Samsung NC10

This article aims to provide information on installing and setting up Arch Linux on the Samsung NC10.

A lot of the information is derived from the Arch Forum, and from several hints scattered around in the ArchWiki.

Common Issues

• using KMS (as of xorg-video-intel 2.8.1), No brightness control with xbacklight. (workaround with setpci, the issue might be solved with the next intel driver 2.9)
• On kernel 2.6.29 :
  • webccam works perfectly.
  • All fn-keys can be bound, except fn-f4
  • suspend to ram and to disk work perfectly (without any quirks)
  • rfkill controls for bluetooth and Wifi do not work (but it's possible to write a script to do it and bind it to the propper key with xbindkeys)
• On kernel 2.6.30 :
  • webcam stopped working correctly.
  • fastboot feature (not NC10 specific)
• On kernel 2.6.31 :
  • webcam is working again
  • rfkill interface is working.

Installation

Use the USB image provided at the official download locations or the ISO if you have an external optical drive. You can also use unetbootin to easily create a boot device. If you use an usbkey, be aware that you must (arguably) format it in FAT32.

Configure your installation

Network

LAN uses the sky2 module and should work out-of-the-box. Kernels prior to 2.6.37 use the ath5k module for WLAN. Later kernels use brcmsmac/brcmfmac and may require blacklisting bcma. See Broadcom wireless#brcmsmac/brcmfmac for details.

Initial Brightness

The brightness can be set with the following command:

setpci -s 00:02.1 F4.B=FF

Where FF is the highest level of brightness. This parameter moves in the range 00 to FF. Don't set it too low otherwise your backlight will turn off!

Graphics Adapter

The Video controller is a typical Intel chipset that works with the xf86-video-intel driver.

To save some interrupts, and therefore power, you can disable dri in your xorg.conf. This disables 3D effects; however if you do not need them this could be an option.

Section "Device"
Option "NoDRI"
Identifier "Card0"
Driver "intel"
VendorName "Intel Corporation"
BoardName "Mobile 945GME Express Integrated Graphics Controller"
BusID "PCI:0:2:0"
EndSection

External VGA

External VGA works out of the box with xrandr.

In order to prevent problems when switching to console or when unplugging the external monitor, make sure to specify the frequency along with the mode, for example :

xrandr --output VGA --mode 1280x1024 --rate 60

Dual head positioning works also perfectly : Xorg#Multi-monitor_setups

Audio

The audio device is an Intel HD. You will need to follow the instructions at ALSA#No_Sound_with_Onboard_Intel_Sound_Card to get output from the main speakers.

Since alsa 1.0.19 distributed in archlinux extra repository, you do not need to manually install alsa driver. Everything is working out of the box: onboard microphone and speakers, audio off on earphone plugging.

Troubleshooting :

• If the volume is too low, or lower than in Windows run alsamixer, and set "front" to 100%.

• If the microphone does not work, press F4 in alsamixer and play with the settings (boost to 0, digital and capture to mid-values, and input to front-mic should be a sensible default).

Note that settings can be saved with "alsactl store"

• One user reported that he had to disable every snd module in his rc.conf except for two: snd_hda_intel and snd_pcm_oss.

• [deprecated] if the speakers do not mute when you plug in headphones, you may need to compile alsa (i use v1.0.18a ,here)

Extract the tar.bz2 and open a console on alsa source folder

1.execute this command : ./configure --with-cards=hda-intel --with-oss=yes --with-sequencer=yes
2.execute this command : make
3.execute this command : sudo make install
4.get alsa-utils with pacman
5.configure sound volume with alsamixer , reboot , and enjoy :)

Suspend and Hibernate

If you want to use Suspend to RAM using pm-utils then you'll need the following command to resume properly:

pm-suspend --quirk-vbestate-restore

Note: Pm-suspend should work correctly without any quirks at the moment.

You can use this command not only to suspend from terminal but also in combination with acpid

If after closing the lid your machine doesn't wake up from suspend correctly and needs to be resumed multiple times, you can try using the following workaround. This is an excerpt from /etc/acpid/handler.sh file:

    button/lid)
       if [ `/bin/awk '{print $2}' /proc/acpi/button/lid/LID0/state` = closed ]; then
           /usr/sbin/pm-suspend
       fi
       ;;

In contrast hibernate works without "modifications" (except the ones mentioned in the pm-utils article).

If you are a kde4/kdemod user you can take advantage of powerdevil (included in kdemod-core/kdemod-kdebase-workspace since release 4.2). Screen brightness, cpu scaling, suspend and hibernate all work flawlessly, without any hack.

Right after resume you may notice (i.e. in powertop) lost support for C2 and C4 CPU states. Don't panic. Those modes are likely to return within several minutes.

Fn Keys

You need at least kernel 2.6.28.4 to get the Fn keys to work correctly.

(Volume Controls worked out of the box in kdemod 4.2)

To bind the Fn keys to action, read Extra_Keyboard_Keys#The_quick_way and also Extra Keyboard Keys in Xorg. The suspend key (Fn+ESC) and disable touchpad (Fn+F10) keys should work out of the box. Note that suspend key is handled in /etc/acpi/handler.sh (see "power/sleep" case entry). If you use pm-utils, you should substitute the default action with the call to pm-suspend or pm-hibernate.

As an example, here is how to bind the keys for volume control :

1) install xbindkeys (and xbacklight from package xorg-server-utils for brightness control):

pacman -S xbindkeys xorg-server-utils

2) crate a config file in your home directory :

vi .xbindkeysrc

3) with the following content :

"amixer sset Master 2+ &"
    m:0x0 + c:176
"amixer sset Master 2- &"
    m:0x0 + c:174
#"amixer sset Master 0 &"
"amixer sset Master toggle &"
    m:0x0 + c:160
#"sudo pm-suspend"
#    m:0x0 + c:223
"xbacklight +10"
    m:0x0 + c:233
"xbacklight -10"
    m:0x0 + c:232

For your NC10 Fn keysums may differ. If any Fn keys do not work with the above .xbindkeysrc, you should check the keysum values with

xbindkeys -k

4) run xbindkeys :

xbindkeys

and volume control should work within an X session!

To add additional bindings, you can get the codes of most of the Fn-keys with

xbindkeys -k

For the keys that are not recongnized, see

dmesg |tail

to make the kernel recognize them.

(If your Screen is not bright enough, boot into Windows and set the Brightness to maximum)

(you can adjust Brightness during the boot process without returning into Windows and you need to set maximun brightness on battery only mode)

Saving Power

Make sure to read Laptop#Suggestions_for_saving_power.

Here are some suggestions of things to add to /etc/rc.local to save some power, most of which are suggestions from Powertop.

# /etc/rc.nc10: various init and power saving stuff for samsung nc10.
# 
# Avoid too many power ups/downs of hard drive, though this has been taken over by laptop-mode-tools anyway.
hdparm -B 255 /dev/sda

# saves some power
echo 1500 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_writeback_centisecs

#disable bluetooth
hciconfig hci0 down ; rmmod btusb

# enables on-demand cpu freq scaling (requires cpufreq modules) :
echo ondemand > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor
echo ondemand > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cpufreq/scaling_governor

# autosuspend usb ****does this really work ????****
echo "auto" > /sys/bus/usb/devices/2-2/power/level
echo "auto" > /sys/bus/usb/devices/5-8/power/level
echo 1 > /sys/bus/usb/devices/2-2/power/autosuspend
echo 1 > /sys/bus/usb/devices/5-8/power/autosuspend

### turn off wifi
#       ifconfig wmaster0 down
#       echo "wifi is shut down"

## sound chip power save mode
## => disabled because it makes some high frenquency noise...
#echo 10 > /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save

Use laptop-mode-tools

pacman -S laptop-mode-tools

and configure it to suit your needs in /etc/laptop-mode/laptop-mode.conf Here again some suggestions :

#turn off hard-drive after 10min on AC and 2min on battery (prevents freezes when accessing hd often)
LM_AC_HD_IDLE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS=600
LM_BATT_HD_IDLE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS=120
NOLM_HD_IDLE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS=1800

CONTROL_HD_POWERMGMT=1

# prevents too many parking of heads while still saving some power on battery.
BATT_HD_POWERMGMT=254
LM_AC_HD_POWERMGMT=255
NOLM_AC_HD_POWERMGMT=255

BIOS

There is no official support from Samsung on how to upgrade your BIOS from anything else than Windows XP / 7, although there's an exellent guide on how to update your BIOS without Windows installed on your computer at all on Vorias forum: http://www.voria.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=248