Disclaimer

Summary

I did the installation from the standard (Alternate) CD for Intel x86 architecture. Some work was needed to get the Wireless interface working.

Introduction:

The notebook is equipped with an Intel Core Duo T5550 CPU @1.83 GHz, 3 GB of RAM, 250 GB disk, DVD Writer (double layer), Ethernet, WiFi, Firewire port, integrated 56Kbps Modem, multi-standard memory card reader, integrated microphone and integrated webcam. It is also provided with a remote control for multimedia applications.

Installation:

N.B.: At GRUB boot panel you will see two Windows partitions, one is the actual windows installation the other is used to allow system restoration.

The installation procedure went on without any problem whatsoever.

Wireless:

In order to do that you must find the right Windows driver. The command lspci shows, among the other, the line:

02:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4310 USB Controller (rev 01)

and lspci -n indicates the corresponding PCI identifier:

02:00.0 0280: 14e4:4315 (rev 01)

After some searches I found a few versions of the right driver (named bcmwl5) and proceeded by trial and error. After a few failed attempts I could find a version of the driver (reportedly coming from a DELL support repository).

In order to avoid much fuss I've stored in a tar archive the required files.

To get wireless network working simply follows these steps:

1. Download the driver files from here.
2. Unpack the files in a temporary directory: cd tmp; tar xvfz bcmwl5.tgz. You'll get two files: bcmwl5.inf and bcmwl5.sys.
3. Run ndiswrapper (as root): sudo ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf
4. Verify: ndiswrapper -l ... you should have:

   bcmwl5 : driver installed
       device (14E4:4315) present

5. Generate the instruction to load the module at boot:
   sudo ndiswrapper -m
6. Add a line
   ndiswrapper
   at the end of file: /etc/modules
7. reboot

$ dmesg | grep ndiswrapper
[ 41.084004] ndiswrapper version 1.52 loaded (smp=no, preempt=no)
[ 41.213804] ndiswrapper: driver bcmwl5 (Broadcom,03/21/2008, 4.170.77.3) loaded
[ 41.227028] ndiswrapper: using IRQ 17
[ 41.631238] usbcore: registered new interface driver ndiswrapper

For any other problem you may refer to the good ndiswrapper guide

NOTE 1: after one ubuntu upgrade (june 2008) the kernel 2.6.24-18-386 was installed and ssh stopped working when used with wireless (but all other network applications did work). The following update to kernel 2.6.24-19-386 didn't help. After some digging in ubuntuforums I got the right tip: the last update installed the unrestricted driver for wlan cards, which apparently doesn't work very well. The solution is to disable the wl device driver from Applications-->System-->Hardware Drivers so that the ndiswrapper supported driver is used instead. NOTE 2: (sep. 2008) After months of smooth functioning of the WIFI, I went to a hotel where I was barely able to connect to the Wireless LAN. Everything was apparently OK: I could see the WIFI signal, the WPA encoding was recognized and so on, but the connecting procedure failed at DHCP negotiation. Once every many attempts (say three times over 40-50 attempts) I was able to connect and work smoothly. Moreover I was compelled to use NetworkManager because WlAssistant was never able to set up the connection. I also tried with WICD with similar results. Note 3: (oct. 2008) I made a huge number of tests with various window drivers and various versions of ndiswrapper and finally I discovered that the wl driver supplied with Ubuntu is actually the best one (at least after last update, now I have kernel 2.6.24-21-386). So the last recipe is: update to the last kernel, remove ndiswrapper and reenable wl. Now I can connect both through my own WEP based wifi router and through a WPA based one (courtesy of a neighbour), which I was not able to use before. So my recipe is: enable the wl driver and be happy! Note that Network Manager is apparently still unable to manage the connection through the WiFi. So I'm still using wicd; WlAssistant also works. Note 4: (mar. 2009) I still had problems when connecting to any WIFI for the fisrs time: at the beginning I must do many retries, bootstrapping and the network would finally come up after many retries with no apparent reason. Some times the connection would start but with the DNS not working at all. After the first successful connection further connections go quite smoothly. I think I've traced the problem to some security setting wich prevents replies from a DHCP server (for the connection) or from the DNS server (for the DNS) to be received. I do not know which setting is that, but the solution is using "lokkit" to remove security configuration before attempting to connect to the network. Maybe that any other network security configuration utility may work for that. Here follows for your reference the result of sudo lshw -C network: *-network description: Wireless interface product: BCM4312 802.11b/g vendor: Broadcom Corporation physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0 logical name: eth1 version: 01 serial: 00:21:00:08:c1:0d width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless configuration: broadcast=yes driver=wl ip=192.168.0.12 latency=0 module=wl multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg

Function Keys:

• FnF4 (enable extrernal monitor) NO (see note below)
• FnF5 (go to sleep mode) YES
• FnF7 (decrease screen luminosity) YES
• FnF8 (increase screen luminosity) YES

Note: Of course you want to use your laptop to show your slides and movies with an overhead projector! Although the function key to enable the external monitor/projector is not working, there is a way:

• Connect the monitor/projector to the SVGA plug.
• Stop/Restart X11: you may just logout and then login again or press <ALT><CTRL><Backspace> and then login.

When you're finished you disconnect the external video device and do the same to go back to standard resolution.

As of march 2009, I could use the external monitor simply by pluggin in the cable: I do not know wether it's a feature due to some upgrade (I'm running Ubuntu 8.04 LTS and keeping it updated daily) or a feature of the projector I used.

Sound:

I've played with alsamixer (and xfce4-mixer) to control various audio devices. The integrated microphone is identified as "Front mic", while the microphone input under the touch pad is "Mic".

Graphics:

Integrated Webcam:

To have it working you only have to load the related driver. In ubuntu I installed the package luvcview. After that I had the webcam working with xawtv, luvcview -f yuv and with skype. At the moment, ekiga gives an error message when I try to use the webcam.

Modem:

Warning: the "Off" key on the remote pad works! I.e.: pushes the laptop in sleep mode.

I haven't tested the other fancy keys.

Luca Fini (lfiniarcetri.astro.it) --- Home page