Running Gentoo on a Toshiba Tecra 8100

Updated for Gentoo 1.1

Author: M Butcher
Date: 2003-11-12 17:00:27 -0600

This covers installing Gentoo 1.0 rc6 on a Toshiba Tecra 8100 laptop. UPDATED FOR GENTOO 1.1a on June 6, 2002

Bootup:

Fine. The first time I did this, I had to change the BIOS boot order to boot fro m CD.

Initializing Install

With 1.1a, the install manual instructions worked fine, and I managed to get cardmgr working exactly the way the instructions suggested. If you have problems, you may want t o try the alternate method described below.

To get the ethernet card working, I had to be particular in the order I did the modprobes. This is the configuration I had the best luck with:

modprobe pcmcia_core
modprobe yenta_socket
modprobe ds
modprobe 3c59x

Chances are good that you have a different pcmcia ethernet card -- adjust the last step accordingly. Remember, running the DHCP the first time will give an error. Usually, though, it still works. Check ifconfig.

Partitioning (UPDATE)

I created 4 primary partitions: hda1 - /boot (50M -- enough for a few kernels), hda2 - swap, hda3 - / (9G), hda4 - /home (2G)

NOTE: I used to have a much smaller root partition (3G), but I\'ve been using my laptop to test lots of ebuilds, and 3G for root is too small for this. More space for /var is useful.

File Systems

This time around, I\'m trying ext3 on everything. Thus far, it\'s been very rel iable.

In the past, I\'ve made the boot partition ext2 \'cause I know it\'s stable. The rest I\'d make ext3. I used XFS for a while, and probably will on my server machines, but for other machines I go with what I feel is safe. ext3 is nice because I can drop back to ext2 if I want.

Building System Base

With 1.1a, I\'m using Stage 1.

FYI, before I did the chroot, I did mount /home (hda4). Previously, I\'ve not mounted home, and have been fine. I did it this time out of force of habit, I guess.

I went for the \"from scratch\" method, and built everything. It went fine. So did the emerge system.

Initially, I used sysklogd for the logger, but I didn\'t like it. I guess I\'m used to Metalog. Anyway, after I installed the kernel and X and all that, I went back an d unmerged sysklogd and installed metalog.

Kernel and Boot

In the kernel, I used usb-uhci for the USB controller, and I ennabled the Tos hiba Laptop support. The rest was pretty straightforward.

I used grub for the bootloader, and pretty much just followed the instruction s.

NOTE: There are a few things that I didn\'t get working with the first compile : The ACPI patch didn\'t work, so I have the other power management (APM) module built. Haven\'t te sted it yet, and I have to manually power off the laptop right now. I had to to use VGA16 support in frameb uffer setup to get the little tux logo. It\'s not the prettiest, but it works.

UPDATE: on 2.4.19, ACPI hung during boot, so I resorted again to APM, which i s working fine except for shutdowns. During shutdown, I get an error from the preemting code. I haven\'t really messed with it. In the crypto kernel, I enabled as many of the ciphers as I could. I am in the process of messing around with the gresecurity stuff.

X and KDE

I prefer KDE, so one of the first things I did after rebooting was emerge kde . That installed X as well, as KDE (obviously) depends on it.

Setting up X was easy this go-around because I copied the XF86Config from my previous Mandrake install before I began this whole process. Consequently, I just tweaked the Mand rake XF86Config and used that. FYI, the laptop uses the savage X86 driver. Here\'s the Mandrake-g enerated config:

# File generated by XFdrake.

# **********************************************************************
# Refer to the XF86Config(4/5) man page for details about the format of
# this file.
# **********************************************************************

Section \"Files\"

    RgbPath \"/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb\"

# Multiple FontPath entries are allowed (they are concatenated together)
# By default, Mandrake 6.0 and later now use a font server independent of
# the X server to render fonts.

    FontPath   \"unix/:-1\"

    EndSection

# **********************************************************************
# Server flags section.
# **********************************************************************

Section \"ServerFlags\"

   # Uncomment this to cause a core dump at the spot where a signal is
   # received.  This may leave the console in an unusable state, but may
   # provide a better stack trace in the core dump to aid in debugging
   #NoTrapSignals
   # Uncomment this to disable the  server abort sequence
   # This allows clients to receive this key event.
   #DontZap
    # Uncomment this to disable the / mode switching
    # sequences.  This allows clients to receive these key events.
    #DontZoom
    # This  allows  the  server  to start up even if the
    # mouse device can\'t be opened/initialised.
    AllowMouseOpenFail

    EndSection

# **********************************************************************
# Input devices
# **********************************************************************

# **********************************************************************
# Keyboard section
# **********************************************************************

Section \"InputDevice\"

   Identifier \"Keyboard1\"
    Driver      \"Keyboard\"
    Option \"AutoRepeat\"  \"250 30\"

    Option \"XkbRules\" \"xfree86\"
    Option \"XkbModel\" \"pc105\"
    Option \"XkbLayout\" \"us\"

    EndSection


# **********************************************************************
# Pointer section
# **********************************************************************

    Section \"InputDevice\"

        Identifier  \"Mouse1\"
        Driver      \"mouse\"
        Option \"Protocol\"    \"PS/2\"
        Option \"Device\"      \"/dev/mouse\"
        Option \"Emulate3Buttons\"
        Option \"Emulate3Timeout\" \"50\"

        # ChordMiddle is an option for some 3-button Logitech mice

        #    Option \"ChordMiddle\"

        EndSection



        Section \"Module\"

        # This loads the DBE extension module.

     Load   \"dbe\"


# This loads the miscellaneous extensions module, and disables
# initialisation of the XFree86-DGA extension within that module.

    SubSection  \"extmod\"
    #Option \"omit xfree86-dga\"
   EndSubSection

# This loads the Type1 and FreeType font modules

   Load \"type1\"
   Load \"freetype\"
    EndSection

# **********************************************************************
# Monitor section
# **********************************************************************

# Any number of monitor sections may be present

Section \"Monitor\"
    Identifier \"Generic|High Frequency SVGA, 1024x768 at 70 Hz\"
    VendorName \"Unknown\"
    ModelName  \"Unknown\"


# HorizSync is in kHz unless units are specified.
# HorizSync may be a comma separated list of discrete values, or a
# comma separated list of ranges of values.
# NOTE: THE VALUES HERE ARE EXAMPLES ONLY.  REFER TO YOUR MONITOR\'S
# USER MANUAL FOR THE CORRECT NUMBERS.
   HorizSync  31.5-57.0
# VertRefresh is in Hz unless units are specified.
# VertRefresh may be a comma separated list of discrete values, or a
# comma separated list of ranges of values.
# NOTE: THE VALUES HERE ARE EXAMPLES ONLY.  REFER TO YOUR MONITOR\'S
# USER MANUAL FOR THE CORRECT NUMBERS.
   VertRefresh 50-90


    # This is a set of extended mode timings typically used for laptop,
    # TV fullscreen mode or DVD fullscreen output.
    # These are available along with standard mode timings.

    # Sony Vaio C1(X,XS,VE,VN)?
    # 1024x480 @ 85.6 Hz, 48 kHz hsync
    ModeLine \"1024x480\"    65.00 1024 1032 1176 1344   480  488  494  563 -hsync
 -vsync

    # 768x576 @ 79 Hz, 50 kHz hsync
    ModeLine \"768x576\"     50.00  768  832  846 1000   576  590  595  630
    # 768x576 @ 100 Hz, 61.6 kHz hsync
    ModeLine \"768x576\"     63.07  768  800  960 1024   576  578  590  616


EndSection



# **********************************************************************
# Graphics device section
# **********************************************************************

Section \"Device\"
    Identifier \"Generic VGA\"
    Driver     \"vga\"
EndSection

Section \"Device\"
    Identifier  \"S3 Savage (generic)\"
    VendorName  \"Unknown\"
    BoardName   \"Unknown\"
    Driver      \"savage\"
    #    VideoRam    8192
    # Clock lines


    # Uncomment following option if you see a big white block
    # instead of the cursor!
    #    Option      \"sw_cursor\"

    Option      \"DPMS\"  \"on\"
EndSection


# **********************************************************************
# Screen sections
# **********************************************************************


Section \"Screen\"
    Identifier \"screen1\"
    Device      \"S3 Savage (generic)\"
    Monitor     \"Generic|High Frequency SVGA, 1024x768 at 70 Hz\"
    DefaultColorDepth 24
        Subsection \"Display\"
            Depth       8
            Modes       \"1280x1024\" \"1024x768\" \"800x600\" \"640x400\"
            ViewPort    0 0
        EndSubsection
        Subsection \"Display\"
            Depth       16
            Modes       \"1280x1024\" \"1024x768\" \"800x600\" \"640x480\"
            ViewPort    0 0
        EndSubsection
        Subsection \"Display\"
            Depth       24
            Modes       \"1280x1024\" \"1024x768\" \"800x600\" \"640x480\"
            ViewPort    0 0
        EndSubsection
        Subsection \"Display\"
            Depth       32
            Modes       \"1280x1024\" \"1024x768\" \"800x600\" \"640x480\"
            ViewPort    0 0
        EndSubsection
EndSection


Section \"ServerLayout\"
    Identifier \"layout1\"
    Screen     \"screen1\"

    InputDevice \"Mouse1\" \"CorePointer\"

    InputDevice \"Keyboard1\" \"CoreKeyboard\"
EndSection

I use the X Font Server (xfs), so I had to do \'rc-update add xfs default\', an d then in the \'FontPath\' section of XF86Config, I set it to use unix/:-1 for all fonts. I ran \'/etc/init.d/xfs start\' to start a font server before testing X. In order to do \'startx\' to test everything, I had to add /usr/X11R6/bin to my path:

PATH=$PATH:/usr/X11R6/bin

Following the instructions for KDE worked fine. I had to do a find to locate where kdm was, as it wasn\'t in my PATH, but it worked the first time I tried it. I made the sugges ted mods to rc.conf, and added xdm to my default runlevel, and things worked fine.

X and Fluxbox

This last time around, I didn\'t install KDE. Instead, I just installed X and Fluxbox. I did this because, 1) I like Fluxbox, and 2) I could cut down the startup time of my laptop signifi cantly with only XDM and Fluxbox.

X install was the same this time as before. At this time, I am having problem s getting xfs (font server) to run correctly, and I get segfaults on startup with it. Haven\'t figured out why, yet. To get XFree working without XFS, I had to change the font path to include all of the actual font paths, inst ead of unix:-1.

To get Fluxbox to start by default, I edited the config file for xinit in /us r/X11R6/lib/X11/xinit/config. I went to the end of the file, where it starts twm, and commented that out, addi ng \'exec fluxbox\' in its place. That seemed to work fine for \'startx\'. I also added an .xinitrc in my home direc tories, and made a symbolic link from .xsession to .xinitrc for XDM.

In regards to XDM, I wanted to set the background to something other than tha t hideous thatch pattern. After searching Google for a while, I came upon this method of setting the root backgr ound for XDM. In /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xdm/Xsetup_0, I added the line \'xsetroot -solid black\'. Now the thatch only blinks on the scre en for a moment before it is replaced by black. If anyone knows of a way to keep the thatch bg from ever coming on, please tell me.

OSS Sound

The YMFPCI driver in the Sound-OSS section of the kernel worked just fine. In fact, on 2.4.19, I couldn\'t get ALSA working, so I used OSS instead.

ALSA

On 2.4.18, my Toshiba worked fine with the \'ymfpci\' driver, so I added \'snd-c ard-ymfpci\' as well as the PCM OSS driver to my modules.autoload file. I used the \'alsamixer\' program to set sound levels, and everything worked just fine.

APM

In the 1.1a install, I just compiled APM in. It is monitoring battery fine. I tried APCI, but it still doesn\'t work.

PREVIOUS NOTES: Currently (2.4.18), ACPI is not working with Gentoo, so I bui lt APM as a module and have it in my /etc/modules.autoload. This works well. Most of the \"configuring\" I\'ve done i s through the KDE Control Panel, so I suspect that it has more to offer than what I\'ve used..< /p>

Errata

There are several things I haven\'t gotten around to configuring appropriately .

Cardbus: I built the PCMCIA core into the kernel, which in effect means that I don\'t have to do any module loading for the cardbus. The NIC module is the only PCMCIA-related module in my modules.autoload. Now, this works just dandy for me, because I rarely change ethernet cards. I can only think of a time or two where I\'ve taken cards out while the machine was running, and those were for errors I fixed by migrating to Gentoo ;-). But I have no cardconfig tools at all. I don\'t understand exactly what they do, so I could be making a mistake by not having them, but things are working just fine for me as it stands right now. I will do more research, though. (UPDATE: The gentoo.org site has a number of updates regarding PCMCIA)

Packages (For gentoo 1.1a install)

These are the packages that I explicitly emerged. Obviously, most have depend encies.

• Fluxbox and X (See above)
• Crypto Kernel -- Gentoo kernel with a number of security patches.
• VIM - OK
• Mozilla - OK
• Ethereal - must be run by root with appropriate display
• BIND tools - ok
• Gentoolkit - OK
• tcpdump - OK
• nmap - OK
• alsa - Failed. This problem is documented at kernel dev list. Switched to OS S.
• XMMS - Worked fine with OSS
• mpg123 - Worked fine with OSS
• Portmap - OK
• Eterm - OK
• Evolution - OK
• Gaim - OK
• Open Office (from OpenOffice.org -- no ebuild)
• JDK 1.4.0
• Ant
• gkrellm - OK
• bbapm - needs link from .fluxbox/init to .blackboxrc
• bbpager - see above