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I installed Debian GNU/Linux on my Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo A 7620-2610 without much trouble, anyway in one and a half year of use I learnt some tips about this hardware that could be useful. You can find my kernel configuration which should work with most machines of the Amilo family. If you encounter any problem with this kind of laptop, let share it on my Amilo blog thread.
I installed Debian from a minimal CD and downloaded the rest through the network.
The machine boots without problems with the kernel on the Woody CDs. There are however some problems with the network card that you can bypass booting with the bf-2.4 flavour.
The rest of the installation shouldn't give problems, so you can boot in the new system and prepare to tune your hardware.
I also tried the Sarge installation CDs and they worked perfectly for me.
Here your have the results of lspci -v on my laptop and the usability status of every device.
0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8377 [KT400/KT600 AGP]
Host Bridge (rev 80)
0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237 PCI Bridge
0000:00:09.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. IEEE 1394 Host
Controller (rev 80)
0000:00:0b.0 CardBus bridge: O2 Micro, Inc. OZ6912 Cardbus Controller (rev
20)
0000:00:10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1
Controller (rev 80)
0000:00:10.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1
Controller (rev 80)
0000:00:10.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1
Controller (rev 80)
0000:00:10.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 82)
0000:00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8235 ISA Bridge
0000:00:11.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc.
VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06)
0000:00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc.
VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 50)
0000:00:11.6 Communication controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. Intel 537
[AC97 Modem] (rev 80)
0000:00:12.0 Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6102 [Rhine-II]
(rev 74)
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon R250 Lf
[Radeon Mobility 9000 M9] (rev 01)
| Device | Notes |
| PowerNow! | It works if you use a 2.6 kernel, the kernel module is called powernow-k7. |
| Video card | To have 3D acceleration you should use X version 4.3 with the radeon driver. To have full acceleration check that via-agp kernel module is loaded or compiled in the kernel |
| Sound card | It works well. The module snd-via82xx with the dxs_support=4 option, otherwise it makes problems. This option exists since 2.6.4 or 2.6.5, I don't remember. |
| Winmodem! | The drivers for the winmodem are on the Smartlink site in Linux drivers section. You should also pick the sl-modem-daemon Debian package. The driver works, it's only a bit slow. |
| USB2.0 | The 2.6 modules uhci-hcd and ehci-hcd work perfectly |
| Other devices | I'll put the descriptions as soon as I can |
| Hibernation (new!) | With kernel 2.6.11.7 hibernation works without any drawbacks. I use the /sys/power/state method in the swsusp script |
| The device works 100%. |
| The device works partially or I never tried it. |
| The device doesn't work |
The sound card uses the snd-via82xx ALSA driver. I had some problems with it at the beginning of the 2.6 series of kernels, but after kernel 2.6.5 or so the driver works perfectly: you have to put the line "options snd-via82xx dxs_support=4" in the /etc/modprobe.conf file and reload the driver.
There is a sound card in the modem chip also which can be used by the snd-via82xx_modem driver. I didn't test it though.
The video card is a ATI Radeon Mobility M9 and it is well supported under XFree86 4.3. I tested it also under X.org, but found no improvement in the support. By the way I think it is too slow too use Composite and other cool extensions anyway.
I have still some problems with the dual head: if I use the physical switch Fn+F4 the machine freezes. I don't have now access to a monitor, neither the need to use it, but if you want to point out a solution you're welcome.
My XF86Config-4 looks like this:
Section "Files" FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc" FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic" FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled" FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled" FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1" FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Truetype" FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/CID" FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo" FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi" FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi" EndSection Section "Module" Load "GLcore" Load "bitmap" Load "dbe" Load "ddc" Load "dri" Load "extmod" Load "freetype" Load "glx" Load "int10" Load "record" Load "speedo" Load "type1" Load "vbe" Load "xtt" EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Generic Keyboard" Driver "keyboard" Option "CoreKeyboard" Option "XkbRules" "xfree86" Option "XkbModel" "pc104" Option "XkbLayout" "us,fr" Option "XKbOptions" "compose:menu,grp:alt_shift_toggle" EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Configured Mouse" Driver "mouse" Option "CorePointer" Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice" Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2" Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true" Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5" EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Radeon Mobility 9000" Driver "radeon" Option "AGPMode" "4" Option "AGPFastWrite" "on" Option "MonitorLayout" "LVDS, CRT" Option "EnablePageFlip" "on" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "Generic Monitor" HorizSync 30-60 VertRefresh 50-75 Option "DPMS" EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Default Screen" Device "Radeon Mobility 9000" Monitor "Generic Monitor" DefaultDepth 24 SubSection "Display" Depth 1 Modes "1024x768" EndSubSection SubSection "Display" Depth 4 Modes "1024x768" EndSubSection SubSection "Display" Depth 8 Modes "1024x768" EndSubSection SubSection "Display" Depth 15 Modes "1024x768" EndSubSection SubSection "Display" Depth 16 Modes "1024x768" EndSubSection SubSection "Display" Depth 24 Modes "1024x768" EndSubSection EndSection Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "Default Layout" Screen "Default Screen" InputDevice "Generic Keyboard" InputDevice "Configured Mouse" EndSection Section "DRI" Mode 0666 EndSection
Work in progress ...