Dell Inspiron 6000d
Installation

James F. Carter <jimc@math.ucla.edu>, 2005-03-30 (updated 2005-12-10)

This is a plan for efficiently setting up the new Dell Inspiron 6000d when it arrives. Where relevant, my notes on the procedure have been included. Much of this material is not specific to the 6000d, applying to any upgrade of hardware or the distro version.

Here is a list of critical (and not-so-critical) features that I want to be working, in approximate order of importance.

• The new ATI Radeon X300 graphics chip has got to work, otherwise I can't see anything. 3D acceleration is nice, and it's worth putting in some effort to make it work, but I don't have an actual operational requirement for 3D. (But some people do have such a requirement.)

• The Alps touchpad has to work, since the X Window System cannot operate without a core pointer, and the way I use my laptop an external mouse isn't going to fly.

• I suspend this laptop a lot. One of the suspend modes has got to be working. (In case you're not familiar with the issue: you need to migrate elsewhere, or to do a non-laptop task, so you hit the magic button and the machine goes to sleep, consuming low or zero power, until you turn it back on, whereupon it resumes as if nothing had happened. Both steps are much faster than shutting down and rebooting.)

• The CD-RW/DVD drive is essential, since it's my installation media. The ability to burn CDs, however, is not so important: I haven't had this capability before on the laptop, and I do backups across the (wireless) net to my server.

• Wireless networking is very important to me, both at home and at work. Wired ethernet, as a backup mode, is less important. I never use the modem, having DSL, but as a matter of pride I'd like to see it work.

• Often I need to use my laptop on battery power, and I would like the power-saving features of the Pentium-M and Centrino chipsets to function.

• Sometimes I enjoy listening to (legal) streaming audio from the internet, or to music discs, so I'd like sound to work.

• A number of software packages are very important, but I don't expect actual hardware entanglements with most of the software. One point where hardware could help (but doesn't, hiss, boo) is entropy production (random numbers)

• Check and record identity and serial number of all parts. Pay particular attention to the memory. Complain to Dell if they sent the wrong memory. (Useless, see this brief discussion.)

• Add Orion to Fafnir's and Piranha's MAC address filter list and Fafnir's DHCP fixed IP address assignment table. (Piranha is the wireless access point -- Orinoco technology -- and Fafnir is the house server and DSL gateway.)

• Configure Windows for UTC timezone, no daylight savings time. In Linux, lots of stuff is much easier if the hardware clock contains UTC.

• Using the provided Windows installation, use Device Manager to review all subsystems. Give each one some exercise. This step will be repeated under Linux later. Title links are to the detailed description of each subsystem, in many cases showing the results of these testing activities.

  • Battery. If it's charged, do these steps on battery power to get a feel for battery life.

  • Processor. Does it process? :-)

  • Display. How many bad pixels? Didn't notice any (yet).

  • Graphics. Is 3D acceleration happening? Check video RAM. Check Back VGA port and S-video out to TV.

  • Memory. Is it all there? Correct speed? Try to do a complete memory diagnostic, one pass, from the SuSE disc before installation. Later, let the memory tester run overnight.

  • Sound card, using internally generated PCM sound. Test the internal speakers, headphone, and microphone.

  • Modem. (Need to revive my Bruin Online account.)

  • Hard disc. Is it the expected size? Did they put any weird partitions on it? Estimate the data transfer rate.

  • Optical disc. Activities to be tested; in each one, try to estimate the data transfer rate and the error rate.

    • Play music CD
    • Play video DVD
    • Read data CD, i.e. SuSE installation disc
    • Read data DVD, i.e. SuSE installation disc
    • Burn a data CD
    • Read the CD that was just burned

  • Network devices. For each of these, test sending and receiving in each major operating mode and measure the data transfer rate.

    • Wireless NIC: test 802.11b and 802.11g (at work). Does the kill switch (Fn-F2) do anything?

    • Wired Ethernet: test 802.3 10baseT and 100baseT.

    • PCMCIA card, the old Xircom wired NIC. This test both corroborates the Ethernet test and checks if PCMCIA is working.

  • USB devices.

    • External keyboard and/or mouse. Also tests the HID subsystem.
    • USB joystick.
    • USB storage device (flash RAM).

  • Secure Digital memory card slot: Need to get media for this.

  • Suspend power modes. Try suspend to RAM and suspend to disc.

  • These devices will not be tested unless I can come up with equipment that uses them.

    • IEEE-1394 (firewire)
    • IRDA -- Could test this with the old laptop. No, not on the machine.
    • Parallel port (is there one on the new machine? No.)

• Since the old Xena is not being destroyed, a special backup is not needed; regular backups are sufficient. On a distro version upgrade I would make a special backup of /home, /root, /usr/local, certain files in /var (see /var/backup.pln). But /etc should be copied from the old to the new machine (in /home/upgrade/xena/etc) for a subsequent step.

• In the next step of repartitioning, it's important to turn off the Windows swap file. To do this: Control panel; Performance and Maintenance; System; Advanced; Performance; Advanced; Virtual memory; Change; No paging file; then hit Set. You also need to get rid of /hiberfil.sys, the hibernation (suspend to disc) file. To turn this off: Control Panel; Performance and Maintenance; Power Options; Hibernate tab; Enable Hibernation (uncheck the box). Then reboot, and defrag the Windows partition. Remember to turn the swap file back on later. Hibernation (suspend to disc) is useless under Windows; no need to turn it back on.

• The Inspiron 6000d has a SATA disc controller (disc itself is not SATA), and therefore Linux uses SCSI emulation. It is /dev/sda. However, the CD drive is on /dev/hdc.

• Partitioning plan: We'll preserve the Dell diagnostics and a shrunken Windows partition. (See here for how to run the diagnostics.) In Windows, turn off swap and defrag radically. In the Linux rescue system, shrink the Windows filesystem with this command line:

  ntfsresize --size 5.5G /dev/sda2

  (Next time you boot Windows it will automatically run fdisk; in my case it found no errors.) Then use parted (Gnu Partition Editor) to make the Windows partition match the filesystem, and add the Linux partitions. Sizes below are in gigabytes.

  Function	Device	Size	Used	Available
  Old Machine (20 GB)
  Windows	/dev/hda1	4.3	3.1	1.2
  Swap	/dev/hda2	0.29	--	--
  Root	/dev/hda3	4.5	3.2	1.1
  Home	/dev/hda4	10.1	4.9	4.7
  New Machine Windows Partitioning (40 GB)
  Dell Diagnostics	/dev/sda1	0.056	0.007	0.049
  Windows	/dev/sda2	35.5	3.7	31.8
  System Recovery	/dev/sda3	3.5	--	--
  New Machine Linux Partitioning (40 GB)
  Dell Diagnostics	/dev/sda1	0.056	0.007	0.049
  Windows	/dev/sda2	5.5	3.7	1.8
  Root	/dev/sda3	7.0	3.2	3.8
  (Extended Partitions)	/dev/sda4	--	--	--
  Swap	/dev/sda5	1.0	--	--
  Home	/dev/sda6	27.0	4.9	22.1

  (With overhead, /home ended up as 24.7 GB.)

• The SuSE rescue system and the SuSE installer seemed OK with the default settings, i.e. hit Installation or Rescue System on the initial menu. There was a problem with I/O-APIC initialization on older Inspirons, which is now gone.

• Install SuSE Linux v9.2 from DVD. Basic selection: graphical system without KDE or Gnome, but with some add-ons like web server. To install: 2.3 GB, 850 packages. Took about 30 mins. Online update from Mathnet using VPN on Fafnir. Use wired Ethernet. Be sure to use Orion's IP address (192.9.200.200) so old Xena can also be used. Configure the clock to UTC. Change default timezone to PST-PDT.

• Copy /home from old Xena to Orion on wired Ethernet. UML COW files are sparse, and it would be best to exclude them, then copy them in a separate step using the -S option of tar or -osparse of rdist. I copy /home first because the local scripts are needed in the next step. Also copy xena:/etc to orion:/home/upgrade/xena/etc.

• Unplanned sidetrack: tapping on the touchpad doesn't work and it's a big pain to edit files. With much struggle this was overcome. The final xorg.conf file is here. See here for a reference to the latest Synaptics driver and a new kernel patch needed to make double clicking work right on the Alps pad.

• Execute audit-suse, a Mathnet local script to recognize missing and unwanted software. Remove junk software (a ton of it). Install forgotten software (a lot of that too). Online update again.

• Configuration files specific to the host (where xena appears):

  • /etc/hosts -- Append orion. (Done.)
  • /etc/ethers -- Append orion. Include all NICs. (Done, exchanged.)
  • /var/lib/named/cft.zone, cft0.rev -- Append Orion on Fafnir (DNS master) and propagate to all hosts. Add Orion to nameserver lists. (Done.)
  • fafnir:/etc/dhcpd.conf -- Append Orion. (Done, exchanged.)
  • /home/diklo/lib/site_perl/hostgroup.db -- Add Orion to groups. Make a new group for laptops. Hostgroup is a Mathnet local script. (Done.)
  • /etc/init.d/scripts.dat -- Change hostgroups so Orion gets the right scripts turned on. Used by a Mathnet local script. (Done.)
  • /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key and friends -- Retain SuSE's generated key for Orion. The secret keys need to be moved to the cryptographic vault. (Exchanged.)
  • Kerberos issues.
    • /etc/krb5/krb5.conf -- Each laptop has a slave KDC. The hacked /etc/init.d/kdc identifies slaves by looking at the kdc= list, so Orion has to be added on all hosts. (Done.)
    • Create new Kerberos principals for the laptop. This could be done on Orion if I had kadmind working, but I've never been able to get it to consistently swallow my personal admin instance, so this will all be done on Fafnir as root in local mode.
      • We're creating host and iprop/orion.cft.ca.us@CFT.CA.US.
      • kadmin -l; give these commands:

        add -r host/orion.cft.ca.us@CFT.CA.US

        Remember to give -r for a random password. Other parameters: 2 lifetimes: unlimited, 2 expirations: never, attributes (hit return).

        add -r iprop/orion.cft.ca.us@CFT.CA.US

        As above except lifetimes are 1 hour.

        ext_keytab -k /tmp/orion.keytab iprop/orion.cft.ca.us@CFT.CA.US host/orion.cft.ca.us@CFT.CA.US host/localhost@CFT.CA.US

        ^D to exit.

      • The -k file is then copied to Orion as /etc/krb5/krb5.keytab. (Done, exchanged.)
    • /home/heimdal/slaves (on Fafnir) -- Add iprop/orion.cft.ca.us@CFT.CA.US to the list. (Done.)
  • /etc/HOSTNAME (Exchanged.)
  • /etc/postfix/main.cf -- myhostname. On laptops this is set explicitly to avoid problems with nonexistent or erratic IP addresses. (Exchanged.)
  • /etc/ssl/hostcerts/xena.crt -- Will have to wait until after the exchange.
  • /etc/ipsec.conf -- (Exchanged.)
  • /etc/apache2/conf.d/xena.conf -- I have isolated all hostname-specific clauses in this file. (Exchanged.)

• Final propagation of configuration files.

  • Compare and update configuration files from /home/upgrade/xena/etc.
  • Execute audit-scripts to turn on wanted services and turn off unwanted ones.
  • Execute linkconf.J to get the services in the right order (insserv doesn't do it the way I like).
  • Run rpmconfigcheck manually and dispose of unwanted config files.
  • Run security checksum script.

• Download and install the latest wireless driver (ipw2200.ko). The one in the SuSE distro is v0.12, and an experimental driver like this advances quickly. Details:

  • Download from ipw2200.sourceforge.net; you need both the sources (currently ipw2200-1.0.1.tgz) and the firmware (currently ipw2200-fw-2.2.tgz). At certain driver version transitions, the format of the firmware changed, so get the right one. Be alert to version changes.

  • You need package kernel-source. No need to configure or build the kernel; the SuSE distro includes a valid .config file and headers.

  • Un-tar the driver sources. Execute make. It should compile without errors.

  • Probably best not to do make install. Copy *.ko into /lib/modules/(version)-override-(arch) (substitute your kernel version, not including the build number, e.g. 2.6.8, and your architecture, e.g. default or smp). In a SuSE system, /lib/modules/(version)-(arch) (this version with the build number) will have a symlink updates -> to the override directory so the contents can be found.

  • Un-tar the firmware you downloaded into /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware. (SuSE package ipw-firmware-3-3 contains the old driver's firmware, and that one goes in /lib/hotplug/firmware.)

  • Execute depmod -a.

  • Unload all the old wireless modules and reload the new ones. It's easiest to just reboot, but if you don't want to play the Windows game, take the network down, and modprobe -r -v ipw2200 and also ieee80211_crypt_wep. Then either bring the network back up, or modprobe -v ipw2200 and hotplug will run the network up script.

  • Wait for the next kernel security patch. Will the self-compiled driver still load; is an exact match to the kernel micro-version really required?

• Likely configuration issues specific to the new machine:

  • X-Windows: display size has changed. OK, no problem.

  • Wireless: should be able to configure this with YaST2. Can we shift to eth0 = wireless, eth1 = wired, i.e. persistent devices? Not with YaST2.

• Usng Linux, repeat the activity tests listed above.

• Now that installation is supposedly complete, exchange identities of Orion and Xena. See the above list of host-specific files.

• Software activity checks (some of them require valid host keys):

  • boot.udev and udevpurgeJ still working. Yes, works well.

  • Command line forcefsck is recognized? Yes, after installing the hacked scripts.

  • boot.laptop.J -- are the tweaks still appropriate? Yes but changed device to /dev/sda.

  • boot.loadmodules -- are the preload modules still appropriate? No, removed all preload modules.

  • boot.idedma -- are the tweaks still appropriate? /etc/sysconfig/ide was and still is empty, on all machines. The SATA disc always uses DMA; don't mess with the using_dma flag. The optical disc /dev/hdc has the flag but it can only be 0 (off) because ide_generic has that interface (see here). I'm hoping for a kernel fix to make DMA work on the optical disc.

  • boot.sched -- are the timeslices still appropriate? Made smaller. This feature seems to be going away in kernel 2.6.12 (or earlier).

  • Does this machine have a hardware random number generator /dev/hw_random? No, hiss, boo.

  • Any weird-outs with firewall.J? Reviewed, neatened but no substantive changes.

  • Is the network getting configured right? Yes.

  • Syslog events being logged? Yes.

  • Whatever we're using portmap for, does it happen? Used for FAM; don't know how to test.

  • Does jxcd (my own CD player app) still work? No, it's now totally dead. Really needs to be rewritten. Or use a public player. I tried out xmms, and once I figured out how to use it, it was fine.

  • At jobs (like xalarm) happening. Yes.

  • DNS: Need to copy files from xena:/var/lib/named. Need to authorize (on Fafnir) Orion to receive zone transfers. (Done.)

  • CUPS printing. Need to make /etc/cups/printcap owned by lp. Also it had the wrong default destination (to fix: lpadmin -d lp). All done.

  • Keyboard font being loaded -- Formerly I was using a non-graphic (text) video mode to (unsuccessfully) work around a bug in XFree86, and I needed a smaller console font. This is no longer needed. Fixed.

  • xntpd syncs the clock, which should now be on UTC. Yes for both. The clock on the Inspiron 4100 was off by 1e-4 (tick = 10001); this machine is apparently off by only 2.5e-6, and tick was put back to 10000.

  • powersaved, can it adjust the CPU speed? Yes, 800 MHz when idle, 1600 MHz when busy. The powersave module in kernel 2.6.8 is speedstep_centrino. (When 2.6.12 is installed, the preferred module will be acpi-cpufreq.) With this loaded you have /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq. With powersaved stopped, setting scaling_max_freq = 1.6e9, a memory-intensive test of 10 standard work units took 8.59 secs. Setting to 0.8e9, it took 17.34 secs (close to twice as long), as expected. Running powersaved the test takes up to 0.5 sec longer, because powersaved polls to determine when to turn up the CPU speed. On the Inspiron 4100 at 1.0e9 the same test takes 9.37 secs. Very interesting: I re-ran the tests for 60 work units, and the 1.6 GHz Pentium-M CPU is only about 6% faster than the 1.0 GHz Mobile Pentium-III (Coppermine). So much for bogomips! See more benchmark results here, plus a preview of the improved performance possible with acpi-cpufreq.

  • xdm, is the login screen right? Yes.

  • Cryptovault being mounted? Yes.

  • Kerberos -- Working. Including incremental propagation (ipropd-slave).

  • Postfix, test TLS mail to Harlech. Oops, missing symlink for the certificate. Fixed, mail is now working.

  • Apache -- Working, except suexec as usual refuses to accept users and groups less than 100. Need to either fix my UID-GID once and for all (done), or install the hacked suexec. Also Apache is refusing TLS (https). Not Apache's fault, client certificate is wrong.

  • SSH -- Works.

  • FTP (vsftpd), which is started by xinetd -- Works.

  • OpenVPN -- Need to upgrade to v2.0 (RPM on Mathnet). Done.

  • /etc/init.d/boot.localfs -- jimc hacks when unmounting, still needed? Still working? Hacks seem to not be needed, but I saved the hacked file just in case.

  • Does Windows still boot? Yes.

  • Can we boot the Dell Diagnostics? Yes. In /boot/grub/menu.lst you need a chainloader stanza with root (hd0,0), similar to the one for Windows. The Dell Help File (on Windows) says to reboot the machine and hit F12, and once in the boot menu, to select Diagnostics. It runs an annotated full selftest from within the BIOS, then attempts to boot the diagnostics, but Grub just prints a useless message and doesn't do it. Hit ctrl-alt-del and use your diagnostic stanza; then it works perfectly. All diagnostics passed. The F12 selftest is optional, but recommended if you really think your CPU is messed up.

• These services are in use but were not properly tested.

  • nscd (name service cache daemon) caching -- Well, it starts. Hard to tell if it actually does anything.
  • resmgr
  • saslauthd
  • xinetd, used for FAM and FTP. FTP works but I don't know how to test FAM.
  • portmap, used for FAM.

• Additions to the system:

  • rngd random number generator daemon (also on Fafnir). Useless, no hardware random number generator.
  • DVD player.
  • CD burning software. (Done; but see here about the DMA problems)
  • Modem configuration. Old Xena's modem was never made to work on Linux. (Done, see here for details.)
  • We can get rid of /etc/init.d/swapJ, swapJ2 and revert to SuSE's script. (Done.)

• Get the system monitoring stripchart working on the new machine. (Done.)

  • Does it still cost you a lot of CPU time (and lost interrupts) to read the battery status? The Inspiron 3800 and 4100 were notorious for this. Querying the battery (/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state) 10x per second makes a job run 35% longer, implying 26 msec per query, which is about the same as on the older machines.

  • Accessing the info file costs another 26 msec.

  • There is no way to read out the fan status. Hiss, boo.

• Do a real battery life test under Linux. Results are here.

• Formerly current problems, now fixed:

  • Installed the latest version (1.0.1) of ipw2200. Version 0.12 exudes a message about "TODO: Stop scan". Frequently.

  • Opera web browser: When starting, it complains that it can't load libnpp.so which is required for plugins. Library is there. Also it's using the wrong icon. Because the symlink /usr/share/opera -> /usr/local/opera-whatever was not there. (Fixed.) Standard browser tests now work: JPEG, PNG, GIF pictures, WAV sound file, Java applet.

  • Something appends "127.0.0.2 orion.cft.ca.us" to /etc/hosts even if it's defined already. Deleted. Complain to SuSE about this.

  • Suspend to disc: See here for the issues. A band-aid solution is to compile the ata_piix module into the kernel. This has been done, but follow the above link for some rough edges remaining. Suspend to disc isn't really fixed, just papered over.

  • Alps Glidepoint touchpad: Can't turn off hardware tap detection, even though the serio driver claims to be doing it. As a result, double click detection is user-unfriendly at best, and completely useless under Gnome. See here for a reference to a new kernel patch that works around this problem.

  • Apache: it's refusing TLS connections. No it's not; the CGI protected by the certificate is an old version, which has a bug, and in addition, the client certificate was corrupt (Opera's fault). Both fixed.

  • OpenVPN: Need to upgrade to v2.0 (RPM on Mathnet). Done.

  • The CPU slowdown formerly blamed on the cpufreq_centrino driver has now been pinned on the powersaved daemon. I don't know what it's doing, but my replacement releases the full capability of the CPU. See here for a discussion. I need to identify and notify the maintainer of powersaved.

• Current problems -- these are for kernel 2.6.8 (SuSE 9.2). Where appropriate the status in later versions is noted.

  • DMA for the CD-RW/DVD drive on ide1: 10.0 works out of the box. 9.3: needs small patch. 9.2: needs big patch.

    In 9.2, you can't turn DMA on. Reading is very slow (4x on a 24x drive) and burning is impossible, high error rates. I tried all combinations of ata_piix, piix (regular IDE), etc. in various orders as modules or compiled into the kernel. Either you get ide_generic working the CD without DMA, or DMA on the interface but failure to detect the CD. Complain to the developers. (Done.)

    See here for details including a kernel patch, which is effective, but only on recent kernels (I used 2.6.12-rc1). SuSE 9.3 (kernel 2.6.11.4) has an equivalent patch in their kernel. However, until the new ATAPI code is officially released the DMA issue cannot be considered to be solved.

  • Suspend to disc (software suspend): 10.0 works out of the box. 9.3 works if you're careful. 9.2: can't suspend to disc. The ata_piix driver is loaded from the initrd, which happens after resuming is unsuccessfully attempted. See here for further discussion, a workaround, and an alternative kernel patch.

  • Radeon M300 graphics: Xorg (6.8.2 dated 2005-02-09) doesn't yet support direct rendering on Radeon 9500 and newer. Keep checking for a new version at www.x.org. Or use the proprietary driver mentioned here. With SuSE 10.0 the proprietary driver has almost all of the bugs fixed.

  • CPU speed throttling: works in all versions. But if you load the speedstep_centrino driver from v9.2 it uses a generic voltage to frequency table. You should be using acpi-cpufreq, available in more recent kernels such as 2.6.11.4 (SuSE 9.3), which uses the real frequency table. In kernel 2.6.16 (SuSE 10.1) it's back to speedstep_centrino (but using the real frequency table).

    But beware, old versions of powersaved are poison on Dell laptops. It's started behaving itself in v0.12 (SuSE 10.1). See here for details of both issues.

  • The mainline kernel, and SuSE distro, has no Linux driver for the Ricoh RL5c476 chip that operates the MMC-SD card slot. An add-on driver is available starting with kernel 2.6.14. See here for discussion.

  • Starting in SuSE 10.1, the procedure for mounting removeable media is improved. I need to find an equivalent to the Gnome Volume Manager that's useable with fvwm (the window manager I prefer); until that's done, I won't get my volumes mounted.

• Continued: Upgrading to subsequent SuSE versions