• Contact: JenniferHodgdon

• Brand: Everex
• Make : Stepnote
• Model: SA2053T

• Website: http://www.everex.com/products/sa2053t/sa2053t.htm

This laptop has several clones, apparently:

• Averatec 2460
• Everex Stepnote SA2050
• Everex Stepnote SA2050T
• Everex Stepnote SA2052T
• Everex Stepnote SA2053T
• Philips Freevents x52
• Philips Freevents x53
• Philips Freevents x54
• Philips Freevents x55
• Philips Freevents x56
• Philips Freevents x59
• Twinhead Stylebook H12Y

Current Issues

See Notes section below for issues that were resolved in some way. This section contains issues that have so far not been resolved, and that needed some explanation. There is also an article-style description of the process of installing Ubuntu on this laptop at http://www.poplarware.com/everexlinux.html.

Card Reader

I put a MMC card into the internal card reader (see system info below). It doesn't automount or appear in dmesg.

I looked at the MUSCLE site (http://www.linuxnet.com/sourcedrivers.html) for a driver, but the reader on this laptop does not have a driver there.

Someone http://megawiki.org/wiki/DimitriS420 has a laptop with the same card reader working with the SDHCI driver. The kernel I am using does not have SDHCI in it (see Install Notes below). Later, we compiled a new kernel with the SDHCI driver and tried to load it, but on this computer, loading the SDHCI module causes the system to hang (enough so that a hard reboot is all you can do to restart it).

A generic USB external card reader that I plugged in worked just fine with an MMC card, by the way.

See https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.22/+bug/187671 and http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9905 -- basically, you must blacklist the SDHCI module in order for this laptop to run. The card reader is not going to work until this is fixed.

Modem

The modem (Motorola SM56) on this system is not working. After installing the sl-modem-daemon package (compiled from source with the ASLA sound drivers), various pieces of software say they can see the modem, but it's not actually dialing out.

System Info

## cd /var/lib/acpi-support/ ; grep . -r *-*)
bios-version:080013
system-manufacturer:Everex Systems, Inc.
system-product-name:Everex StepNote Series
system-version:To Be Filled By O.E.M.

## lspci -nn output:
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub [8086:27a0] (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:27a2] (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller [0380]: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:27a6] (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller [8086:27d8] (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 [8086:27d0] (rev 02)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2 [8086:27d2] (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #1 [8086:27c8] (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #2 [8086:27c9] (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #3 [8086:27ca] (rev 02)
00:1d.3 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #4 [8086:27cb] (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller [8086:27cc] (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge [8086:2448] (rev e2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge [8086:27b9] (rev 02)
00:1f.2 IDE interface [0101]: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) Serial ATA Storage Controller IDE [8086:27c4] (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus [0c05]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller [8086:27da] (rev 02)
03:04.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ [10ec:8139] (rev 10)
03:06.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394) [0c00]: O2 Micro, Inc. Firewire (IEEE 1394) [1217:00f7] (rev 02)
03:06.2 Generic system peripheral [0805]: O2 Micro, Inc. Integrated MMC/SD Controller [1217:7120] (rev 01)
03:06.3 Mass storage controller [0180]: O2 Micro, Inc. Integrated MS/xD Controller [1217:7130] (rev 01)

## Output of lsusb for internal USB device
## (The internal wireless card is a Micro Star USB wireless card with a Ralink RT73 chip)
## (The Logitech mouse is connected to one of the 3 externally-visible USB ports, and
## was used for testing USB)
Bus 005 Device 004: ID 0db0:6877 Micro Star International
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 004 Device 003: ID 046d:c50e Logitech, Inc. MX-1000 Cordless Mouse Receiver
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

## Graphics glxgears benchmark:
## which glxgears | xargs strings | grep benchmark | xargs glxgears
avg is about 4400 frames in 5.0 secs = 884 FPS

Hardware details

Notes

This section lists notes of issues that were resolved.

Install

The Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Faun installer ISO disk downloaded on July 23 2007 (using kernel 2.6.20-15-generic) does not work out of the box. This Everex machine has the same issue as the Averatec and other laptops mentioned on this page: http://www.fitzenreiter.de/averatec/index-e.htm, which is that the installer CD does not boot. It hangs in the hardware detection phase.

I tried a bunch of different boot options mentioned on various Ubuntu forums, and also a bunch of different distros (Fedora, Mandriva, Knoppix, Simply Mepis), and none of them worked.

The installer download available on the site above ("doesn't contain the SDHCI module and a 8139too module compiled for PIO only access") allowed Ubuntu to install normally.

We later compiled the 2.6.22 and 2.6.23 RC1 kernels (using the kernel source from kernel.org), and verified that an 8139too module compiled with the default MMIO access allowed causes the boot process to hang, and loading the SDHCI module also causes the boot process to hang.

In October 2007, I upgraded to 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon, via the standard network upgrade procedure in Update Manager. No problems were encountered during the upgrade. I'm still using my custom kernel with no MMIO in 8139too, and no SDHCI module loading.

I have reported a bug about the kernel booting issue: #156764 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/156764

And just one more note: there are instructions here https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.20/+bug/90271/comments/42 for how to install Ubuntu on this laptop.

Screen Resolution and Mirroring

After installation of Feisty, the maximum screen resolution shown in System / Preferences / Screen Resolution is 1024x768. The native resolution is 1280x800. Installation of 915resolution and a reboot fixed this issue. Command:  apt-get install 915resolution . Another alternative was upgrading from the i810 X-Windows video driver to the intel video driver ( apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-intel), which gives better support for changing resolutions.

I have an external monitor. Using the i810/915resolution system, I was able to set up an extended desktop using both monitors, via Xinerama. But apparently the intel driver doesn't support Xinerama, and I'd need to get the development version of xRandR to have an extended desktop. I haven't tried that yet.

Mirroring the display was kind of a problem too. My external monitor has a 4x3 aspect ratio, while the laptop display has a 16x9 (wide-screen) aspect ratio. The i810 driver lost the left side of the screen on the external monitor; the intel driver lost the bottom of the screen on the built-in monitor. The latter would be preferable for purposes of a projector, since at least then the view of the audience would be correct. I'm not sure what the "correct" behavior would be -- perhaps distortion but a complete view on both? It would be good to have the option, but neither driver appears to allow that, as both cause X to give resolution options only at the aspect ratio it thinks would be useful.

One of the reasons I was anxious to upgrade to Gutsy was the xRandR support.

So, after installation with Gutsy (using the intel driver), I followed the instructions on http://wiki.debian.org/XStrikeForce/HowToRandR12 to modify my xorg.conf file (basically, removing the resolution settings). Then, when I plugged in an external monitor and ran xrandr --auto, the external monitor mirrored the built-in screen. However, since the external monitor has a 4x3 aspect ratio, this made the bottom of the screen in the built-in monitor cut off, as described above. When I unplugged the monitor and ran xrandr --auto, it went back to a fully-visible built-in screen.

I was also able to make an extended desktop with the xrandr utility, after putting a line saying

Virtual 4800 2048

into the Display sections of my Screen section. Note: the web page above says the syntax is 4800x2048, but man xorg.conf gives the correct syntax. After that addition (and restarting the x server), the command "xrandr --output VGA --right-of LVDS" set up an extended display. There are still aspect ratio issues that I don't know how to resolve, since it doesn't let me set both monitors to have the same pixel height, for some reason.

Hotkeys

Display-related hotkeys do not work in Feisty (brightness, monitor blank, switch monitors) with the i810 x-windows video driver, using 915 resolution. See https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/hotkey-setup/+bug/128572. Do not press these keys!

With the intel x-windows video driver in Feisty, the brightness hotkeys work; the others don't, but at least they don't hang the system.

Things are the same in Gutsy with the intel x-windows driver as in Feisty.

In Hardy, function-f3 and function-f5 both make the external monitor mirror the desktop. I'm not sure whether this is correct or not.

Wireless

Wireless did not work out of the box on this laptop, which has a Ralink RT73-based USB wireless card, on an internal USB bus (i.e. the card is not removable). The symptom was that the Network Manager could sometimes scan and detect local access points, but it would not connect to them (it would time out eventually; message on screen was "Waiting for Network Key"; dmesg reports timeout). This happened with both open access and WEP.

I tried several remedies from several sites, and finally got things to work as follows:

• Blacklist or remove existing wireless card drivers, such as the rt73usb module.

• Download the driver source from Ralink (http://www.ralink.com.tw/Home/Support/Linux.html). Make sure to get the latest USB version for the RT73 chip.

• Extract all the files, cd to the Modules directly. chmod 755 and fromdos all the files.
• Follow the instructions in the README file to build, install, and configure the driver. This involves creating a configuration file called /etc/Wireless/RT73STA/rt73sta.dat.
• Remove the Network Manager application. It does not work well with this driver.

• Use to bring up the wireless network.

In Hardy, the rt73usb driver and the Network Manager utility actually work with this PC, so none of the above is necessary. Plus, it supports WEP, WPA, and open-access networks. Yippee!

CD/DVD Drive

This computer has an internal CD/DVD RW drive. The CD portion worked initially without any trouble. Playing DVD movies also works fine, after following the instructions on https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats, using the Xine player. Burning a CD also works fine, out of the box.

Touchpad

Initially, the scrolling behavior marked on the side of the touchpad did not work. However, a bit of tweaking on the xorg.conf file (turning on the "SHMConfig" option to the Synaptics Touchpad input device section) made it work. The "qsynaptics" application also allowed me to make the touch pad not respond to taps, which were happening a lot by mistake while I was typing.

Hardy does not have the qsynaptics application, but the "mouse" menu entry under System / Preferences let me set touchpad preferences, so that is even easier. Vertical scrolling works, and I can turn off the ability to tap the pad. Horizontal scrolling still doesn't work, although there is an option in Mouse settings, and my touchpad has art on it indicating horizontal scrolling should work. Oh well, this is not a big deal to me.

Sound in Hardy

When I upgraded from Gutsy to Hardy, I found that the entire sound system went quiet after a suspend/restore cycle. See https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-driver/+bug/228020

Hibernation in Gutsy

Hibernation was working for a while in Feisty, but at some point, it vanished from my Power Down menu. I do not know why. When I upgraded to Gutsy and tried to hibernate, it didn't hibernate, and I got a message saying "Hibernation failed, see help file for common causes". This was true using both my custom-compiled 2.6.20 and 2.6.23 kernels (default kernels do not work, see Notes).

Hybernation is fine in Hardy, with the Ubuntu-supplied kernel.

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CategoryLaptop