Ubuntu Wiki

• Contact: OGerlich

• Make: Toshiba
• Brand: Satellite
• Model: L40-14N

• Website: http://de.computers.toshiba-europe.com/cgi-bin/ToshibaCSG/jsp/productPage.do?service=DE&PRODUCT_ID=137265&toshibaShop=false

Current Issues (tested with Hardy 8.04 LiveCD)

• WLAN does not work out-of-the-box (requires Ndiswrapper)
• Brightness control works but has weirdness
• Modem doesn't seem to be detected
• Some Fn keys do not work

System Info

• $ sudo dmidecode -s system-manufacturer:
  • TOSHIBA
• $ sudo dmidecode -s system-product-name
  • Satellite L40
• $ sudo dmidecode -s system-version
  • PSL48E-01E00VGR

Hardware details

Notes

Wireless LAN

The machine has a built-in Realtek RTL8187B WLAN adapter, connected via USB (vendor ID: 0x0bda, product ID: 0x8197). The adapter is shown by lsusb, but Gutsy does not load any driver for it.

There is a patched Realtek driver available at http://www.datanorth.net/~cuervo/blog/2007/09/26/no-more-vista/ which basically seems to work (NetworkManager shows available WLAN hotspots - havn't tested to actually connect to a hotspot). The driver seems to have some drawbacks, though:

• WPA seems to require a modified wpa_supplicant (contained in the .tgz) but overall the WPA support seems to be quite unstable
• link quality is broken (it shows lowest quality for all APs)

After loading this driver, the little orange WLAN LED (near the WLAN switch at the front) gets orange - no clue what that actually means. Toggling the hardware WLAN switch has no effect on the LED; pressing Fn+F8 (which is meant for "switching between active wireless devices") has no effect on the LED either. I have no WLAN available for testing, so no idea what these two switches actually do for the connection

The broken WPA support finally led me to try Ndiswrapper, which has worked out very well. There are some hints on the net to use the Win98 driver, which can be found at ftp://202.65.194.212/cn/wlan/RTL8187B_driver_only.zip. The chip is not detected automatically by the driver, so this has to be forced. Installation instructions:

• download and unzip the driver
• change to Win98 directory in the unzipped driver
• run "sudo ndiswrapper -i net8187b.inf"
• check with "ndiswrapper -l" that the driver is listed as installed
• run "sudo ndiswrapper -a 0bda:8197 net8187b" (this forces the driver to recognize this specific chipset)
• run "modprobe ndiswrapper"

After doing this, NetworkManager should show that it has recognized the WLAN adapter. It also shows signal strength for detected APs and supports WPA. To load the driver automatically on boot, add the line ndiswrapper to the file /etc/modules.

Update: as described in LP 258344, a driver for "Realtek 8187 USB" has been published as kernel update for Ubuntu Hardy (linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24, version 2.6.24-21.31). The driver source seems to indicate support for product ID 0x8197, so it might work for this laptop (haven't tested it, though).

Update: with Ubuntu Intrepid, Wireless LAN works out of the box (tested with Live CD), including WPA. According to Network Manager, the rtl8187 driver is used.

Brightness control

Brightness control basically works (via Fn+F6/F7, via Brightness Applet, and automatically when unplugging AC). However, there is the weirdness that when using the applet and dragging the slider from highest to lowest value, the brightness dims twice: when going from highest to half value, screen is dimmed; when going a bit further down, it switches back to brightest display, and then goes to dimmed again when going to lowest slider value. The Fn buttons have a similar effect when used for the first time after boot or after using the applet.

Also, brightness changes done through Fn buttons don't seem to update the applet slider.

Desktop Effects (Compiz)

Desktop Effects on this machine were not enabled automatically by Gutsy, and enabling them through the control dialog doesn't work either. Apparently this happens because the integrated Intel 965 graphics chip (PCI ID: 8086:2a02, using intel driver) is blacklisted by compiz (see http://wiki.compiz-fusion.org/Hardware/Blacklist). Removing its PCI ID from the blacklist makes compiz available, but indeed makes Totem crash as is documented on the Blacklist page. After disabling XV for gstreamer (with gstreamer-properties), Totem no longer crashes.

Update: with Ubuntu Hardy the desktop effects are automatically enabled (at least on LiveCD), and there don't seem to be any problems with that (Totem can use XV without crashing now).

However there is still the problem that windowed OpenGL applications don't work well under Compiz (see bug #116793). This is not specific for this laptop model, but seems to affect all OpenGL drivers (except NVidia and ATI?). In summary: most 3D games should work (as they use fullscreen mode) but applications like GoogleEarth will have constant flickering etc. and are practically unusable. Switching off Desktop Effects when using such an application is the only workaround I know of.

External monitor

When plugging in an external 17" CRT in the VGA socket, nothing happens. But running xrandr in terminal shows that the CRT is detected. Running xrandr --output VGA --auto wakes up the CRT, displays the current screen in 1024x768, and moves/resizes the Gnome panels to fit to that (smaller) resolution. Although I usually run the CRT at 1280x1024, it apparently only advertises up to 1024x786 over EDID; so adapting to the lower resolution seems acceptable.

After unplugging the CRT, again nothing happens on the laptop display. After running xrandr --output VGA --off, the Gnome panels are moved/resized to their original position.

Fn keys

Of the available Fn+? key combinations, several combos work automatically and don't require any manual configuration (marked as "Yes" in the Fn key table above). Here's the situation for the other Fn combos:

• Fn+F1: gives keycode Win Key + L (the Screen Locking combo under Windows); probably can be made available in Gnome if Win Key can be used as hotkey modifier

• Fn+F2: should switch the power saving mode; I haven't found a way to detect this keypress in Ubuntu in any way
• Fn+F4: should activate Suspend-to-Disk; again, I haven't gotten any reaction under Ubuntu for this key

• Fn+F5: should switch active display device; when running acpi_listen, pressing this combo prints hotkey ATKD 00000061 0000000e

• Fn+F8: should switch between active wireless devices; is displayed in acpi_listen with these two lines:

  • hotkey ATKD 0000005d 0000001b

  • hotkey ATKD 0000005e 0000001d

  but only if the wireless switch (at the front) is switched to ON - otherwise no ACPI event is generated for this combo!
• Fn+F9: enable/disable the touchpad; to make it work, enable SHMConfig in xorg.conf by adding

      Option "SHMConfig" "on"

  in /etc/X11/xorg.conf, on the end Touchpad Section "InputDevice".

I suppose the non-working combos that are displayed in acpi_listen could be made available somehow (as described on http://people.freedesktop.org/~hughsient/quirk/quirk-keymap-index.html).

• Also see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LaptopTestingTeam/HotkeyResearch

Modem

The modem is apparently an Agere (now LSI) softmodem with PCI ID 11c1:1040. Under Windows, it appears as "Toshiba Software Modem". It is connected via the HDA bus.

As it seems, this chip is at the moment not supported under Linux. Details can be found at http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/archive-seventh/msg00915.html (Apr. 2007).

The PCI ID seems to indicate that the modem is based on the DAA1040 chipset (see http://www.lsi.com/networking_home/networking_products/modem_chip_sets/daa1040/index.html).