See this post for an update on sound.

I recently got a new Toshiba Satellite A135-S2356, on which I installed Ubuntu Feisty Fawn. Below I will discuss several issues involved in configuring Ubuntu on the laptop. Unfortunately, I was not able to configure everything to my complete satisfaction. In those cases, I will detail as much as I know about the issue and will update this post as I learn more.

To configure the touchpad you need install an application such as gsynaptics. (On KDE you may want to use a different application, such as ksynaptics.) gsynatpics can be installed using the Synaptic Package Manager. After installing gsynaptics, edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf, and look for an entry that starts:

Section "InputDevice"

        Identifier      "Synaptics Touchpad"

Make sure that the following option is listed under that entry:

Option          "SHMConfig"     "on"

If you do modify /etc/X11/xorg.conf, you’ll need to restart the X-server for the changes to take effect. You can do this by rebooting or pressing ctrl-alt-backspace.

Sound is the most frustrating part of configuring this laptop. The Toshiba Satellite A135-S2356 uses the ATI SB450 HDA sound card. Apparently the SB450 has worked off and on at various stages of Ubuntu’s life cycle over the past few years. Its pretty frustrating that it reportedly worked in Ubuntu 6.10 but is broken again in Ubuntu 7.04. Its not clear to me if the problem lies in the kernel or with ALSA. At any rate, I have figured out how to get the sound card working, but with one giant quirk. When headphones are plugged in, the sound continues to emit from the laptop’s internal speakers, essentially defeating the point of headphones. To get to this point, you need to edit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base, and add the following line to the end of it:

options snd-hda-intel probe_mask=8 model=3stack

After doing so, the easiest next step is to reboot, that way the change will take effect. I have tried recompiling the alsa drivers, but that did not fix the speaker-headphone problem. In addition, it does not appear that this problem is a very high priority issue. Hopefully that will change, as I and many others require music while working and often work in environments where externally audible sound is unacceptable. I will continue to monitor the situation and will update this blog if I figure out how to make the speakers mute when headphones are plugged in. If anyone reading this blog knows how to fix the speaker-headphone situation, please post a comment.

I have posted a solution to get the headphones to mute, here.

Restricted drivers exist for the ATI graphics card in the laptop; however, I’ve found that when enabled, the screen goes black when ever you log out of Ubuntu. Consequently you have to reboot. So, if you’re the only person that uses the laptop, then those drivers are probably OK to use. On the other hand, if you’re not doing anything graphically intensive, you probably don’t need to worry about using them. I have not extensively looked into recompiling the kernel to fix the black screen problem.

The laptop does not seem to properly wake from hibernate and sleep, using the default power management scheme. I was able to fix the problem by changing the default power management scheme with the steps below. (Note, I am still testing this new scheme.)

1. Install uswsusp using the Synaptic Package Manager.
2. Test uswsusp. To test hibernate, execute sudo s2disk. To test sleep, execute sudo s2ram -f. You must use the -f option because the A135-S2356 is not in the whitelist of supported laptops for s2ram. However, it seemed to work fine for me. For more information about s2ram, go to http://en.opensuse.org/S2ram.
3. The default power management scripts have a certain order in which they look for commands that put your computer into hibernation or to sleep. The first thing they look for is pmi. Unfortunately, you can not remove pmi from you system because of the way certain package dependencies are organized. However, you can rename pmi so that the power management scripts can’t find it. If you renamed pmi using a move command, it would simply reappear the next time it was updated on the system. What you can do instead is to rename in a way that lets the packagemanagment system know it was renamed. That can be done with the following command:

   sudo dpkg-divert --rename --divert /usr/sbin/pmi-disabled /usr/sbin/pmi

   Now, power management will find s2disk and s2ram instead of pmi. Note, if you have installed other power management tools, you may have to remove them or similarly rename them.

4. Another issue is that we need the power management execute s2ram -f, not just s2ram. In order to do that, we mv s2ram similarly to how we moved pmi.

   sudo dpkg-divert --rename --divert /sbin/s2ram-install /sbin/s2ram

   After moving s2ram, we create a new s2ram that calls the renamed s2ram with the appropriate flags. That can be accomplished with the following two commands:

   sudo echo "/sbin/s2ram-install -f" > /sbin/s2ram

   sudo chmod 755 /sbin/s2ram

5. Note, because we used dpkg-divert to rename s2ram, it will still get updated properly.

The Toshiba function keys can be used to adjust brightness, mute/unmute the audio, etc. I have not yet figured this one out. However, I believe the solution is use fnfx, which can be installed using the Synaptic Package Manager. Unfortunately, in order for fnfx to work, the kernel must be compiled with Toshiba support. In particular, it requires that CONFIG_ACPI and CONFIG_ACPI_TOSHIBA are defined in the kernel configuration. Toshiba support seems to be missing in the kernel that Ubuntu supplies. Thus, I believe it is necessary to recompile the kernel. If you’re reading this and you know where to download current versions of the kernel compiled with Toshiba support, please post a comment.

Although I’ve been disappointed with Ubuntu’s sound support, I have been impressed with its wireless support. The wireless just worked! One addition I like to make to the wireless is to make OpenDNS the default DNS provider. I do this because some ISPs have not yet figured out how to setup fast and reliable DNS. In order to make OpenDNS your default DNS server for your wireless, add the following line to /etc/dhcp3/dhclient.conf, and then reboot:

prepend domain-name-servers 208.67.222.222, 208.67.220.220;

Because the headphones do not work properly, I am forced to use an external music player. Currently I am using an ipod. Instructions can be found at http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9266, for using your ipod with Ubuntu. Personally, I have chosen to use gtkpod to manage my ipod. In addition, if you’re sick of Rhythmbox starting whenever you attach your ipod to your laptop, you can fix that by launching gconf-editor and modifying the settings under desktop -> gnome -> volume_manager. If found that particular piece of advice here.

One bottleneck for web browsing of which many people are not necessarily aware is DNS lookups. For those that don’t know, DNS stands for Domain Name Service. Routers on the Internet do not know what to do with a website name, such as www.espn.com. A DNS server is responsible for translating a website name into an IP address, which routers on the Internet know how to handle, allowing them to route you to the website that you want to visit. So, when you type a website in you browser, a query is first sent to a DNS server to translate the website name into an IP address. Once the translation is done, your browser then requests the webpage from the IP address. If you request a webpage that has content from other websites, then your browser will have to make multiple DNS queries, in sequence. For example, imagine a scenario in which you go to some website called www.xxxxxxxxxx.com that displays a graphic which is located at www.yyyyyyyyyy.com. The following steps will be taken:

1. Your browser will query a DNS server asking it to translate www.xxxxxxxxxx.com into an IP address.
2. Upon receipt of the IP address your browser sends a message to the IP address, asking it for its content.
3. As your browser receives the content, it starts to display it but realizes it needs a graphic from www.yyyyyyyyyy.com. So, your browser makes another DNS query, asking for the IP address of www.yyyyyyyyyy.com.
4. Upon receipt of www.yyyyyyyyyy.com’s IP address, your browser then fetches the graphic.

As you can see, slow DNS lookups can be a bottleneck for browsing. Most people’s home network is configured to use the DNS server provided by their ISP. Unfortunately, that server may be overloaded or may just be slow.  Fortunately, OpenDNS provides free DNS services that are fast, in my experience.  So, if you suspect that slow DNS lookups are a problem, give OpenDNS a try to see if it improves your preformance.

In addition, OpenDNS provides useful features that are not available from normal DNS servers.  For example, if you are about to visit a phishing website, OpenDNS will redirect you to warn you of the danger.  They also attempt to correct spelling mistakes in website names, on-the-fly.  For example, if you type www.espn.cmo on your browser, OpenDNS will still direct you to www.espn.com.  OpenDNS is easy to use also.  Directions for using it are contained on their website.