COMPAQ ARMADA V300

The thing is not new, but does what it has to do very fine. I am using it mainly with Linux, (Slackware). Slackware version is now 11.0. Here are some tips:

• Sound: the easy way is to use ALSA, the module is es1968. It worked OK with distribution drivers (configured by alsaconf, then alsamixer) but for some reasons I had to compile my own kernel. Since I decided to use kernel 2.4.*, I had to get alsa drivers from ALSA page, configure with something like
  ./configure --with-cards=es1968 --with-sequencer=yes \ --with-oss=yes then make, checkinstall, etc. Now that I use 2.6.* kernel, I do not need to get drivers, as they are included in kernel.
• Ethernet card: I use PCMCIA ethrnet cards, after inserting them eth0 is ready to use, without any configuration: of course you should tell the computer some parameters of your ethernet connection, like IP number, or that it has to use DHCP (use netconfig, for example). My cards use module 8139too, yours may be quite different, I did not have to do anything to make it work, so I cannot say what kind of problems you may encounter.
• Wireless LAN: I bought EDIMAX EW-7108PCg card and I am very satisfied with it. The card has native linux drivers. I took the file rt2500-1.1.0-b4.tar.gz from sourceforge, unpack, then make install. The drivers were installed with no problem, and wireless LAN is ready to to work; the interface is called ra0. It takes minimal changes in rc.inet1.conf and rc.inet1.wireless.conf to connect to any possible wireless LAN.
• Modem: The laptop has of course winmodem built in. With such modems linux may have problems unless someone writes a good driver. Luckily for this very modem (lucent winmodem) there are drivers. These drivers are provided both for 2.4 an 2.6 series of kernel. I have no luck in compiling the driver for kernel 2.6.*, the current 2.6 kernel at the time of writing. So I switched to 2.4.* (.32 then .33), got the file ltmodem-8.31a10.tar.gz, unpack it, make the system do three commands describes in the file 1ST-READ and got working and autoloading kernel modules, device in /dev, /dev/modem linked and modem working in its 56k. But (hurrey!) I succesfully compiled new drivers (file martian-full-20061110.tar.gz) under 2.6.18 kernel and happily switched to 2.6.* series. I downloaded the file martian-full-20061110.tar.gz, unpack, make, make install. Then, when you want to use the modem, you have to modprobe module martian_dev, then run utility martian_modem, that creates apropriate entry in dev. When you stop the utility - the entry dissappears. The entry is (in my case) /dev/ttySM0 and I softlinked it to /dev/modem. Then, to use modem to connect to internet, I use the script (configured with sudo for anybody to use):

  /sbin/modprobe martian_dev
  /usr/sbin/martian_modem &
  /opt/kde/bin/kppp;
  /bin/rm ~/.ICEauthority
  /bin/killall -9 martian_modem
  /sbin/modprobe -r martian_dev
  

  After switching to udev I add a line

  	ln -sf /dev/ttySM0 /dev/modem
  	

  (just before calling kppp) since now /dev/modem does not survive between sessions.
• X11R6: did not do much about it, the configuration given by Slackware installator worked for me. But I like xorgcofig so much, I had to use it. For my graphic card I choose "ATI Rage 128" with driver "ati", 800x600, depth 24.
• ACPI: to enable ACPI under kernel 2.4.* I had to add option for my kernel acpi=force (in my /etc/lilo.conf I put a line
  append = "acpi=force"
  ) otherwise acpi was disabled, as BIOS is too old. Under 2.6.* it was not necessary.
• For proper powering off I had to check "use real APM to turn off computer" in the configuration of kernel
• suspending, hibernating For laptops it is essential to save power in some situations (and to speed up starting the work) - so how to suspend? With 2.4.* kernels it was not an easy task. But now with 2.6.*... In Slackware there is no solution working out-of-the-box (that I am aware of). If you compiled in your kernel full range of acpci options, then it takes only

  		   echo -n mem > /proc/power/state
  		

  to suspend to ram this laptop. On page "How to suspend and hibernate a laptop under Linux" you can read how to do it more properly - to run a script which can do more, like preventing your screen from not being woken properly. However, on this laptop, the script was not neccessary. In very similar way (change mem to disk or standby) you can hibernate or suspend your machine. The commands can then be executed after clicking the object on your pulpit or pressing a button on your laptop (ACPCI can be configured to do this).
• The rest of configuration is not specific to the laptop, so I skip it. One advice: I use programs from kde (like kppp or knetwalk :) but as a window manager I recomend somethin lighter (icewm for example). Well, it is only 466 MHz. But FireFox works ... And TeX even better :)

Paweł Wlaź (Pawel Wlaz)