Installation on MSI Wind

From openSUSE

Introduction

openSUSE runs fine on a MSI Wind U100/U90. The only things you have to compile manually and which are hence described on this page in detail, are the wifi and webcam drivers.

Installation

To install openSUSE, you have to create a bootable USB stick.

Choose network installation and enter server download.opensuse.org and the directory to the oss-repo of the openSUSE version you want to isntall, i.e. factory/repo/oss or distribution/11.0/oss.

If you want to keep Windows, you have to boot into Windows before installing linux and disable the hibernation in order to delete the file on the harddisk. After that defrag the harddisk to make sure all data is at the beginning of the partition. In the openSUSE installation you can now shrink the windows partition to whatever size you like.

As an example you could create a partition of 20GB for /, 2GB SWAP and the rest for /home.

WLAN

WLAN works with a fully updated openSUSE >= 11.1.

Version: 11.0

For openSUSE 11.0 you still need to compile the driver as outlined below. Currently there are no official openSUSE packages for the RTL8187SE chipset used in the MSI Wind U100. You can download the sources here. In case that version does not work for you, there are more at [1]. Install the gcc, make and kernel-source packages, extract the archive, compile the driver and install it. sudo zypper install gcc make kernel-source tar -xvzf rtl8187se_linux_26.1023.0928.2008.tar.gz cd rtl8187se_linux_26.1023.0928.2008 ./makedrv sudo cp -r ieee80211/*.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net/wireless sudo cp -r rtl8185/r8180.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net/wireless su -c "depmod -ae" You will have to repeat the three lines starting with ./makedrv after each kernel update.

Webcam

MSI uses different webcam models for the Wind. If you enable the webcam and use lsusb on a konsole you should be able to check the ID.

Microdia ID 0c45:62c0

You do not have to compile any drivers.

Bison ID 5986:0203

You do not have to compile any drivers. Yet one has to tell the driver about the quirks-mode it has to use for the bison webcam.

su - -c "kwrite /etc/modprobe.conf.local"

Go to the end of the file and add the following, including the empty line!

options uvcvideo quirks=2

This will apply the quirks-mode on every boot.

If you want to run applications like ekiga, make sure the v4l2-plugins it uses are installed.

To test the webcam, enable it via the shortcut (Fn+F6), check that dmesg shows that it was enabled and open luvcview to activate it.

#enable webcam via Fn+F6
dmesg
sudo zypper in luvcview
luvcview -f yuv

Version: 11.0

You have to add the above and compile the driver. To do so do, you have to install subversion, get the driver, compile and install it. In case you have not yet installed ggc, make and the kernel-sources check the WLAN section on how to do it. sudo zypper install subversion svn co svn://svn.berlios.de/linux-uvc/linux-uvc/trunk cd trunk make uvcvideo sudo make install After each kernel update you will have to repeat the last two lines.

Harddisk

The harddisk clicks every 5 seconds which is quite annoying. This can be resolved by telling the harddisk to not try that hard to save power.

su -c "hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda"

If you want this to be applied automatically at every boot:

su - -c "kwrite /etc/init.d/boot.local"

Add hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda at the bottom and save the file.

In order to apply that setting automatically after waking up from hibernation, do:

su - -c "kwrite /etc/pm/sleep.d/50hdparm"

Add and save:

#!/bin/bash
hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda

After that do:

sudo chmod +x /etc/pm/sleep.d/50hdparm

AHCI mode

AHCI mode for sata drives provide more effective powersaving and faster drive work.

You can check if AHCI enabled in BIOS, under Advanced -> AHCI Mode

So if you install openSUSE with already enabled AHCI, you havent did anything to make it work, in other side if you installed openSUSE with AHCI switched off, you have to rebuild initrd.

Enabling AHCI on your Wind

1. Add "ahci" to INITRD_MODULES section in /etc/sysconfig/kernel

it should look like this:

INITRD_MODULES="processor thermal ata_piix fan ahci jbd ext3 edd" 

but be care! dont copy and paste this string, there are modules for root filesystem, just add ahci to your current string

2. Make new initrd

su -c mkinitrd

3. Reboot and enable AHCI in BIOS, then boot to openSUSE

Suspend/Resume

Suspend to RAM works out of the box. Suspend to disk works too. You can define which keys trigger it via kpowersave or by installing powerdevil. powerdevil is already part of KDE 4.2, so you do not need to install a separate package when using KDE 4.2.

Version: 11.0

On openSUSE 11.0 you have to make sure that powersaved is not started during boot, if you want to use powerdevil. You can use YaST > System > Runlevel-Editor to disable it. For S2RAM you will get an error 127, which means that the MSI Wind is not whitelisted. S2ram explains how to work around that.

Graphics performance

Graphics performance has improved a lot with openSUSE 11.2, so you do not need any of the following, except the BIOS changes.

In order to get a better performance for compositing, i.e. KDE4 desktop effects, add the following to your xorg.conf Device Section.

Section "Device"
       Option          "AccelMethod" "EXA"
       Option          "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"
EndSection

This will however result in broken systray-icons for KDE4 [2]. Hence it is recommended to use the following, which is slower though.

Section "Device"
       Option          "AccelMethod" "EXA"
       Option          "MigrationHeuristic" "always"
       Option          "FBTexPercent" "0"
EndSection

Further, changing the PCI Latency Timer to 96 or 128 in the BIOS can improve your graphics performance.

Display

You only need to change the resolution from 800x600 to 1024x600 and the screen size via YaST > Hardware > Graphics. If You do not change the scree size you will get tiny fonts. Another way to increase the fonts is to use KDE's systemsettings > Appearance > Fonts and change the DPI value to 96dpi.

The display is not correctly detected during installation because the hardware does not report the correct resolution ([3].

Version: 11.0

Using openSUSE 11.0 you have do a bit more, which is described in the following.

xorg.conf

Your xorg.conf should look like this.

su - -c "kwrite /etc/X11/xorg.conf"

# /.../
# SaX generated X11 config file
# Created on: 2008-07-10T01:55:10+0100.
#
# Version: 8.1
# Contact: Marcus Schaefer <sax@suse.de>, 2005
# Contact: SaX-User list <https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/sax-users>
#
# Automatically generated by [ISaX] (8.1)
# PLEASE DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE!
#
Section "Files"
  FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/misc:unscaled"
  FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/local"
  FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
  FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
  FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/Type1"
  FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/URW"
  FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/Speedo"
  FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/PEX"
  FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/cyrillic"
  FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/latin2/misc:unscaled"
  FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/latin2/75dpi:unscaled"
  FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/latin2/100dpi:unscaled"
  FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/latin2/Type1"
  FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/latin7/75dpi:unscaled"
  FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/baekmuk:unscaled"
  FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/japanese:unscaled"
  FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/kwintv"
  FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/truetype"
  FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/uni:unscaled"
  FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/CID"
  FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/ucs/misc:unscaled"
  FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/ucs/75dpi:unscaled"
  FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/ucs/100dpi:unscaled"
  FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/hellas/misc:unscaled"
  FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/hellas/75dpi:unscaled"
  FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/hellas/100dpi:unscaled"
  FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/hellas/Type1"
  FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/misc/sgi:unscaled"
  FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/xtest"
  FontPath     "/opt/kde3/share/fonts"
  InputDevices "/dev/gpmdata"
  InputDevices "/dev/input/mice"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
  Option       "AIGLX" "on"
  Option       "AllowMouseOpenFail" "on"
  Option       "ZapWarning" "on"
EndSection

Section "Module"
  Load         "dbe"
  Load         "type1"
  Load         "freetype"
  Load         "extmod"
  Load         "glx"
EndSection 

Section "InputDevice"
  Driver       "kbd"
  Identifier   "Keyboard[0]"
  Option       "Protocol" "Standard"
  Option       "XkbLayout" "gb"
  Option       "XkbModel" "microsoftpro"
  Option       "XkbRules" "xfree86"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
  Driver       "synaptics"
  Identifier   "Mouse[1]"
  Option       "Buttons" "5"
  Option       "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
  Option       "Emulate3Buttons" "on"
  Option       "HorizScrollDelta" "0"
  Option       "InputFashion" "Mouse"
  Option       "Name" "Synaptics;Touchpad"
  Option       "Protocol" "explorerps/2"
  Option       "SHMConfig" "on"
  Option       "Vendor" "Sysp"
  Option       "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
  Driver       "mouse"
  Identifier   "Mouse[3]"
  Option       "Buttons" "5"
  Option       "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
  Option       "Name" "ImPS/2 Generic Wheel Mouse"
  Option       "Protocol" "explorerps/2"
  Option       "Vendor" "Sysp"
  Option       "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
  DisplaySize  271 159
  HorizSync    29-60
  Identifier   "Monitor[0]"
  ModelName    "1024X600@60HZ"
  Option       "DPMS"
  Option       "PreferredMode" "1024x600"
  VendorName   "--> LCD"
  VertRefresh  50-60
  UseModes     "Modes[0]"
EndSection 

Section "Modes"
  Identifier   "Modes[0]"
  Modeline      "1024x600" 48.96 1024 1064 1168 1312 600 601 604 622
  Modeline      "1024x600" 43.00 1024 1072 1104 1184 600 603 613 619 +HSync -VSync
  Modeline      "800x600" 38.22 800 832 912 1024 600 601 604 622
  Modeline      "800x600" 34.75 800 848 880 960 600 603 607 617 +HSync -VSync
  Modeline      "768x576" 34.96 768 792 872 976 576 577 580 597
  Modeline      "768x576" 32.25 768 816 848 928 576 579 583 593 +HSync -VSync
  Modeline      "640x480" 23.86 640 656 720 800 480 481 484 497
  Modeline      "640x480" 23.25 640 688 720 800 480 483 487 494 +HSync -VSync
  Modeline      "1024x600" 48.96 1024 1064 1168 1312 600 601 604 622 -HSync -VSync
EndSection 

Section "Screen"
  DefaultDepth 24
  SubSection "Display"
    Depth      15
    Modes      "1024x600" "800x600" "768x576" "640x480" 
  EndSubSection
  SubSection "Display"
    Depth      16
    Modes      "1024x600" "800x600" "768x576" "640x480" 
  EndSubSection
  SubSection "Display"
    Depth      24
    Modes      "1024x600" "800x600" "768x576" "640x480" 
  EndSubSection
  SubSection "Display"
    Depth      8
    Modes      "1024x600" "800x600" "768x576" "640x480" 
  EndSubSection
  Device       "Device[0]"
  Identifier   "Screen[0]"
  Monitor      "Monitor[0]"
EndSection

Section "Device"
  BoardName    "945 GME"
  BusID        "0:2:0"
  Driver       "intel"
  Identifier   "Device[0]"
  Option       "monitor-LVDS" "Monitor[0]"
  VendorName   "Intel"
EndSection 

Section "ServerLayout"
  Identifier   "Layout[all]"
  InputDevice  "Keyboard[0]" "CoreKeyboard"
  InputDevice  "Mouse[1]" "CorePointer"
  InputDevice  "Mouse[3]" "SendCoreEvents"
  Option       "Clone" "off"
  Option       "Xinerama" "off"
  Screen       "Screen[0]"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
    Group      "video"
    Mode       0660
EndSection 

Section "Extensions"
  Option       "Composite" "on"
EndSection

etc/sysconfig

Use YaST > System > sysconfig-Editor to change Desktop > Display Manager > DISPLAYMANAGER_RANDR_MODE_auto to

1024x600_60 48.96 1024 1064 1168 1312 600 601 604 622 -HSync +Vsync

xrandr

If the resolution stil does not work, use KRandRTray to pick the correct resolution or do:

xrandr --output LVDS --mode 1024x600

Sound

Right-click on the kmix systray icon and set Front to be the Master channel. If you open the mixer and right-click the front channel, you can assign global shortcuts, i.e. the Fn-keys on the keyboard.

openSUSE 11.1 installs gstreamer by default, which does not play well with KDE4. To get proper sound you have to add the Community Repository Packman and update libxine1, which will automatically pull the xine-backend for KDE4.

Function Keys

The brightness function keys might not work, if kpowersave is running [4]. If you are using KDE4, just use powerdevil.

Boot Splash

Since you installed from an USB-stick openSUSE doesn't bother to set a splashscreen for the boot. So go to YaST > System > Bootloader and set the vga mode to 0x0314. After that open a konsole and do:

su -c mkinitrd

Wind related bugs

Bug #438973 Ethernet dont work on MSI Wind

Bug #439024 MSI Wind function keys