HARDWARE Dell Inspiron 6400 Fixes for common problems

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This article is part of the Hardware series.

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This is just a list with problems I encountered when installing Gentoo Linux on my notebook and howto solve these problems

When shipped with a Intel 945GM Onboard Graphics card the native resolution does not work under xorg-x11
Please see the following HOWTO: * HOWTO_Intel_Onboard_Graphics_Notebooks_Native_Resolution

Getting the frame buffer working with a resolution of 1280x800 when using an Intel Onboard Graphics Card
1. Emerge 915resolution, edit the config file accordingly, start it and add the service to the default runlevel.
2. Go to /usr/src/linux and type make menuconfig.
3. Go to Device Drivers -> Graphics Support -> and make sure VESA VGA graphics support is set to module.
4. Make sure that VESA driver type is set to vesafb-tng and that the VESA default mode is set to 1280x800@60
5. Save the config file and compile the new kernel.
6. Instead of adding the module to /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6 add the following (without quotes): 'modprobe vesafb-tng' to: /etc/conf.d/local.start 7. This makes sure that 915resolution patches the video BIOS before vesafb-tng is loaded. Thanks to this little trick 1280x800 is now a supported resolution for vesafb-tng, which means that 1280x800 will work now (instead of reverting back to 1024x768 which it does when it's compiled in the kernel).

Sound does not work as it should and gives various problems
Upgrading to the latest unstable alsa-driver solves this problem for 90% (alsa-1.0.13 to be exact)

xorg-x11-7.0 refuses to start with vesa
This problem van be solved by commenting the HSync and VertRefresh options in your xorg.conf

xorg-x11-7.0 refuses to start with the i810 driver
Update xorg--x11-7.1 is stable in portage now, run an emerge --sync and be sure to install the latest xorg-x11 (version 7.1 currently)

xorg-x11-7.1 and 3D Acelleration do not work properly together
1. Make sure you set VIDEO_CARDS="i810"
2. Emerge x11-drm
3. Emerge mesa
4. Uncomment Load "dri" and Load "glx" in your xorg.conf
5. Scroll all the way to the bottom in xorg.conf and uncomment the following 3 lines:
Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection
6. Now run startx again and see ;)
7. If it still does not work make sure you've compiled agpgart and the appropriate agpgart module statically into your kernel and disabled drm in the kernel.

Optical Drive slow and gives various issues
This problem occurs if you have you configured your Optical Drive as PATA Device.
1. Go to /usr/src/linux
2. Type make menuconfig
3. Go to Drivers -> ATA and uncheck everything
4. Next go to the SCSI page
5. Enable SCSI CD-Rom and SCSI Generic support there.
6. Exit the kernel menuconfig and save it.
7. Recompile your kernel and overwrite it, reboot and everthing should work ok now.