complete support for Dell XPS M1210 (but read on ...)

[Fernan Aguero]

Hi again,

as reported in
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LaptopTestingTeam/DellXPSM1210

this laptop has three devices that are not working with a
default install of 6.06 (Dapper):

SD/MMC card reader
Wireless NIC
Built-in webcam

The good news is that I've been able to make the three work.
This message is thus a 'for the record' so that others see
it. With these issues fixed, this laptop would have all its
devices completely supported under linux/ubuntu.

The bad news is that the webcam worked for only a moment ...
and I lost USB functionality along the way (read on).


== The SD/MMC card == 

For solving the SD/MMC card reader issue, I've built a
2.6.17 kernel (2.6.17.11 from kernel.org). I included the
SD/MMC code into the kernel (not as a module) after reading
a post that mentioned that this was the only way of making
it work (YMMV):

#
# MMC/SD Card support
#
CONFIG_MMC=y
# CONFIG_MMC_DEBUG is not set
CONFIG_MMC_BLOCK=y
CONFIG_MMC_SDHCI=y
CONFIG_MMC_WBSD=y

after rebooting with the 2.6.17 kernel, inserting a SD card
into the built-in reader resulted in the card being
automatically mounted, with a nice icon shown in the
desktop. Nice.

Now, the rest of my tests were done under this new kernel. I
have yet to try to apply them to the stock 2.6.15 that came
with Dapper.


== The wireless NIC == 

This laptop has an Intel Pro Wireless 3945 ABG NIC (standard
Centrino platform). Dapper does not recognize the NIC, and
I've not found packages to support it. 

To make it work, I've downloaded the sources for the ipw3945
module from ipw3945.sf.net, and the corresponding daemon and
firmware from links in that page.

I've put the daemon in /sbin, the firmware in /lib/firmware
and after extracting the ipw3945 sources (with
/usr/src/linux being a symlink to the 2.6.17.11 sources) I
did the standard:
make clean && make && sudo make install

After rebooting the NIC was detected and I could use
iwconfig to turn it on. Now the hardware switch that's on
the side of the laptop works as in Windows to turn the radio
on/off (it was ignored before).

As a side note, I had this related stuff in my kernel
confifg:
CONFIG_IEEE80211=y
# CONFIG_IEEE80211_DEBUG is not set
CONFIG_IEEE80211_CRYPT_WEP=m
CONFIG_IEEE80211_CRYPT_CCMP=m
CONFIG_IEEE80211_CRYPT_TKIP=m
CONFIG_IEEE80211_SOFTMAC=m
# CONFIG_IEEE80211_SOFTMAC_DEBUG is not set
CONFIG_WIRELESS_EXT=y


== The built-in webcam ===

In Dapper, the webcam is seen as a USB device,

Bus 005 Device 003: ID 046d:08c6 Logitech, Inc.

and when trying to configure ekiga, the recording sound
tests are OK (sound from the camera's mic is recorded and
played back fine), but there's no video device (no
/dev/video).

Now, since this webcam is listed as supported by the uvc
driver (from linux-uvc.berlios.de) I downloaded the sources, and built and
installed the module. After rebooting, dmesg showed the
device:

[4294680.802000] Linux video capture interface: v1.00
[4294680.940000] uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device <unnamed> (046d:08c6)
[4294680.958000] usbcore: registered new driver uvcvideo
[4294680.958000] USB Video Class driver (v0.1.0)

and the video devices were now there

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      6 2006-09-03 11:13 /dev/video -> video0
crw-rw---- 1 root video 81, 0 2006-09-03 11:13 /dev/video0

and I was now able to make the webcam work in ekiga. Nice.

But ... this only worked once. For some reason, the video
didn't work the next time I started the laptop. Upon further
investigation, it turned out that the USB system was not
working right as I couldn't use an external USB
keyboard/mouse (this was working OK with the 2.6.15 kernel),
the sound device associated with the camera (the mic) was
also not recognized, and in alsamixer now I had only one
audio devie (HDA Intel), when I had three before:

With the stock 2.6.15 kernel:
0: USB device 0x46d:0x8c6 (alsa mixer)
1: HDA Intel (alsa mixer)
2: USB mixer (oss mixer)

With the new 2.6.17 kernel:
0: HDA Intel (alsa mixer)

I cannot understand why it worked once, and why now it
doesn't. Any ideas how to debug this? Where should I look?

As a side note, this is what I have related to V4L in my
kernel config:
CONFIG_VIDEO_DEV=m
CONFIG_VIDEO_V4L1=y
CONFIG_VIDEO_V4L1_COMPAT=y
CONFIG_VIDEO_V4L2=m

If you got this far, congratulations. And thanks for any
tip/suggestion/advice.

Fernan