By Veit Wahlich, version 2008-11-21.
This is a report on installing Fedora 10 on the Samsung NC10 @nyNet netbook. It discusses what components of the device work under Linux or how to get them working.
I netinstalled Fedora 10 via PXE/TFTP and HTTP transport without any problems. It should work likewise from USB storage class harddisk or CDROM/DVD media.
This table applies to the Samsung NC10 @nyNet as sold in Germany in October 2008, including a 160 GB HDD instead of 120 GB, but no Bluetooth or HSDPA module.
| Component | Type | Driver | Does it work? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Graphics |
Intel GMA 950 i945GSE integrated shared memory IGP with 3D capabilities |
intel (xorg) | works out of the box |
| Harddisk |
Hitachi Travelstar 5K320 (HTS543216L9A300) 160 GB SATA disk drive with 8 MB cache at 5400 U/min |
none required | works out of the box |
| Display |
LVDS 1024x600 pixels 10.2" TFT with adjustable LED backlight and left-to-right RGB subpixels |
XRandR extensions for backlight control, supported by both GNOME 2.24 and xbacklight | works out of the box |
| External graphics |
VGA connector secondary graphics output to either extend or mirror the primary screen |
configurable through XRandR extensions and corresponding tools | works out of the box |
| Sound |
Intel ICH7 High Definition Audio ICH7 integrated HDA controller |
snd-hda-intel | works out of the box |
| WiFi |
Atheros AR242x IEEE 802.11abg PCIe controller |
ath5k | works out of the box |
| Wired network |
Marvell 88E8040 Fast Ethernet PCIe controller |
sky2 | works out of the box |
| Webcam |
Z-Star/Namuga 1.3M Webcam USB video class webcam device with up to 1280x1024 pixels |
uvcvideo | works out of the box |
| Touchpad |
Synaptics Touchpad touchpad with horizontal and vertical scroll bars |
synaptics (xorg) | works out of the box |
| Memory card slot |
Alcor Micro Multi Flash Reader USB storage class memory card reader for SD, SDHC, MMC and MMCplus cards |
usb-storage | works out of the box |
| Keyboard |
Samsung full size keyboard antibacterial ("silver nano") keyboard |
none required |
works but needs tweaking see "Keyboard Special Keys" below for details |
Suspend to RAM works out of the box.
Suspend to disk works out of the box.
The keyboard has numerous special keys (or "multimedia keys"). Some work out of the box, such as audio volume control or suspend keys, but other keys' scancodes are unknown to the system.
If you want to use those keys, configure keycodes for their scancodes using the "setkeycodes" utility. You should first clear the kernel backlog using "dmesg -c" as root, then press all the special keys you want to configure. Now run "dmesg" again to see the unknown scancodes. Use the setkeycodes tool to assign keycodes to unknown scancodes and write the assignment commands to i.e. /etc/rc.d/rc.local, so they are configured at system boot.
I configured keycodes for the brightness control keys to send the default XF86MonBrightnessUp and XF86MonBrightnessDown event keycodes by running the following commands (as root):
setkeycodes e008 225 setkeycodes e009 224
Unfortunately with the current kernel the keys bounce infinitely, so I did a workaround using xbacklight. See "Binding Hotkeys for Brightness Control" below.
As of this writing, backlight brightness control can only be done through the XRandR backlight extensions, which is supported by Fedora 10's GNOME 2.24 backlight control applet. But you might also control it using the xbacklight tool, run "yum install xbacklight" to install it.
To lower brightness by 10%, run "xbacklight -dec 10", to rise brightness by 10%, run "xbacklight -inc 10" and to set it to 50%, run "xbacklight -set 50".
As the brightness control buttons (Fn+Up/Fn+Down) do not work correctly with the current kernel, I configured the combination Control+Up/Control+Down as a work around solution instead. This also offers the ability to control brightness with only one hand. I installed xbacklight as described above and configured metacity global hotkeys through gconf.
You might run the following commands (as your desktop user!) to configure it likewise:
gconftool-2 --type string --set /apps/metacity/keybinding_commands/command_5 "xbacklight -inc 10" gconftool-2 --type string --set /apps/metacity/keybinding_commands/command_6 "xbacklight -dec 10" gconftool-2 --type string --set /apps/metacity/global_keybindings/run_command_5 "<Control>Up" gconftool-2 --type string --set /apps/metacity/global_keybindings/run_command_6 "<Control>Down"
The IEEE 802.11abg WiFi card built into the device works out of the box as a kernel 2.6.27 is shipped.
The ath5k module from Linux kernel 2.6.27.5 showed low signal strength and some packet loss on the air. I archieved better results after installing the development driver 2008-11-21.
If you want to install the development drivers as well, run the following commands (as root) in the directory you extracted from the source tarball. Be warned that compilation will take about 50 minutes to complete on a Atom CPU (there are many drivers and the current wireless subsystem to be compiled).
make install make unload make load
As of this writing, only some ATI drivers in the Fedora-patched kernel 2.6.27.5 support KMS (kernel mode-setting), so the new "flicker free" graphical boot experience using Plymouth is not available for this device. But you can at least activate Plymouth for plain old graphical boot (which is still pretty cool for a notebook or desktop).
Unfortunately I was not able to find a supported VESA mode for 1024x600, so I used mode 0x315 which is 800x600px at 24/32bpp. If you find a better one, please let me know! (See contact information below.)
To enable graphical boot at 800x600px, append the parameter "vga=0x315" to your kernel lines of your Grub configuration at /boot/grub/grub.conf, so every boot menu entry looks like this (Do not simply copy this, your kernel version might and your rootfs UUID will differ!):
title Fedora (2.6.27.5-117.fc10.i686) root (hd0,0) kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.27.5-117.fc10.i686 ro root=UUID=de82ef6a-5cf2-4dd5-afe0-847587cf4613 rhgb quiet vga=0x315 initrd /initrd-2.6.27.5-117.fc10.i686.img
The Samsung NC10 netbook comes with Windows XP SP3 ULCPC in a so called recovery edition on CD-ROM.
Fortunately the recovery volume is a real Windows XP recovery disc, not only a harddrive image like shipped by some other netbook vendors, so the disc can easily be turned into a universally installable CD-ROM/ISO image, i.e. to legally re-use it for a VirtualBox virtual machine.
On a netbook screen, space, especially vertical space, is somewhat precious. So I mangled the nice Metacity theme Gray-Flat and did a Gtk2 theme using the Nodoka Gtk2 engine optimized for small screens, fast rendering and battery saving.
The theme is called "Cru Gray Netbook", you may download a RPM file (likely installable on all RedHat-/Fedora-based GNU/Linux distributions) here: cru-netbook-theme-1.0-1.fc9.noarch.rpm
To reduce the font size, I set the display resolution to 75 DPI in appearance properties -> fonts -> details. The font sizes were left at 10pt, but I increased the window title font size to 11pt. Fonts use RGB subpixel rendering. See screenshots below.
If you have questions or comments regarding this report, feel free to contact me at cru [AT] ircnet [DOT] de.
For further information on running Linux on this device, visit the report index and the TuxMobil website.