Jun 22 2006
Ubuntu Dapper Drake (6.06) on a SavRow Katana K-90 laptop
Published by Ivan Groznii at 6:55 pm under Linux How-To |
Over a year ago, I bought a laptop that I thought would be powerful enough to handle Windows for a while. I know there are some Linux folk who are probably screaming, “Heretic, heretic, kill the unbeliever!”
However, hear me out - I only wanted Windows so I could play “Rome: Total War”. It’s an intensive, great game, and it doesn’t look like Cedega or Wine are up to utilising it yet on Linux.
I digress. After one year of Windows, the laptop had pretty much ground to a halt. It was no slouch either -
Pentium IV, 3.6 Ghz
2 GB of RAM
60 GB hard drive, 7200 RPM
ATI Radeon X800 128MB Video Ram
Yet with all that power, patch after Windows patch led it to the same destination that all Windows machines arrive at - nowhere.
The good news is that once Linux is installed, it works extremely well. The bad news is that it requires fiddling with the video and wireless settings to get there.
Before you start, ensure your laptop is plugged in via a cable to your broadband router; you are going to need it. Fortunately the ethernet card works out of the box.
Display
I chose to tackle the display issues first. Go to Applications > Accessories > Terminal and type the following:
sudo apt-get install xorg-driver-fglrx
sudo depmod -a
sudo aticonfig –initial
sudo aticonfig –overlay-type=Xv
Reboot. You may find that the setting of the screen is still too “in your face”, i.e., set at 1024 x 768. Go into Terminal and type:
sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Scroll down and you will see entries like this -
Monitor “Generic Monitor”
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection “Display”
Depth 1
Modes “1024×768″ “800×600″ “640×480″
Insert “1680×1050″ before every instance you see of “1024×768″.
Reboot. Your screen should now be lovely.
Wireless
Unfortunately with this model they included an Inprocomm wireless card, which has a chipset that has no native Linux driver. This may have changed over time, however. The K90 comes with a purple CD ROM marked “Communication Products - WLAN Driver & Utlility, Bluetooth Driver & Utility”. On this CD go into the following folders - Software, then WLAN Software, then IPN2220 Driver, then winnt. Click, hold, drag and drop these files onto the Desktop -
neti2220.inf
i2220ntx.sys
Open the Terminal and type the following:
cd Desktop
sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils
This will install ndiswrapper, which will adapt your Windows drivers to work with Linux. Once it’s done installing type the following
sudo ndisrwapper -i neti2220.inf
sudo depmod -a
sudo ndiswrapper -m
Just to make sure all is well, type:
sudo ndiswrapper -l
You should get the following response:
Installed ndis drivers:
neti2220 driver present, hardware present
Reboot. The wireless card can then be configured by going into System > Administration > Networking. It should pick the wireless card as wlan0.
You may notice that the reading on the wireless card is always 100% or if you’re out of range, 0%. That’s because the windows drivers do not contain a facility to guage signal strength. Otherwise, however, performance is excellent…and Linux on a SavRow is more than fast…it’s luxurious.
5 Responses to “Ubuntu Dapper Drake (6.06) on a SavRow Katana K-90 laptop”
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THANKYOU! wow, have i been looking for someone who got the ipn2220 to work in Dapper for like days!
Dunno if this is ettiquette, but could you tell me if i need the i2220ntx.sys there as well? You didnt seem to set it up? Is that why mine doesnt work? Ill go try it now, but id still like to know why…
the network-admin program *sees* the card, calls it wlan0, even lets me ‘configure’ it - but it DOES NOTHING. wont scan, wont find, wont connect. I’m so lost.
Thanks!
Glad to be of assistance.
Generally speaking, ndiswrapper requires the sys as well as the inf files. I’m not 100% sure, as i’m not a Windows person, but I believe the .inf file contains a reference to the .sys file, which the driver requires.
OK, im still lost. I followed what you did basically exactly. I have the same card, the IPN 2220. Everything seems to wrok, but nothing does.
dmesg output about ndiswrapper and the card looks fine.
(has MAC, gets irq 10, specifies a conf file etc)
iwconfig shows wlan0 as having wireless extensions, but its all disconnected.
network-admin lists wlan0 as a wireless card, and lets me ‘activate’ and ‘configure’ it, but theres nowhere to choose networks?
iwlist wlan0 scan returns ‘no scan results’ or whatever.
Could anyone help me on this? Do you have any clue, Mr Extremist?
IS there some kind of radio off issue? How would i check?
Ive tried migrating to linux before, but i faltered on WPA. Now im trying again, because WGA has offended my principles….
anyone? Thx!
The last time I saw a “radio off” indication yet the driver was working was when there was a physical switch on the machine which disabled / enabled wireless. Check for that and come back.
Yeah, there’s button on the front of the laptop. I remember pressing it each time i tries iwlist again, and it not making any difference. I guess ill try again tho, and also check if theres some always on switch in the bios or something i dunno.
Something funny though was when i did ndiswrapper -i nei2220.inf i remember the wireless card didnt appear in the network-admin program. It only appeared after i had used the GUI applet System -> Admin. -> Windows Wireless Drivers, which seems to be an ndiswrapper frontend? Strange.