Yesterday I got my new toy, an Eee-PC 901 with pre-installed Windows XP. I guess it’s no neccessary to say that Windows was removed immediately (including the annoying “designed for Windows XP” stickers all around). I started to install my distribution of choice (slackware 12.2) on it with an external DVD-drive.
This model off the eee has a 4GB SSD like my older 701 model plus an additional 8 GB Module. This gave me the great opportunity to have my home-directory separated now. (my older eee had an SD-Card to satisfy ma needs in this case)
I partitioned like this:
[14:47:12] root@blackbox ~ # fdisk -l /dev/sd? Disk /dev/sda: 4034 MB, 4034838528 bytes 128 heads, 63 sectors/track, 977 cylinders Units = cylinders of 8064 * 512 = 4128768 bytes Disk identifier: 0x57985ef0 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 1 920 3709408+ 83 Linux /dev/sda2 921 977 229824 82 Linux swap Disk /dev/sdb: 8069 MB, 8069677056 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 981 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Disk identifier: 0x3094aa77 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdb1 1 981 7879851 83 Linux
After a normal installation and the removal of some obsolete packages I compiled the recent kernel on it (2.6.28.7). After surfing through “make menuconfig” I discovered that the wireless chip of this model isn’t supported in the mainstream kernel. The wireless chipset of my older model was supported by the ath5k-module, but this chipset (rt2860) isn’t yet supported 
. There were 2 options:
- I wait until it comes to mainstream kernel (hopefully with 2.6.29 ??? ) and connect to WiFi with my zd1211-USB stick meanwhile
- I compile the official driver from Ralink
I decided to take option 1, because I hate to compile third-party modules. I read on some boards and mailinglists that kernel-support for rt2860 is currently a work in progress. I guess it won’t take a long time to get it into mainstream kernel. Here an output of lspci:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GME Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03) 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GME Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03) 00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03) 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02) 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02) 00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02) 00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 02) 00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 02) 00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02) 00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02) 00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02) 00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02) 00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02) 00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02) 00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) SATA IDE Controller (rev 02) 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02) 01:00.0 Network controller: RaLink RT2860 04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Attansic Technology Corp. L1 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter (rev b0)
After compiling and rebootiing my new gem I discovered that my eee suddenly freezed during the initialization of the eeepc_laptop module. At first I thought the kernel really freezed because it took up to 30 seconds until it continued to boot normally. “Maybe just an unlucky constellation …” I thought and rebooted to test if it happens again, …. and it did. So I decided to compile my kernel without eeepc_laptop until it is fixed. I also read on the kernel mailinglist that this is a known issue.
Well, here I was, surfing the web with my new eee, connected via my zd1211-usb-wlan-stick with my home-network. But there was something very, very annoying again. The fonts of my firefox-menu and everything seemed extremely big and bloated. From my past I knew that there was a DPI option in the firefox-menu but I couldn’t find it anymore … *sigh*
After some searching I found a solution. I rewrote my ~/.Xdefaults and added the following line:
Xft.dpi: 96After that, Firefox started to look normal again.
Finally, a little screenshot:
2 Comments
I’m running 12.2 on a 1000h, that also contains the RT2860.
I decided to use ralink’s latest driver (1.8.0), which works like a charm! Recommended!!
btw: having problems getting the rfkill system to work, I’d like to know, if you succeeded with that ….
best regards,
Markus
Hi,
I also use the official ralink driver now until the kernel contains the needed module. I’m sorry to tell you that I never disable my WiFi and therefore can’t tell you if rfkill is working.