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PC: Overview of the Linux related Features of the SNI Scenic Mobile 710

Table of contents

1. Preface

This is a survey about Linux related hardware features of the Siemens Nixdorf Scenic Mobile 710. I don't try to explain the usual installation details (for instance, which partitions I created, what are they good for and so on and so on...). Requests for additional information may be directed by eMail to the author.

Linux recognizes and supports the complete hardware base of this lil', tiny machine. Both together are IMHO a nice working combo, if you don't plan to use bloatware like KDE, Gnome and friends.

The laptop features (apm, standby, suspend and battery status) are working out-of-the-box with apm support compiled in the kernel and the package "apmd".

2. Installation

On my Siemens Nixdorf Scenic Mobile 710 I have installed the Debian 3.0 (Woody) distribution.

The installation was quite unspectular. The only difference between this installation and the installation on a regular desktop system was the fact, that 'dbootstrap' didn't remove the pcmcia-utils ;-)

The system performs also well with

but that's another story.

3. BIOS

I bought my lil' machine on an online auction at eBay. The person, who sold the machine, got a hand on installation by a former co-worker, who set a master password. Nobody could tell me the master password, which on the other hand wasn't crackable by the well known tricks (Notebook -> EEPROM). I killed it with a tool called "cmospwd", which I downloaded at http://www.cgsecurity.org. It's easy to compile and will reset the whole setup, if called by root in the following way:

   # ./cmospwd -k

After done that you've got to do some BIOS fiddling, like activating APM and such.

4. General Hardware Data

4.1 General system information:

   Linux odin 2.4.21 #26 Fri Aug 15 16:28:28 CEST 2003 i586 unknown

Output from "cat /proc/cpuinfo":

   processor       : 0
   vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
   cpu family      : 5
   model           : 4
   model name      : Pentium MMX
   stepping        : 3
   cpu MHz         : 167.048
   fdiv_bug        : no
   hlt_bug         : no
   f00f_bug        : yes
   coma_bug        : no
   fpu             : yes
   fpu_exception   : yes
   cpuid level     : 1
   wp              : yes
   flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr mce cx8 mmx
   bogomips        : 333.41

4.2 RAM

I bought the laptop with 128 MB SDRAM in two banks and got another another bank with 64 MB at eBay, which makes the performance of the system improve significant. The machine can't handle more than 192 MB RAM, which leaves me with an empty slot.

4.3 Hard Disk

IBM DADA-26480 Travelstar (IDE 6.4 GB)

Output from "hdparm -I /dev/hda":

   /dev/hda:

      Model=IBM-DADA-26480, FwRev=AD6IA48A, SerialNo=ZC2ZC1B9717
      Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec Fixed DTR>10Mbs }
      RawCHS=13328/15/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=4
      BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=460kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16
      CurCHS=13328/15/63, CurSects=12594960, LBA=yes, LBAsects=12594960
      IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:240,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
      PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4 
      DMA modes: sdma0 sdma1 sdma2 mdma0 mdma1 *mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 
      AdvancedPM=yes: mode=0xC0 (192) WriteCache=enabled
      Drive Supports : ATA/ATAPI-4 T13 1153D revision 17 : ATA-1 ATA-2 ATA-3 ATA-4 
   
      Filesystem           1k-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
      /dev/hda2               497861     24809    447348   6% /
      /dev/hda3              1011960     22424    938128   3% /home
      /dev/hda5              3937220   1136872   2600344  31% /usr
      /dev/hda6               280005     96091    169458  37% /var
      /dev/hda7                62193      4128     54854   7% /tmp

      Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 784 cylinders
      Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes

         Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
         /dev/hda1             1        50    401593+  82  Linux swap
         /dev/hda2            51       114    514080   83  Linux
         /dev/hda3           115       242   1028160   83  Linux
         /dev/hda4           243       784   4353615    5  Extended
         /dev/hda5           243       740   4000153+  83  Linux
         /dev/hda6           741       776    289138+  83  Linux
         /dev/hda7           777       784     64228+  83  Linux

As far as I know the stock hard disk is an IBM DTNA-22160 with 2.1 GB.

4.4 CD-ROM

Toshiba XM-1602B (20-speed ATAPI)

4.5 Floppy drive

   Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M

4.6 Graphic chip

Chips and Technologies F85554 (ct65554) with 4 MByte RAM

This chip displays a resolution from "1024x768" with the Xserver "chips" from XFree86 4.1. Some hints form my 'XF86Config':

   Section "Device"
           Identifier      "Generic Video Card"
           Driver          "chips"
           Chipset         "ct65554"
           BusID           "PCI:0:6:0"
           VideoRAM        4096
           Option          "LcdCenter"     "true"
           Option          "FixPanelSize"  "true"
           Option          "NoStretch"     "false"
           Option          "HwCursor"      "true"
           TextClockFreq   25.175
   End Section

   Section "Monitor"
            Identifier      "Generic Monitor"
            HorizSync       25.0 - 64.0
            VertRefresh     40.0 - 70.0
            Option          "DPMS"
            Mode            "640x480"
                    DotClock        28.3
                    HTimings        640 680 720 864
                    VTimings        480 488 491 521
            EndMode
            Mode            "800x600"
                    DotClock        28.3
                    HTimings        800 816 856 920
                    VTimings        600 603 605 618
            EndMode
            Mode            "1024x768"  
                    DotClock        53.197
                    HTimings        1024 1032 1176 1344
                    VTimings         768  771  777  806
            EndMode
   EndSection

It even performs well with the kernel's VESA driver and displays a resolution of 1024x768 with 65536 colors on text consoles. To make it work, the following steps are required:

4.7 PCMCIA

Output of "cardctl ident":

   Socket 0:
     product info: "AD2880WRLD", "International_V.34_PC-Card_Modem", "003", "A"
     manfid: 0x0013, 0x0000
     function: 2 (serial)
   Socket 1:
     product info: "D-Link", "DFE-650", "Fast Ethernet", "Rev. D1"
     manfid: 0x0149, 0x0230
     function: 6 (network)

BTW:

4.8 Sound

ESS 1878 (100% compatible with Creative Labs soundblaster)

4.9 Touchpad

The little machine comes with an PS/2 compatible touchpad (65x40 mm), which works well on console with gpm and under X with gpm's repeater mode (/dev/gpmdata). Unfortunately I didn't succeed in configuring it as 'synps2', but I'm still working on that. But anyway:

4.10 Keyboard

The keyboard is recognized as a Generic Model with 104 keys.

4.11 Infrared Port - IrDA(TM)

FIR

   reg=0x010
   NSC,PC87338,11.3,0x398,0x3f8,0x3f8,0,-1,0,0,1

SIR

   ttyS00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
   ttyS01 at 0x02f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
   ttyS02 at port 0x03e8 (irq = 9) is a 16550A

There are no units with infrared port all around here(I'm the last one on earth, who refuses mobile phones), so there was no reason for me to configure IrDA yet.

4.12 USB

The machine has 1 USB port (USB #Ver 1.0), which needs the kernel modules 'usbcore.o' and 'uhci.o' to work properly. In user space I use the package 'hotplug' instead of 'usbmgr'.

Output from "cat /proc/bus/usb/devices":

   T:  Bus=01 Lev=00 Prnt=00 Port=00 Cnt=00 Dev#=  1 Spd=12  MxCh= 2
   B:  Alloc=  0/900 us ( 0%), #Int=  0, #Iso=  0
   D:  Ver= 1.00 Cls=09(hub  ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS= 8 #Cfgs=  1
   P:  Vendor=0000 ProdID=0000 Rev= 0.00
   S:  Product=USB UHCI-alt Root Hub
   S:  SerialNumber=fce0
   C:* #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=40 MxPwr=  0mA
   I:  If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=09(hub  ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=hub
   E:  Ad=81(I) Atr=03(Int.) MxPS=   8 Ivl=255ms

5. Survey PCI Devices

Output from "lspci"

   00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 430TX - 82439TX MTXC (rev 01)
   00:01.0 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB PIIX4 ISA (rev 01)
   00:01.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82371AB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01)
   00:01.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82371AB PIIX4 USB (rev 01)
   00:01.3 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 01)
   00:06.0 VGA compatible controller: Chips and Technologies F65554 (rev c2)
   00:14.0 CardBus bridge: Cirrus Logic PD 6832 (rev c1)
   00:14.1 CardBus bridge: Cirrus Logic PD 6832 (rev c1)

6. Survey PnP Devices

No, no, no, never !

7. Survey RS232

Output from "setserial"

   /dev/ttyS0, Line 0, UART: 16550A, Port: 0x03f8, IRQ: 4
           Baud_base: 115200, close_delay: 50, divisor: 0
           closing_wait: 3000
           Flags: spd_normal skip_test
   
   /dev/ttyS1, Line 1, UART: 16550A, Port: 0x02f8, IRQ: 3
           Baud_base: 115200, close_delay: 50, divisor: 0
           closing_wait: 3000
           Flags: spd_normal skip_test
   
   /dev/ttyS2, Line 2, UART: 16550A, Port: 0x03e8, IRQ: 2
           Baud_base: 115200, close_delay: 50, divisor: 0
           closing_wait: 3000
           Flags: spd_normal skip_test
   
   /dev/ttyS3, Line 3, UART: unknown, Port: 0x02e8, IRQ: 3
           Baud_base: 115200, close_delay: 50, divisor: 0
           closing_wait: 3000
           Flags: spd_normal

8. Disclaimer

This document has nothing to do with Siemens-Nixdorf, they don't even know it exists.There is no guarantee that the information on this page is accurate, please don't hold me responsible if your experience is different from the information here. If you have found any glaring typos or outdated info in this document, please send an eMail to me.

9. Credits


The basic of this report was generated by lanoche v0.6, which is available at TuxMobile - Software.


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