup until we get vga_switcheroo working for the m11x ::

/etc/rc.d/detectgpu

#!/bin/bash
VIDEO=`/usr/sbin/lspci|grep -c Intel`
if [ "$VIDEO" == 16 ]; then
   echo NVidia GPU detected
   ln -sf /etc/X11/xorg.nvidia.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf
   OPENGL_DEJA_INSTALL=`pacman -Q libgl 2>/dev/null|grep -c libgl`
   if [ "$OPENGL_DEJA_INSTALL" == 1 ]; then
   echo Switching OpenGL implementation to nvidia-utils
   pacman -Rd libgl 2>/dev/null
   pacman -Rd lib32-libgl 2>/dev/null
   echo y|pacman -S nvidia-utils 2>/dev/null
   echo y|pacman -S lib32-nvidia-utils 2>/dev/null
   fi
else
echo Intel GPU detected
ln -sf /etc/X11/xorg.intel.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf
OPENGL=`pacman -Q libgl 2>/dev/null|grep -c libgl`
if [  $OPENGL != 1 ]; then
   pacman -Rd nvidia-utils 2>/dev/null
   pacman -Rd lib32-nvidia-utils 2>/dev/null
   echo y|pacman -S libgl 2>/dev/null
   echo y|pacman -S lib32-libgl 2>/dev/null
fi
fi

just make that script /etc/rc.d/detectgpu executable

chmod +x /etc/rc.d/detectgpu

and lastly, update /etc/rc.conf, and add the following to your DAEMONS=() section

@detectgpu

using this script, whenever you boot linux with discrete or switchable selected in BIOS, arch will already have the proper libgl files ready for xorg. I can live with it for now, and hope other arch linux users may find this helpful too =)

PS: if u use this script, u should have 2 xorg.conf files in /etc/X11 - 1 named xorg.nvidia.conf and the other named xorg.intel.conf with the correct config for each. the detectgpu
script will automatically create a symlink for /etc/X11/xorg.conf => to point to the proper xorg.XXXXX.conf file, depending on which card is active at boot time.

[fnord0]

just small update, I went ahead and created an Alienware M11x wiki page over at the archwiki - anyone should feel free to contribute.

BTW, this is the 1st Alienware laptop listed there - congrats! =)

[soleblaze]

just small update, I went ahead and created an Alienware M11x wiki page over at the archwiki - anyone should feel free to contribute.

BTW, this is the 1st Alienware laptop listed there - congrats! =)

Nifty, good idea. Also thanks for posting the script. I'm running with it set on discrete right now, since I wasn't able to change the brightness while on intel. The most it says I can get is about 4 and a half hours, but I haven't timed it to see how much battery life I actually get.