Gentoo Linux on the PACKARD BELL ipower 7000 series

Model Information

# lspci
0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: ALi Corporation M1671 Super P4 Northbridge
[AGP4X,PCI and SDR/DDR] (rev 02)
0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: ALi Corporation PCI to AGP Controller
0000:00:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: ALi Corporation M5451 PCI AC-Link Controller
Audio Device (rev 02)
0000:00:07.0 ISA bridge: ALi Corporation M1533 PCI to ISA Bridge [Aladdin IV]
0000:00:08.0 Modem: ALi Corporation Intel 537 [M5457 AC-Link Modem]
0000:00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+
(rev 10)
0000:00:0b.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. IEEE 1394 Host Controller (rev 46)
0000:00:0f.0 USB Controller: ALi Corporation USB 1.1 Controller (rev 03)
0000:00:10.0 IDE interface: ALi Corporation M5229 IDE (rev c4)
0000:00:11.0 Bridge: ALi Corporation M7101 PMU
0000:00:13.0 CardBus bridge: O2 Micro, Inc. OZ6912 Cardbus Controller
0000:00:14.0 USB Controller: ALi Corporation USB 1.1 Controller
(rev 03)
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV11 [GeForce2 Go] (rev b2)

# cat /proc/cpuinfo

processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 15
model           : 2
model name      : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 Mobile CPU 1.60GHz
stepping        : 4
cpu MHz         : 1196.239
cache size      : 512 KB
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 2
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 sep mtrr pge
mca cmov pat pse36clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm
bogomips        : 2365.44

# cat /proc/interrupts

	
	           CPU0
  0:    3485961          XT-PIC  timer
  1:       2322          XT-PIC  i8042
  2:          0          XT-PIC  cascade
  9:        480          XT-PIC  acpi
 10:      76777          XT-PIC  ohci_hcd, yenta, eth0
 11:      11857          XT-PIC  ohci1394, ALI 5451, ohci_hcd
 12:       3720          XT-PIC  i8042
 14:     150479          XT-PIC  ide0
 15:         24          XT-PIC  ide1
NMI:          0
LOC:          0
ERR:          1
MIS:          0

You can find the complete output of my lshw.
Try to emerge the sys-apps/lshw package after installation

# emerge sys-apps/lshw
# lshw

Installing Gentoo Linux 2004.3 x86

First, i have read the Gentoo Handbook 2004.3-x86 and i tried booting the laptop with the Minimal LiveCDinstall-x86-minimal-2004.3-r1.iso. It hung first so, to work around this problem, i disabled USB legacy support in the BIOS. Gentoo booted fine.

# date (Make sure your date is correct.)
# net-setup eth0
# cfdisk /dev/hda (Partition your drive)
# mke2fs -j /dev/hda5
# mkreiserfs -j /dev/hda3
# mkswap /dev/hda6
# swapon /dev/hda6

My partion here :

/dev/hda1 Primary W95 FAT32 (LBA) 17100,36
/dev/hda5 Logical * Linux ext3(boot) 32,91
/dev/hda6 Logical   Linux swap 1019,94
/dev/hda7 Logical   Linux reiserfs 61870,56

Mount your partitions :

# mount/dev/hda7 /mnt/gentoo
# mkdir /mnt/gentoo/boot
# mount /dev/hda5 /mnt/gentoo/boot
# cd /mnt/gentoo
# tar -xvjpf stage1-*.tar.bz2
# nano -w /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf

Opening /etc/make.conf

CFLAGS="-O3 -mcpu=pentium4 -march=pentium4 -funroll-loops -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
VIDEO_CARDS="nvidia"
LINGUAS="fr"
USE="acpi aim alsa apache2 apm audiofile avi berkdb bonobo caps cdr cups
curl doc dvb dvd emacs fam foomaticdb f77 gif gnome
gstreamer gtk2 jpeg kde mpeg msn mysql oggvorbis pcmcia ppds pdflib perl plotutils
png python qt quicktime samba spell ssl tcltk tetex tiff truetype usb videos
wavelan X xml xmms zlib"

The GENTOO_MIRRORS and SYNC variables can be set automatically through the mirrorselect application :

# mirrorselect -i -o >> /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf

You need to copy over the DNS information stored in /etc/resolv.conf to /mnt/gentoo/etc/resolv.conf

# cp -L/etc/resolv.conf/mnt/gentoo/etc/resolv.conf

Chrooting into the new environment

# mount -t proc none /mnt/gentoo/proc
# chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash
# env-update

>>> Regenerating /etc/ld.so.cache...
* Caching service dependencies...

# source /etc/profile
Updating the Portage tree
# emerge --sync

Define userlocales

# mkdir /etc/portage
# echo "sys-libs/glibc userlocales" >> /etc/portage/package.use
# nano -w /etc/locales.build

en_US/ISO-8859-1
en_US.UTF-8/UTF-8
ja_JP.EUC-JP/EUC-JP
ja_JP.UTF-8/UTF-8
ja_JP/EUC-JP
en_HK/ISO-8859-1
en_PH/ISO-8859-1
de_DE/ISO-8859-1
de_DE@euro/ISO-8859-15
es_MX/ISO-8859-1
fa_IR/UTF-8
fr_FR/ISO-8859-1
fr_FR@euro/ISO-8859-15
it_IT/ISO-8859-1

Bootstrap system

# cd /usr/portage
# scripts/bootstrap.sh -f
# emerge system

Set timezone information

# ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Paris /etc/localtime

Kernel configuration

Continue by installing the Linux kernel, you can find here my .config

# emerge gentoo-dev-sources
# rm /usr/src/linux
# cd /usr/src
# ln -s linux-2.6.9-gentoo-r9 linux
# cd /usr/src/linux
# make menuconfig
# make && make modules_install
# cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/kernel269r9

Install hotplug

# emerge coldplug
# rc-update add coldplug boot
# emerge hotplug
# rc-update add hotplug default

Installing the Nvidia kernel

# emerge nvidia-kernel nvidia-glx
# echo nvidia >> /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6
# modules-update

Opening /etc/fstab

# nano -w /etc/fstab

# <fs>             <mountpoint>    <type>          <opts>              <dump/pass>
/dev/hda5          /boot           ext3            noauto,noatime          1 1
/dev/hda7          /               reiserfs        noatime                 0 0
/dev/hda6          none            swap            sw                      0 0
/dev/hdc           /mnt/cdrom      iso9660         noauto,ro               0 0
/dev/hda1          /mnt/windows    vfat            noauto                  0 0
none               /proc           proc            defaults                0 0
none               /dev/shm        tmpfs           defaults                0 0

Configure the network

# echo ipower > /etc/hostname
# echo univ-valenciennes.fr > /etc/dnsdomainname
# rc-update add domainname default
# nano -w /etc/conf.d/net

iface_eth0="192.168.0.2 broadcast 192.168.0.255 netmask 255.255.255.0"
iface_eth0="dhcp"
	
# rc-update add net.eth0 default
# nano -w /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1       localhost
127.0.0.1       ipower

Install login and password

# passwd
# echo "tts/0" >> /etc/securetty

Edit your rc.conf

# nano -w /etc/rc.conf

KEYMAP="fr-latin1"
SET_WINDOWKEYS="yes"
CONSOLEFONT="lat9w-16"
CONSOLETRANSLATION="8859-15_to_uni"
CLOCK="UTC"
EDITOR="/bin/nano"
PROTOCOLS="1 2"
DISPLAYMANAGER="xdm"
XSESSION="kde-3.3.2"

Install system logger

# emerge syslog-ng
# rc-update add syslog-ng default

Install task daemon

# emerge vixie-cron
# rc-update add vixie-cron default

Some usefull tools

# emerge slocate
# emerge reiserfsprogs
# emerge dhcpcd

Install and configure LILO

# emerge lilo
# nano -w /etc/lilo.conf
boot = /dev/hda
map = /boot/.map
install = /boot/boot-menu.b
menu-scheme=Wb
prompt
timeout=100
default=MyGentoo
image = /boot/kernel269r9
root = /dev/hda7
label = MyGentoo
read-only
other = /dev/hda1
label = Windows
table = /dev/hda

# /sbin/lilo

Finishing off

# exit
cdimage ~# cd
cdimage ~# umount /mnt/gentoo/boot /mnt/gentoo/proc /mnt/gentoo
cdimage ~# reboot

This report is listed at TuxMobil - Linux on laptops, notebooks, PDAs, mobile phones