Why is this laptop cool?
- It's _reasonably_ affordable
- 1.8GHz Intel Mobile Pentium 4 Processor-M
- 15" LCD display 1024x768
- DVD/CD-RW combo drive
- 32MB ATI Radeon M7 Graphics
- Built-in 802.11b wireless networking
- 1 IEEE 1394 (FireWire) ports 2 USB 2.0 ports
- Crystal Cirrus Logic Sound
- S-video/TV-out
If you are looking for information on the VPR Matrix 200A5, check out Andrew D. Goodfellow's page.
Related Links
How to configure Linux on the VPR Matrix 180B5 Laptop
Chris Arndtarndtc@_NOSPAM_theeggbeater.net
Last Updated: 02/15/2003
Based on information found on Andrew D. Goodfellow's VPR Matrix site for the VPR Matrix 200A5.
Even though the hardware is quite differnt, Andrew's information was helpful in pointing me in the right direction.
Warning: I take no responsibility for anything that happens to you or your machine using this information. Use at your own risk!
Display
Networking
Audio
Advanced Power Management
I am running Gentoo 1.4_rc1 on the Linux Kernel 2.4.19-gentoo-r10. This is all I have tried with this laptop and probably all that I will until I upgrade the Kernel or Gentoo.Warning: Don't use the FN F2 option to check the battery and Wireless gauges, this causes a kernel segmentation fault.
Display
Video Driver
So that Linux will recognize your video card you need to add the ATI Radeon driver in the Kernel.Video Settings
Next you need to modify your XF86Config file settings. This file will most likely be found in /etc/X11.Here is a sample XF86Config that will work right away. It needs some further tweaking to be smooth but I'll leave that up to you.
Sample XF86Config file.
Bong Munoz has noted that he had to add 'Option "NoAccel"' when using Mandrake 8.2. He thought that it might be due to Mandrake useing an older version of the radeon_drv.o driver.
Networking
802.11b Wireless Networking
The internal chipset is Mini PCI Orinoco (Ricoh Rl5c475). After working with this I found the following site that shows you how to setup the Ricoh Rl5c475It is supported via the orinoco driver in PCMCIA-CS. The trick is the chipset is connected via the pci bus to a PCMCIA slot.
Short Install Instructions:
1) compile and install 2.4.x without PCMCIA support but with Wireless LAN support (just Wireless LAN support, none of the drivers under that option)
2) compile and install latest pcmcia-cs (Gentoo: emerge pcmcia-cs)
3) compile and install latest wireless-tools (Gentoo: emerge wireless-tools)
4) edit your pcmcia options so that your socket driver is i82365 and your PCIC_OPTS="irq_mode=0" (use only PCI IRQs) in /etc/conf.d/pcmcia
5) reboot
6) the Ricoh Rl5c475 will be recognized as eth1
Here is a link to the long install information Ricoh Rl5c475
Audio
ALSA Audio
The audio driver for ALSA is Intel 82801CA.alias snd-card-0 snd-intel8x0
Check out the Gentoo Alsa Guide for mor information on how to setup sound.