Linux on a Fujitsu P2040

Linux device compatibility status:

USB, 2 ports : [ALi] M5237 USB (rev 03)	Working. Use ohci device hub
FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments: Unknown device 8026	Untested, maybe works
Modem, Lucent technologies Soft Modem AMR on ALi AC'97 Audio Controller - SigmaTel Cod	Not linux compatible.
Ethernet (builtin) Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139 (rev 10)	Working. (use 8139too driver)
Wireless (builtin 2046 model) (Harris Semiconductor) (rev 1)	Working. Use wlan-ng with prism2_pci
PCMCIA Texas Instruments PCI1410 PC card Cardbus Controller (rev 01)	Working.
Sound Acer Laboratories Inc. [ALi]: Unknown device 5451 (rev 01)	Working, using trident driver
Power Management	Working, including suspend-to-RAM
Video ATI Technologies Inc Rage Mobility P/M (rev 64)	Working 1280x768, 1024x768, 800x600, 640x480. XF86Config-4
S-video out	Untested, probably works
video out	Working.
DVD	Working.
CD	Working.
CDRW	Working with xcdroast (georges.roux@free.fr)

Exact system information:

kernel config lspci -vv dmesg modules.conf
Overall, this laptop seems to offer very good linux compatibility with two caveats:

No modem support. This can be remedied with a relatively cheap pcmcia modem.
No dma by default. You _must_ not enable CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDMA_PCI or the kernel will hang on bootup right after:
```
ALI15X3: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 78
PCI: No IRQ known for interrupt pin A of device 00:0f.0. Please try using pci=biosirq.
ALI15X3: chipset revision 195
ALI15X3: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
```
With a little patch this problem goes away and DMA seems to work. Hard drive speed is doubled according to hdparm.
Note: this problem is solved as of 2.4.20-ac2 according to Michael Leuchtenburg.
```
[root@amelia src]# hdparm -t /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  3.78 seconds = 16.93 MB/sec
```
Note that this bug makes it not possible to install redhat 7.x in a straightforward manner. I installed the hard drive on a physically different machine.
Georges Roux notes that using the kernel parameter:
```
linux ide0=ata66 ide1=ata66
```
will bypass this problem with redhat-7.3 (kernel 2.4.18).
Roland Pabel has created some bootable SUSE-8.0 images to get around this.

One other minor drawback is that a dongle is required for the VGA-out. There seems to be little reason for this since sufficient space exists to support a full vga-out connector.

In general, the laptop seems excellent. It is very difficult (and maybe impossible) to find a more adaptable, small, long battery-life laptop.

other sites

http://www.geocities.com/aaahoopy/

http://stiletto.home.attbi.com/p2040/

http://www.geocities.com/robm351/lifebook/

jcl@hunch.net