FujitsuAmiloA7640

  • Contact: Dave Meikle, Johan Dahlin
  • Make: Fujitsu Siemens
  • Model: Amilo A7640

Current Issues (Gutsy)

Gutsy is working on this laptop for both x86 and X86_64, except the Wireless. There is a bug open https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/138979 which is tracking this problem.

To workaround this add the following entry in your /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist file:

blacklist prism54

As you may notice I still haven't updated the table for Gutsy or Feisty, but I assure you this is on my TODO list - honest Wink ;-)

Current Issues (Feisty)

Feisty is working on this laptop in both x86 and X86_64. The Wireless Card is now working to using the prism54pci driver (details on firmware can be found here http://jbnote.free.fr/prism54usb/index.html).

Current Issues (Edgy)

Edgy works perfectly on this laptop. However, as with all the other releases, to use the Wireless you have to use NDiswrapper or Linuxant Driverloader.

Hardware details (x86)

Hardware Information

Screen & Monitors

Device

Works?

Bug #

in Breezy (old stable)?

in Dapper (current stable)

Screen

Works

Works

Correct resolution?

Yes 1024x768

Yes - 1024x768

Correct refresh rate?

Yes

Yes

3D Acceleration

N/A

N/A

External monitor works?

Yes

Yes

External monitor - mirrors

Yes

Yes

External monitor - extend desktop

Untested

Untested

Power Management

Battery detected?

Yes

Yes

Hibernates?

Yes

Yes

Sleep

Sometimes

Yes

Dim/Blank monitor?

Yes

Yes

Sound

Sound works?

Yes

Yes

Correct volume?

Yes

Yes

Hardware volume switch

N/A

N/A

Headphone jack

Yes

Yes

Mic jack

Yes

Yes

Networking

Wired NIC

Yes

Yes - was a dodgy cable!

Wireless NIC

Yes - with NDISwrapper/Linuxant

Yes - with NDISwrapper/Linuxant (notes to follow)

PCMCIA NIC

Will now test

Yes - using ACX100 Card

Firewire

Untested

Yes

Bluetooth

N/A

N/A

Modem

Untested

Untested

Infrared

N/A

N/A

Touchpad & Mice

Touchpad

Yes

Yes

Touchpad - Doubletap = double click

Yes, but I turn this off

Yes, but I turn this off

Touchpad - Scroll down side

Yes

Yes

External mouse - USB

Yes

Yes

External mouse - Serial

N/A

N/A

Additional Hardware

CD/DVD drive

Yes

Yes

PCMCIA cards

No

Yes

TV out

Yes

Yes

Flash card reader

No

Yes

Function and other keys

Fn key

Operation

Keycode

Works?

Bug #

in Hoary (current stable)?

in Breezy (current development)?

+ F1

Sleep

Doesn't Work

Works

+ F3

Mute

Doesn't Work

Work

+ F4

LCD/Monitor Switch

Works - at start up

Works - at start up

+ F5

Volume Up

Doesn't Work

Works

+ F6

Volume Down

Doesn't Work

Works

+ F7

Brightness Up

Works

Works

+ F8

Brightness Down

Works

Works

Dapper Install Notes (x86)

The Installation went without hitch with Dapper's installation not required any parameters.

For Wireless, so far I have only had time to setup using Linuxant Driverloader. To do this I had to download their code from:

http://www.linuxant.com/driverloader/wlan/full/archive/driverloader-2.30/driverloader-2.30.tar.gz

tar zxvf driverloader-2.30.tar.gz cd driverloader-2.30 sudo make install sudo dldrconfig

NOTE: I done this against both the current kernel headers (linux-headers-386/linux-headers-686 or whatever you use) and a custom compiled kernel.

This allowed me to enter in my license details and then setup the card via GNOME.

Breezy Install Notes (x86)

Installed using the following parameters:

linux vga=771

Installation was fine. Only Problem I had after installation was getting the Wireless to work using driverloader (NDISWrapper did not even entertain me!). Here is what happend:

I installed the kernel headers for my kernel and then driverloader. Upon the driverloader install it tried to compile the driverloader module but couldn't as it was looking for gcc-3.4. So I then installed the gcc-3.4 package. This allowed the module to be built but there was a problem inserting it into the kernel.

Upon checking dmesg it showed that it couldn't insert it as the magic number where different - this was due to it picking up gcc-4.0 for the module and the kernel was compiled with gcc-3.4 (this is due to the gcc symlink pointing to gcc-4.0 when compiling the module).

To solve this I ran the following: cd /usr/bin sudo rm gcc sudo ln -s gcc gcc-3.4

NOTE: You could all use export CC=/usr/bin/gcc-3.4 and then run dldrconfig, but then you would have to do this each time a new kernel update came in.

This then allowed me to build the module and insert it. I then followed the standard procedure for setting driverloader up.

Notes (x86)

Most things in the Laptop just worked. which was pretty impressive due to the customisation I used to have to with other distros.

The Wireless Card (Intersil 3886) requires NDISWrapper or Linuxant to run correctly. This is due to no native Linux driver being available - prism54.org is working on one apparently. Hibernation is not quite working. It's not possible to query how much battery powers there is left, so applets will not work.

25/08/2005 - Johan, I can query how much battery power that is left <acpi -b>. This used to be a problem for me on other Distros but never on Ubuntu. The standard Gnome Battery Charge Monitor has always worked for me. If it doesn't work for you maybe we can bang our heads together and work out why.

03/09/2005 - Dave: acpi -b just reads /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state which has the "present rate" field always set to 0 mA. I reported this on warty as http://bugzilla.ubuntu.com/show_bug.cgi?id=6628 and it's still present using breezy. Seems to be an ACPI interpreter incompability issue. Have you modified your ACPI bytecode or done something else to make it work? I never got pcmcia cards working either, maybe it's a problem with my hardware, dunno. I also tested hibernation on breezy and it seems to work just fine. I'm using the kernel command line option acpi_sleep=s3_bios, it might be needed, haven't tested without yet. --Johan

LaptopTestingTeam/Old/FujitsuAmiloA7640 (last edited 2010-03-02 09:41:00 by host226-241-dynamic)