Michael

If you have any questions about this notebook feel free to send me an email.

More information about HP OmniBook xt6200 can be found on HP's web. Model described in this document is F5385J (with wi-fi). I have installed the Fedora Core 1 Linux distribution based on 2.4.22 kernel with few additional RPMs noted bellow.

Specification

• CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 Mobile CPU 1.60GHz
• Graphics: ATI Radeon Mobility M6 LY AGP 4x, TVout
• IO ports: 1x serial, 1x parallel
• USB: 2x USB 1.1 ports
• IrDA: FIR, ALi chipset
• CD-RW/DVD-ROM: MATSHITA UJDA720 DVD/CDRW drive
• Ethernet: RealTek RTL8139 Fast Ethernet
• Wi-Fi: Harris Semiconductor Prism 2.5 Wavelan
• Audio: ALi Corporation M5451 (AC97)
• Modem: ESS Technology ES2838/2839 SuperLink
• Pcmcia: PCMCIA/CardBus
• Touchpad: Synaptics touchpad, 4 buttons
• Keyboard: Keyboard with onetouch "multimedia" keys
• Power management: APM/ACPI - suspend, hibernation
• Docking station:HP f1452c mini-dock

Intel Pentium 4 Mobile CPU

Mobile Pentium 4 supports clock modulation which can reduce battery consumption and fan cooling. You need P4 clock modulation (CONFIG_X86_P4_CLOCKMOD) compiled in your kernel. Then set up cpuspeed daemon from kernel-utils package (/etc/cpuspeed.conf: DRIVER=p4-clockmod and OPTS=<your favourite settings>).

ATI Radeon Mobility M6 LY AGP 4x, TVout

The xt6200 is equipped by ATI Radeon Mobility M6 LY card with 32MB 64-bit DDR SDRAM and 1400x1050 TFT display (Samsung LTN150P1-L02). DDC probe for the display doesn't work. Fedora includes XFree86 4.3.0 and radeon is very well supported here including 2D/3D acceleration, XVideo (mplayer likes this :-), Xinerama and DRI. Default settings can be seedup by adding

Option      "AGPMode" "4"
Option      "AGPFastWrite" "on"

in XF86Config videocard device section.

The external VGA output works - as the simultaneous LCD+VGA output, the VGA-only output or as a dual head (LCD is primary head and VGA secondary).

I use dual head configuration (second LCD connected via docking station). If you are interested in here is my XF86Config (because fedora's redhat-config-xfree86 cann't set second head properly).

The DPMS display power-saving when idle works just partially - the display blanks, but stays on.

Serial and paralel ports

Xt6200 has 2x serial 16550A ports (the first is "real" serial and the second is IrDA SIR/FIR) as well as parallel SPP port. They are recognized as /dev/ttyS0 and /dev/lp0 with no problem at all.

USB 1.1

The laptop has two external USB 1.1 ports on the OHCI controller (use the CONFIG_USB_OHCI kernel config option). I have tested the USB interface with the keyboard, mouse, usb-stick, usb-disk...

Infrared (IrDA) port

The infrared port can be used both in SIR or FIR mode. Setup your infrared port in BIOS properly and for SIR mode just modify /etc/sysconfig/irda to

IRDA=yes
DEVICE=/dev/ttyS1
DISCOVERY=yes

and start irda service (service irda start).

For FIR mode you need ali-ircc module (CONFIG_ALI_FIR) and switch /dev/ttyS1 off. Modify /etc/modules.conf:

alias irda0 ali-ircc
pre-install irda0 /bin/setserial /dev/ttyS1 uart none || :

and /etc/sysconfig/irda:

IRDA=yes
DEVICE=irda0
DISCOVERY=yes

CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive

The CD drive is detected as /dev/hdc on Linux. I have tested reading CDs, burning CD-RW and blanking CD-RW. For 2.4.x kernels you need ide-scsi emulation. (Add the "hdc=ide-scsi" parameter to the "kernel" line in your /boot/grub/grub.conf) The drive also works in the burnfree mode, and supports DAO (disk-at-once), TAO (track-at-once) and PACKET mode.

If you are interested in watching DVDs you could try RPC-1 (region-free) firmware - rpc1.org pages may provide a good starting point.

LAN (ethernet) interface

The built-in ethernet LAN adapter is standard RTL 8139 chip. While not optimal from the performaince standpoint, it works OK and is sufficient for the laptop usage. It can be driven with the 8139too module in the Linux kernel (set CONFIG_8139TOO in your kernel config).

Wi-Fi interface

The built-in wi-fi is "Harris Semiconductor Prism 2.5 Wavelan". Linux associate it with orinoco_pci module. I'm not wi-fi guru so I've got it work via redhat-config-network configuration tool. If you need more information about wi-fi I can provide this link: http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/.

Audio

Xt6200 contains ALi M5451 (AC97) audio controller. Audio works both with OSS trident module (CONFIG_SOUND_TRIDENT) and ALSA snd-ali5451 module (CONFIG_SND_ALI5451).

The laptop has line-out 3.5mm jack (for headphones, works OK), microphone-in 3.5mm jack (works OK), built-in stereo speakers (OK, sound quality corresponds to their size) and built-in microphone.

Modem

Modem is a PCI softmodem (winmodem); lspci shows "00:0b.0 Communication controller: ESS Technology ES2838/2839 SuperLink Modem (rev 01)". I don't use it but it is known to work somehow; for more info see Ulrich Poeschl's page.

PC cards

The laptop is equipped with two-slot PC-card/CardBus port. It can be driven with the Yenta socket driver in Linux (CONFIG_YENTA=y).

Touchpad

The touchpad works OK in plain PS/2 mode as two-button PS/2 mouse (you can use the Emulate3Buttons in the X configuration) to get the middle button.

With "Synaptics TouchPad" driver compiled into your kernel and standard PS/2 mode middle scroll buttons (up/down) will work as left/middle button.

More complete support for this touchpad provides the Synaptics touchpad driver. Compile the kernel with CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_SYNAPTICS=y option, get the driver source from the above link, compile it and install according to the included instructions, and configure it in your XF86Config:

Section"InputDevice"
Driver      "synaptics"
Identifier  "Mouse0"
#Option      "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option      "Device" "/dev/input/mouse0"
Option      "Protocol"      "auto-dev"
Option       "LeftEdge"      "1900"
Option       "RightEdge"     "5000"
Option       "TopEdge"       "1900"
Option       "BottomEdge"    "4000"
Option       "FingerLow"     "25"
Option       "FingerHigh"    "30"
Option       "MaxTapTime"    "180"
Option       "MaxTapMove"    "220"
Option       "VertScrollDelta" "100"
Option       "MinSpeed"      "0.02"
Option       "MaxSpeed"      "0.18"
Option       "AccelFactor"   "0.0010"
Option       "SHMConfig"     "on"
Option       "EmulateMidButtonTime" "1000"
EndSection

Keyboard

The keyboard has five special "onetouch" buttons Web, Email, HalfMoon, Help and Lock under the display and three other in the right side - AudioRaise, AudioLower and AudioMute.

AudioMute is pure hardware gadget; it works anywhere anytime .

AudioRaise, AudioLower, Web and Email send scancodes that can be mapped to appripriate keysym with xmodmap or xkb (see later).

HalfMoon is ACPI driven and is usable IMHO only for waking up from sleep/hibernation.

Last ones (Help and Lock) must be enabled by omke.pl script or omnibook kernel module from Omke project.

xmodmap file example:

keycode 176 = XF86AudioRaiseVolume
keycode 174 = XF86AudioLowerVolume
keycode 178 = XF86WWW
keycode 236 = XF86Mail
keycode 244 = XF86Launch1
keycode 243 = XF86Launch2

xkb example (much easier because all symbols are defined in xkb/symbols/inet file :-)

bash$ setxkbmap -layout 'us+inet(hpxt1000)' -model 'pc105'

APM/ACPI - standby, suspend, hibernation

APM

apm on this notebook works perfectly. You can see AC power and battery status with apm command.

Standby (aka sleep mode): apm -S sends notebook correctly to standby but I dont'n know how to wake it up .

Suspend (aka suspend-to-ram): apm -s as well as HalfMoon button sends notebook to suspend mode (green power LED is flashing); next clicking of HalfMoon or Power button wakes up.

Hibernation: (aka suspend-to-disk): hibernation is activated by pressing Fn+F12 (button with disc icon). Wakes up with HalfMoon or Power. I don't know how to activate hibernation from apm or other software/kernel call. Hibernation is done directly by Phoenix BIOS; you need hibernation partition. If you have one from your windows instalation don't remove it. If you have not one create primary partition (mine is hda2) with 0a type (IBM Thinkpad hibernation) which is at least X MB where X = size of RAM + size of video RAM + 2 MB. You also need "format" this partition with lphdisk utility. For more information see lphdisk page.

ACPI

If you use acpi for AC power, battery and temperature monitoring it works.

What doesn't work is suspend and hibernation which is shame :-(.

HP f1452c mini-dock

This mini-dock replicates every notebooks' port - 1x serial, 1x parallel, 2x USB, PS/2 mouse, PS/2 keyboard, 2x PCMCIA slots, 1x ethernet LAN, 1x video, audio (headphone, microphone, line). It works in "pass-through" mode so there is no hardware diffrence for linux kernel when laptop is running docked/stanalone. Sometimes it's neccessary to restart network (service network restart) after [un]docking of running machine.

Links

• Linux Laptop pages
• Omke project
• OmniBook mailing list
• Lphdisk page