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Re: Appropriate arch/kernel for a Dell Precision 380?



On Thu, 2005-07-28 at 15:52 -0700, Meistro Master wrote:
> On 7/28/05, Lennart Sorensen <lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
> > On Thu, Jul 28, 2005 at 02:12:04PM -0700, Meistro Master wrote:
> > > What's weird is that the keyboard works fine initially, because I can
> > > select the boot parameters and so forth. I am using the installer from
> > 
> > The boot prompt uses bios calls, the language selector uses the linux
> > kernel interface to the hardware.  Different interface -> different
> > behaviour. :)
> > 
> > > http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/sarge-amd64/iso-cd/debian-31r0a-amd64-binary-1.iso
> > >
> > > I do have two SATA hard drives; perhaps I need a newer boot kernel?
> > > Reading through the list archives it sounds like people have had some
> > > issues with SATA pre-2.6.12.
> > >
> > > Are there snapshots in .ISO form? Thanks for your help, Len!
> > 
> > Well from what I read today, the current snapshots aren't building for
> > some reason, and there have been some trouble with the new 2.6.12
> > kernels partially due to a name change.
> > 
> > Feel free to try my unofficial sarge image with 2.6.12 though.
> > 
> > http://www.tinyplanet.ca/~lsorense/amd64/
> 
> Well, I tried your unofficial image, with the same results: locks on
> the language selection screen.
> 
> Just for the hell of it, I through in the official Sarge i386 CD
> installer, and... it works. I'll see if I can get one of the smp em64t
> kernels running on it. Kind of bummed that the amd64 port won't seem
> to take. Is there any way I can pull logs/debug info from the failed
> installations? I would be willing to extract it if it would help the
> port team.
> 
> Thanks again for all the tips.
> 
> --Maestro
> 


It's a known problem for this machine, and related to the sound driver
being loaded. When the kernel initializes the sound driver, all USB and
PS/2 ports die.

Workaround: Disable USB controller in the BIOS, or don't load sound
driver :)

Look for "sound problem" or "keyboard" in messages related to the
380/380N:
http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-precision/2005-July/thread.html


Strangely, the FC4 kernel works perfectly, but I have no idea why.
Gentoo works fine, until coldplug runs and loads the audio driver, then
keyboard and mouse are dead. I guess Debian loads modules at the
beginning of the installer...


Adam

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