Linux on a Fujitsu U810, P1620, T1010 - Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick

Last week I upgraded to latest Ubuntu, Maverick 10.10.

Everything seems fine; Ireally suggest anyone of you with a u810 to upgraded asap.

- external monitor: works great

- suspend/resume: works great

- touchscreen: uhm ... the touch driver failed working. As pointed by nerd65536 and mifa (thanks for the fast fix), just with a small modification everything is working again.


So please find here the latest version of the driver !!

Also, following the suggestions from nerd65536, this version fixes the driver problem on suspend/restart, and README instructions are improved.

Linux on a U810 - ubuntu install latest kernel

To solve some issues with external monitor, I was suggested by

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=26833

to install latest kernel. So I did, here are the steps:

1) download *386, *all packages from
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/

linux-headers-2.6.36-020636rc2_2.6.36-020636rc2.201008230905_all.deb
linux-headers-2.6.36-020636rc2-generic_2.6.36-020636rc2.201008230905_i386.deb
linux-image-2.6.36-020636rc2-generic_2.6.36-020636rc2.201008230905_i386.deb



2) install
$ sudo dpkg -i *.deb


=> done, not the new kernel appears in the grub menu !



3) note to main: to de-install:
If you would like to uninstall a mainline kernel anyway, first use:

* dpkg -l | grep "linux\-[a-z]*\-"

to find the exact name of the kernel packages you want to uninstall, and then do:

* sudo apt-get remove KERNEL_PACKAGES_TO_REMOVE

Remember that several packages belong to one kernel version: common headers, architecture specific headers and the architecture specific image.

Linux on a fujitsu U810 - Lucid setup

As a reminder for anyone upgrading to lucid:

when I booted into X after upgrading to ubuntu lucid, I missed the minimize/maximize/close buttons at the top-right of every window; for some reason, they are not there.

In order to make these buttons reappear, proceed as follows: (info taken from
http://www.baptiste-wicht.com/2010/05/ubuntu-lucid-lynx-buttons-right/)

- start gconf-editor (type gconf-editor at the terminal)

- go to : apps > metacity > general. You’ll see here a key named button_layout with the default value of “close,minimize,maximize:”. To put the buttons like in
the other versions, you just have to edit this value to

:minimize,maximize,close

And then all your windows will have the normal button order at the right of the window title bar.

- if you want to include the window menu, you can change the value to :

menu:minimize,maximize,close

Linux on a Fujitsu U810, U820 - keyboard lights

short story: it's working !! - keep reading

Some readers of this blog where still missing this feature, so I engaged the daunting task of finding some time and energy to solve this issue. After 5 hours of googling, reading documentation about acpi, linux kernel, reading c code for the linux kernel drivers, googling for ubuntu file repository source files, ... I found the solution, which is very easy:

=> keyboard lights can be easily controlled by accessing the sysfs <=

Since the sysfs is root-only, I have created a small c program, with automatic compile and install, that makes keyboard-lights accessible for any user.

Installation

1 download the fujitsu-kbdlights-0.1.0.tar.gz to any directory in your computer


2 decompress the package (it will create another directory, fujitsu-kbdlights-0.1.0/)
tar zxvf fujitsu-kbdlights-0.1.0.tar.gz


3 compile and install
cd fujitsu-kbdlights-0.1.0
make
sudo make install


4 and in a command shell, you can type

fujitsu_kbdlights on

fujitsu_kbdlights off

fujitsu_kbdlights toggle

fujitsu_kbdlights


5 if you want, you can bind any of the previous commands to a hot-key using any keyboard setup utility

Enjoy typing at night !!

Linux on a Fujitsu U810, P1620, T1010 - Touchscreen IX

Following the request from several users, and a little bit late, I have adapted the driver to work on systems with kernel-compiled usbhid module.


The problem was that, in certain cases (fedora and other distributions) the usbhid module is compiled in the kernel, not compiled as a module. In these cases, the prior script that performs the correct binding of the device to the fujitsu_usb_touchscreen module was not working. Also, the previous script, even it was working, was not very polite and was not following correct computer initialization procedures.

You can find the new driver here.

To follow installation instructions, go read this previous post.

Fujitsu U810 - Ubuntu upgarde to 10.04, Lucid Lynx

update 2010.09.02: I recently installed the kernel 2.6.36, and then,

- suspend/resume works as expected

- external monitor works great !!

- mouse pointer is ok

- boot is as long as expected


=> so, now I can recommend to upgrade to lucid, as long as you install this kernel release.

To install this kernel in ubuntu, read this post.




This last week-end I took fresh air and made the brave decision to upgrade my U810 to the latest ubuntu, lucid lynx, 10.04, released two weeks ago.

Long story short: don't do it yet.

Details:

- suspend / resume was working flawless in 9.04, and fast; with 10.04, something strange is happening, many times on opening the screen does not resume, and even resuming sliding the power button the machine resumes but external usb devices and monitor don't work, and I have to go through a several Ctr+Alt+F1 - Ctrl+Alt+F7 sequences to have usb devices working back

- external display behaves strange: I wrote 'nomodeset' option in the kernel load commenad line at grub, to have the external monitor working. But :

Working with the monitor tool in System -> Preferences is like a nightmare, sometimes it works, other doesn't, so I have to keep trying selecting the external monitor, then it gives some error, then I select it again, then it works , ....

Many times, when the screen-saver launches, the external monitor gets disabled (some other it doesn't), and I have to go to the Monitor tool nightmare

- the mouse pointer is broken; botom 30% is the usual arrow-bottom, but the 70% rest is the text-entry cursor; even it seems a small annoyance, its a big usability issue; many times I end up pressing options I didn't want to !

- booting seems to me much longer than with previous version ....


In ubuntu 9.04 everything was working very fine, very fast, not even a slight issue; with this version, the problems are too serious to recommend and upgrade, so just wait.

I'll be updating my system as new updates are available, and I'll post back when the issues described are solved.

BTW: the touchscreen driver compiled and works as usual !