Re: Debian squeeze on Samsung N220: almost working very well but no control of brightness

[Eric S Fraga <ucecesf@ucl.ac.uk>]

On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 22:53:06 +0100, Martin Ågren <martin.agren@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> [Off-list]
> 
> On 18 March 2010 20:03, Eric S Fraga <ucecesf@ucl.ac.uk> wrote:
> > I recently acquired a Samsung N220 laptop (Intel Atom N450 chip, 10"
> > screen, etc).  After some playing around, yesterday I was able to
> > install Debian squeeze on this system and managed to get even wireless
> > working (once I tracked down the firmware required).  Sounds works as well.
> 
> Wow, I got a Samsung N220 at work this very day. Windows 7 Starter
> sucks royally, and my plan is to install some kind of Linux,
> preferably Debian. Did you do anything special to get this far, or was
> it just state-of-the-art Squeeze?
> 
> I plan to look into this whenever I have a spouse-free evening
> (whenever that is). If I break new grounds, I'll be sure to let you
> know. I'd appreciate any information you can spare.
> 
> Take care,
> Martin

I got mine yesterday!  Must be catching ;-)

I did the following:

1. using unetbootin, I created a usb flash drive boot disk using the
   current version of squeeze (aka testing) with the netinst iso image.

2. I booted this and let the installer do its work.  I did have to go
   into setup to change the boot order.

3. everything but wireless (and my problems with screen brightness)
   worked out of the box.  for wireless, after checking the boot logs
   (dmesg), I realised that the wireless was being recognised but that
   the kernel module (r8192_pci) was missing the firmware it needed.
   After some googling etc, I found a link to the firmware from a
   discussion on LinuxQuestions.org [1].

4. That's it basically.  No more Windows 7 -- one boot into that
   system was enough for me ;-)

I like this computer: the keyboard is good and the non-reflective
screen is exactly what I needed given my usual environment for use.
The battery life seems excellent as well although it's a bit early for
me to tell.

Ubuntu's netbook remix (karmic?) installed just fine as well, as far
as I can tell: I never got around to testing the wireless on that
distro.  I just prefer Debian to ubuntu.

HTH,
eric


[1] http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-wireless-networking-41/firmware-for-realtek-8192-761714/