Linux on a WebDT366-LX800

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quotaholic
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Linux on a WebDT366-LX800

Post by quotaholic »

Hello all,

I have spent the last few weeks comparing different linux builds on my new LX800 powered DT366. In this post I will share some of my findings. Due to the LX800 hardware being i586 opposed to the i486 on the GX series the number of distributions that qualify for installation is greatly increased. That being said we still have to pay mind to penmount as their drivers are required to get a working touchscreen. I have both 1gb and 4gb hard drives that I am working on. Due to the increased size of linux kernels I am not sure that those with stock 500 megabyte hard drives will qualify for modern releases of Ubuntu, Slackware and openSUSE. In most cases a minimal install took 560mb for ubuntu and Slackware. OpenSUSE being more bloated in how the package manager regulates dependencies took about 1gb on initial installation with LXDE.

Vasko took the time to put together a nice tutorial on how to buy a 65 dollar horizontal IDE flash drive and install it on the 366 platform. Due to his work I have the 4gb chip on my 366. Thank you Vasko!

http://webdt.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7

Debian is still a viable operating system for this platform for those without a larger hard drive. Debian will install a minimal system in about 208mb allowing one to install a window manager, web browser and wireless manager and the other needed utilities like on screen keyboard and event handlers for the hardware buttons. All within 500 megs too. Debian wont come with the ipw2200 firmware that the DT366LX needs for its wireless card however it is available and can be installed after the initial install. Most importantly Penmount makes a Debian5 driver package and all in all Debian works pretty fast on the hardware. Alsa (sound utilities and driver) will identify the card and allow one to play sounds from the DT366-LX800. If installing Debian add this to the boot line in /boot/grub/menu.lst

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video=ofonly acpi=force
In order to get a working screen on reboot and to get the hard buttons to register when pressed.


Ubuntu, both 9.10 and 10.04 took 560mb on minimal install from the alternate CD image. Ubuntu 9.04 took 437 and with apt-get clean and manually clearing out /usr/share/locale of unneeded languages I had it down to 364 and change. Ubuntu is not as fast as Debian or Slackware however it does have the needed firmware for wireless on the DT366LX800. That being said there are bugs in ubuntu that make with wireless drop out quite frequently with the ipw2x00 driver. Even Wicd, my favorite wireless utility, had problems keeping the connection established. Alsa relies on udev in ubuntu 9.10 and up. I never could get anything but errors from alsa when trying to initialize sound even though all the correct kernel modules were being allocated. Ubuntu 8.04 installed in the same space however it was the slowest of all the distributions I tested. The positive is that blueman bluetooth manager is in the ubuntu repositories and always worked well in all cases. More than can be said for Debian. If you need bluetooth gnome bluetooth manager is about the only option on Debian5.

Repeat the same boot command additions as found in Debian5 on Ubuntu.

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video=ofonly acpi=force
Slackware 13 installed in less than 500 megs but to get a window manager working I exceeded 500 by just a little. The ubuntu 9.10 penmount driver package worked on Slackware 13. Alsa worked well in Slackware 13 as well as the network driver and Wicd utility. Only until Slackware 13.1 did the packagers of Slackware include polkit as well as Blueman bluetooth manager. Slackware was the fastest distribution on the hardware however in version 13.1 I could not get the touchscreen calibrated. Kernel and xorg version differences caused the driver to act out of character and only go to the upper left edge of the screen after calibration.

Again with the same boot parameters.

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video=ofonly and acpi=force
The xserver-xorg-video-geode driver was buggy on all but Debian and OpenSUSE. Sometimes on logout the screen would go white and not return to a console.

The best out of the box installation so far has been openSUSE 11.3. It asked if I wanted to autologin to the desktop as well as successfully configuring boot loader and screen resolutions. In all other cases I needed to copy in an xorg.conf file to get working graphics. Penmount supports openSUSE and the configuration that is possible within Yast, system configuration interface, is amazing. The package manager is slow and adds a bit of bloat however the software packages both in the community as well as the official repos is admirable. Cell writer, xstroke and xvkbd were all installed automatically in the "laptop" and "touchscreen" meta packages. Still tinkering with openSUSE but so far it has required the least hacking and configuration to get it on its feet in the DT366-LX800.

In review Debian was great with exception to no bluetooth manager that worked worth a darn. Ubuntu had no sound and dropped the internet too often to be acceptable. Ubuntu 8.04 was functional but it was really slow. Slackware was fast but it needed to be 13.1 to get bluetooth and in 13.1 we had no penmount support. OpenSUSE was the best for allocating the hardware correctly but it takes a ton of space. Overall openSUSE is the best experience so far.

As I test more options I will add to this posting. 

Added 9/17:

Debian Sid and Squeeze work quite well on the DT366-LX800. Touchscreen support can be had from the ubuntu 10.04 penmount package as the kernel and xorg versions are a match to what the driver was built upon. Grub gets updated on these two editions. One will need to execute a shell before completing install (cd install) or go in to a rescue mode (from cd boot) and fix the boot line. Also know that one must hit tab when booting from a cd on the LX800 and add these to the default boot line being used in order to get a gui.

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sudo nano /etc/default/grub
  will get the needed file open. Navigate to DEFUALT_LINUX line with empty quote brackets and insert between them:

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acpi=force video=ofonly
and the next boot will go just fine.

IPW2200 driver works well and to boot blueman and wicd are in the repos. I found that I was having a hard time upgrading from a lenny install failing to connect to the mirror:

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apt http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib non-free
I could ping it and get the ip and good response. I think my isp is buggering my dns but if you have the same problem try:

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apt http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian unstable contrib non-free
for Sid

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apt http://ftp.uk.debain,org/debian testing main contrib non-free
for Squeeze

in your /etc/apt/sources.list and see if that works.

Squeeze has blueman and wicd as well but if you want to get Sid you can also apt-get e17 as its now included in the Sid repository. At the moment they are the same as far as xorg and kernel versions and as penmount ubuntu 10.04 package works on both it may be a good time to upgrade your lenny to get more functionality. Warning I had about 364mb of disk space taken after installing base system and grabbing wicd. E17 added only 24megs more so in my opinion its still a good candidate for those with 500 meg drives.
Last edited by quotaholic on Sat Sep 18, 2010 1:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
angrymeat
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Re: Linux on a WebDT366-LX800

Post by angrymeat »

Wow it looks like you guys have come a long way . I am glad to see your still sticking with it quote.
quotaholic
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Re: Linux on a WebDT366-LX800

Post by quotaholic »

Thanks Angrymeat. Nice to see you visiting.
volkswagner
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Re: Linux on a WebDT366-LX800

Post by volkswagner »

I have tried to boot Debian 5 CD, with no joy.  I tried the following variations at boot, after choosing expert install.

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acpi=force vga=ofonly

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acpi=force vga=771

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vga=ofonly

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vga=771
and

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vga=safe
I'm not sure what I'm missing.  I keep at it.

EDIT:I was able to get video using the following boot parameter

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video=lxfb:800x600-16@60
I'm on my way with my new LX800... Thanks Ted!
Last edited by volkswagner on Sat Sep 25, 2010 9:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
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