Slackware Linux on the Toshiba 2065CDS



Copyright © 2005,2008 by Zack Smith
All rights reserved.

0. Caveat

Before I get into the details, I just want to explain that I was unsuccessful in getting the PCMCIA port to work using any driver. Just once did it briefly work, in the sense that lspci correctly identified a card, but it is not clear why because every other time it failed with each PCMCIA driver. Therefore, if you plan on doing any networking, you might need to use a USB-based network device.
Update:
Linda says, "I found out that to get the PCMCIA to work in Linux, you have to change the BIOS setting for PC card from Autodetect to 16-bit/Cardbus. It's on 2nd page of BIOS. Once I changed it, I had PCMCIA working in various flavors of LiveCD Linux distros."

1. Installation

The best way to install Slackware Linux 10 is to use the first Slackware 10 CDROM.

  1. Download the first Slackware 10.0 or 10.1 ISO file.
  2. Burn that to a CDROM.
  3. If you want to retain Windows, download the FIPS utility (from slackware.com) to reduce the size of your Win32 partition. You will have to run that in MSDOS so prepare an MSDOS boot floppy, put FIPS on it, and boot from that floppy to run FIPS.
  4. Boot your PC from the CDROM, which may require changing the BIOS boot order if your system doesn't already boot CDs.
  5. Log in as root (no password is initially required).
  6. Type fdisk /dev/hda and create your main Linux partition, set the boot flag on that partition and write the new partition table. Then reboot. Commands are as follows: 
     
	p = print list of partitions
	n = create new partition
	t = change partition type
	w = write new partition table
	a = set boot partition
	x = edit
  7. Boot again from the CD, and this time after logging in as root, run "setup", which is Slackware's self-explanatory installation program.

My own Linux partition of about 3.5 gigs. I also created a Linux Swap partition of 500 megs. I did a full install in a 3.5 gig partition (0.5 gigs for swap) leaving out Gnome, KDE, Emacs, and TeX, and I had 2.3 gigs free afterwards.

2. System Profile

The files /proc/cpuinfo and /proc/meminfo and the utility hdparm collectively inform me that my system has the following profile: 
 
AMD-K6 processor with 3D Now support, stepping 12
Speed 366 MHz
Caches = 
	Level 1: 64kB (32 kB data, 32 kB instructions)
	Level 2: supposedly 256 kB, but Linux doesn't detect it.
FPU
Bogomips 732
Memory: 32 megs on my system (160 MB max)
Hard drive: original 4 gigs

3. Drivers

3.1. Video

The 2065CDS has an S3 ViRGE/MX rev 06 with 2 MB of video RAM.

The maximum external video resolution is 1280x1024, 256 colors.

This chip has some kind of support for 3D.

3.1.1. X Windows

The Xfree86 included with Slackware 10 includes acceleration for the S3 ViRGE.

3.1.2. Framebuffer

Works great using my FBUI in-kernel windowing system.

3.2. Sound

The audio chip is ESS Technology's ESS1978S Maestro 2E rev 10, plus the ESS1918.

Run alsaconfig to automatically detect it (as the ess1968) and set it up. mpg321 works great.

3.3. APM

The provided kernel has this as a module. Typing "insmod apm ; apm" seems to indicate it basically works.

3.4. USB

The USB controller is by NEC and is rev 02 but there is no chip number given by lspci.

The provided 2.4.26 kernel works fine with USB flash.

3.5. Printing via lp0

-not tested-

3.6. Floppy

Works fine.

3.6. PCMCIA

I'm sad to report that after much work, I cannot get Toshiba's proprietary PCMCIA chipset to work with Linux. Current symptoms:
  • Inserting or removing a card crashes Slackware 10's included kernel.
  • Yenta does not work.
  • Once, a 16 bit card was recognized by the kernel but the driver failed to load.
  • Compiling the 2.6.11 kernel with any combination of PCMCIA chipset drivers or 16/32 bit settings fails to result in any working PCMCIA slots.

4. Performance

4.1. Video

4.1.1. X Windows

In 24bpp mode, opaque window motion works pretty quickly.

X is a bloated resource hog, so on my system with only 32 megs of RAM, things can get slow...

4.1.2. Framebuffer

-not tested-

However you might try my FramebufferUI, in-kernel GUI, which is normally very fast.

4.1.3. Movies

The 2065CDS has a passive display so movies aren't practical except on an external monitor. However Xine, which is included with Slackware 10, seems to play them pretty rapidly.

4.2. Hard drive

I am using the standard 4GB hard drive, which is a Toshiba MK4309MAT. I have not bothered trying to upgrade to a bigger drive. 
 
From hdparm -T:

/dev/hda:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   180 MB in  2.02 seconds =  88 MB/sec

(very respectable)

hdparm -t:

/dev/hda:
 Timing buffered disk reads:   24 MB in  3.00 seconds =  7.9 MB/sec

(slow! newer drives get twice that...)
It's always good to have these in your /etc/rc.d/rc.0 : 
 
/usr/sbin/hdparm -f /dev/hda     [flush the hard drive cache]
/usr/sbin/hdparm -S 1 /dev/hda   [get it to spin down ASAP]

And you should add -h to the poweroff command in /etc/rc.d/rc.6 to ensure a quiet hard drive powerdown.

4.3. Processor

Running the BYTE drystone 2 test which is at http://www.anime.net/~goemon/benchmarks.html I get an index of 29.2.

5. Manual

Here's the link: the PDF manual.

Or start from the top: http://csd.toshiba.com.

Links





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