articles/laptop: remove it
- laptops do not come with PCMCIA anymore - laptops don't come with modems anymore - APM is dead - ACPI power management is in the handbook - pccard is dead Discussed with: jmg
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Eitan Adler
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Notes:
svn2git
2020-12-08 03:00:23 +00:00
svn path=/head/; revision=46435
3 changed files with 0 additions and 314 deletions
en_US.ISO8859-1/articles
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@ -21,7 +21,6 @@ SUBDIR+= geom-class
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SUBDIR+= gjournal-desktop
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SUBDIR+= hubs
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SUBDIR+= ipsec-must
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SUBDIR+= laptop
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SUBDIR+= ldap-auth
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SUBDIR+= linux-comparison
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SUBDIR+= linux-emulation
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@ -1,17 +0,0 @@
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#
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# $FreeBSD$
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#
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# Article: FreeBSD on Laptops
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#
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DOC?= article
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FORMATS?= html
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INSTALL_COMPRESSED?=gz
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INSTALL_ONLY_COMPRESSED?=
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SRCS= article.xml
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DOC_PREFIX?= ${.CURDIR}/../../..
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.include "${DOC_PREFIX}/share/mk/doc.project.mk"
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@ -1,296 +0,0 @@
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
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<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//DTD DocBook XML V5.0-Based Extension//EN"
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"http://www.FreeBSD.org/XML/share/xml/freebsd50.dtd">
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<article xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
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xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" version="5.0"
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xml:lang="en">
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<info>
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<title>FreeBSD on Laptops</title>
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<abstract>
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<para>FreeBSD works fine on most laptops, with a few caveats.
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Some issues specific to running FreeBSD on laptops, relating
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to different hardware requirements from desktops, are
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discussed below.</para>
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</abstract>
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<legalnotice xml:id="trademarks" role="trademarks">
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&tm-attrib.freebsd;
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&tm-attrib.linux;
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&tm-attrib.microsoft;
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&tm-attrib.general;
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</legalnotice>
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<pubdate>$FreeBSD$</pubdate>
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<releaseinfo>$FreeBSD$</releaseinfo>
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</info>
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<para>FreeBSD is often thought of as a server operating system, but
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it works just fine on the desktop, and if you want to use it on
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your laptop you can enjoy all the usual benefits: systematic
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layout, easy administration and upgrading, the ports/packages
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system for adding software, and so on. (Its other benefits, such
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as stability, network performance, and performance under a heavy
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load, may not be obvious on a laptop, of course.) However,
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installing it on laptops often involves problems which are not
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encountered on desktop machines and are not commonly discussed
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(laptops, even more than desktops, are fine-tuned for
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µsoft.windows;). This article aims to discuss some of these
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issues. Several people have also documented their experiences
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with &os; on specific laptop models on webpages which are not part
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of the &os; documentation. You might very well find some
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information if you type the name of your laptop model and the word
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<quote>&os;</quote> into a search engine of your choice.
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Additionally there is a &os;-specific online database which aims
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to give information on hardware issues with laptops, <link
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xlink:href="https://wiki.freebsd.org/Laptops/">The &os; Laptop
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Compatibility List</link>.</para>
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<para>If you want to communicate with other &os; laptop users, check
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out the &a.mobile.name; list. You can also get additional
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information about using Laptops on &os; at <uri
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xlink:href="http://tuxmobil.org/mobile_bsd.html">http://tuxmobil.org/mobile_bsd.html</uri>.</para>
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<sect1 xml:id="xorg">
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<title>&xorg;</title>
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<para>Recent versions of <application>&xorg;</application> work
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with most display adapters available on laptops these days.
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Acceleration may not be supported, but a generic SVGA
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configuration should work.</para>
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<para>Check your laptop documentation for which card you have, and
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check in the <application>&xorg;</application> documentation to
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see whether it is specifically supported. If it is not, use a
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generic device (do not go for a name which just looks similar).
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You can try your luck with the command <userinput>Xorg
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-configure</userinput> which auto-detects a lot of
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configurations.</para>
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<para>The problem often is configuring the monitor. Common
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resources for <application>&xorg;</application> focus on CRT
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monitors; getting a suitable modeline for an LCD display may be
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tricky. You may be lucky and not need to specify a modeline, or
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just need to specify suitable <literal>HorizSync</literal> and
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<literal>VertRefresh</literal> ranges. If that does not work,
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the best option is to check web resources devoted to configuring
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X on laptops (these are often Linux oriented sites but it does
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not matter because both systems use
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<application>&xorg;</application>) and copy a modeline posted by
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someone for similar hardware.</para>
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<para>Most laptops come with two buttons on their pointing
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devices, which is rather problematic in X (since the middle
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button is commonly used to paste text); you can map a
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simultaneous left-right click in your X configuration to a
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middle button click with the line <literal>Option
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"Emulate3Buttons"</literal> in <filename>xorg.conf</filename>
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in the <literal>InputDevice</literal> section.</para>
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</sect1>
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<sect1 xml:id="modems">
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<title>Modems</title>
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<para>Laptops usually come with internal (on-board) modems.
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Unfortunately, this almost always means they are
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<quote>winmodems</quote> whose functionality is implemented in
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software, for which only &windows; drivers are normally
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available (though a few drivers are beginning to show up for
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other operating systems; for example, if your modem has a Lucent
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LT chipset it might be supported by the
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<package>comms/ltmdm</package> port). If that is the case, you
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need to buy an external modem: the most compact option is
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probably a PC Card (PCMCIA) modem, discussed below, but serial
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or USB modems may be cheaper. Generally, regular modems
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(non-winmodems) should work fine.</para>
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</sect1>
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<sect1 xml:id="pcmcia">
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<title>PCMCIA (PC Card) Devices</title>
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<para>Most laptops come with PCMCIA (also called PC Card) slots;
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these are supported fine under FreeBSD. Look through your
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boot-up messages (using &man.dmesg.8;) and see whether these
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were detected correctly (they should appear as
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<filename>pccard0</filename>, <filename>pccard1</filename> etc
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on devices like <filename>pcic0</filename>).</para>
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<para>&os; 4.X supports 16-bit PCMCIA cards, and
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&os; 5.X supports both 16-bit and 32-bit
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(<quote>CardBus</quote>) cards. A database of supported cards
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is in the file <filename>/etc/defaults/pccard.conf</filename>.
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Look through it, and preferably buy cards listed there. Cards
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not listed may also work as <quote>generic</quote> devices: in
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particular most modems (16-bit) should work fine, provided they
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are not winmodems (these do exist even as PC Cards, so watch
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out). If your card is recognised as a generic modem, note that
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the default <filename>pccard.conf</filename> specifies a delay
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time of 10 seconds (to avoid freezes on certain modems); this
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may well be over-cautious for your modem, so you may want to
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play with it, reducing it or removing it totally.</para>
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<para>Some parts of <filename>pccard.conf</filename> may need
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editing. Check the irq line, and be sure to remove any number
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already being used: in particular, if you have an on board sound
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card, remove irq 5 (otherwise you may experience hangs when you
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insert a card). Check also the available memory slots; if your
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card is not being detected, try changing it to one of the other
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allowed values (listed in the manual page
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&man.pccardc.8;).</para>
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<para>If it is not running already, start the &man.pccardd.8;
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daemon. (To enable it at boot time, add
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<literal>pccard_enable="YES"</literal> to
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<filename>/etc/rc.conf</filename>.) Now your cards should be
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detected when you insert and remove them, and you should get
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log messages about new devices being enabled.</para>
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<para>There have been major changes to the pccard code (including
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ISA routing of interrupts, for machines where &os; is not able
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to use the PCI BIOS) before the &os; 4.4 release. If you
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have problems, try upgrading your system.</para>
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</sect1>
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<sect1 xml:id="power-management">
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<title>Power Management</title>
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<para>Unfortunately, this is not very reliably supported under
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FreeBSD. If you are lucky, some functions may work reliably;
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or they may not work at all.</para>
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<para>To make things a little more complex, there are two existing
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standards for power management: APM and ACPI, the latter
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superseding the former and including more features, but also
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introducing more problems.</para>
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<para>Some laptops support both APM and ACPI (to a certain
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degree), others just support one of them, so chances are that
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you have to experiment with both of them to have reliable power
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management on your laptop.</para>
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<note>
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<para>You cannot have APM and ACPI enabled at the same time,
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even if your laptop has support for both of them.</para>
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</note>
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<sect2>
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<title>APM</title>
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<para>The APM (Advanced Power Management) BIOS provides support
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for various power management features like standby, suspend,
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hibernation, CPU clock slow down etc. and is available
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under &os; 4.X and &os; 5.X.</para>
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<para>To enable APM support, you can compile a kernel with power
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management support (<literal>device apm0</literal> on
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&os; 4.X and <literal>device apm</literal> on
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&os; 5.X). A kernel module for APM is available under
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&os; 5.X, to simply load the APM kernel module at boot
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add the line <literal>apm_load="YES"</literal> to
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<filename>/boot/loader.conf</filename>.</para>
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<para>On &os; 5.X, you also have to set
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<literal>hint.apm.0.disabled="0"</literal> in
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<filename>/boot/device.hints</filename>.</para>
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<para>You can start APM at boot time by having
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<literal>apm_enable="YES"</literal> in
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<filename>/etc/rc.conf</filename>. You may also want start
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the &man.apmd.8; daemon by adding
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<literal>apmd_enable="YES"</literal> to
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<filename>/etc/rc.conf</filename>, which takes care of various
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APM events that are posted to the BIOS, so you can have your
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laptop suspend/resume by pressing some function key on the
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keyboard or by closing/opening the lid.</para>
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<para>The APM commands are listed in the &man.apm.8; manual
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page. For instance, <command>apm -b</command> gives you
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battery status (or 255 if not supported), <command>apm
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-Z</command> puts the laptop on standby, <command>apm
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-z</command> (or <command>zzz</command>) suspends it. To
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shutdown and power off the machine, use <command>shutdown
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-p</command>. Again, some or all of these functions may not
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work very well or at all.</para>
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<para>You may find that laptop suspension/standby works in
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console mode but not under X (that is, the screen does not
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come on again); if you are running &os; 5.X, one solution
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for this might be to put <literal>options
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SC_NO_SUSPEND_VTYSWITCH</literal> in your kernel
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configuration file and recompile your kernel. Another
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workaround is to switch to a virtual console (using <keycombo
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action="simul"><keycap>Ctrl</keycap><keycap>Alt</keycap><keycap>F1</keycap></keycombo>
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or another function key) and then execute &man.apm.8;. You
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can automate this with &man.vidcontrol.1;, if you are running
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&man.apmd.8;. Simply edit <filename>/etc/apmd.conf</filename>
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and change it to this:</para>
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<programlisting>apm_event SUSPENDREQ {
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exec "vidcontrol -s 1 < /dev/console";
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exec "/etc/rc.suspend";
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}
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apm_event USERSUSPENDREQ {
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exec "vidcontrol -s 1 < /dev/console";
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exec "sync && sync && sync";
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exec "sleep 1";
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exec "apm -z";
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}
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apm_event NORMRESUME, STANDBYRESUME {
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exec "/etc/rc.resume";
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exec "vidcontrol -s 9 < /dev/console";
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}</programlisting>
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</sect2>
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<sect2>
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<title>ACPI</title>
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<para>ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Management
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Interface) provides not only power management but also
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platform hardware discovery (superseding PnP and PCI BIOS).
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ACPI is only available under &os; 5.X and is enabled by
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default, so you do not have to do anything special to get it
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running. You can control ACPI behaviour with
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&man.acpiconf.8;.</para>
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<para>Unfortunately, vendors often ship their laptops with
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broken ACPI implementations, thus having ACPI enabled
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sometimes causes more problems than being useful, up to the
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point that you cannot even boot &os; on some machines with
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ACPI enabled.</para>
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<para>If ACPI is causing problems, you might check if your
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laptop vendor has released a new BIOS version that fixes some
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bugs. Since the &os; ACPI implementation is still very
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evolving code, you might also want to upgrade your system;
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chances are that your problems are fixed.</para>
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<para>If you want to disable ACPI simply add
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<literal>hint.acpi.0.disabled="1"</literal> to
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<filename>/boot/device.hints</filename>. You can disable ACPI
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temporarily at the boot loader prompt by issuing
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<literal>unset acpi_load</literal> if you are having problems
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booting an ACPI enabled machine. &os; 5.1-RELEASE and
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later come with a boot-time menu that controls how &os; is
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booted. One of the proposed options is to turn off ACPI. So
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to disable ACPI just select <guimenuitem>2. Boot &os; with
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ACPI disabled</guimenuitem> in the menu.</para>
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</sect2>
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<sect2>
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<title>Display Power Management</title>
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<para>The X window system (<application>&xorg;</application>)
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also includes display power management (look at the
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&man.xset.1; manual page, and search for <quote>dpms</quote>
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there). You may want to investigate this. However, this,
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too, works inconsistently on laptops: it often turns off the
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display but does not turn off the backlight.</para>
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</sect2>
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</sect1>
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</article>
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