Linux on the Compaq Armada 4120T
by Santiago Romero

INTRODUCTION

I started by taking a look at the _great_ Linux on Laptops Page (located on http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/linux-laptop/, and the links to another Compaq Armada 4120T users that you can locate on the Laptop Guide. I found there a good guideline to start on, but I discovered some funny things on the way to install Linux on it...

I'll be brief because there is lot of useful info here duplicated from the right links of the Linux Laptops Page, and due to my poor english :-(. This text is written readers having some knowledge about partitions, hardware, how to install Linux, etc.

COMPAQ ARMADA 4120T (Hardware)

     - Pentium 120 processor.
     - 16 MBytes of RAM (I have 24, by adding 4+4 Mb on the 2 expansion slots).
     - 1Gb of IDE harddisk (Fujitsu).
     - SoundCard SBlaster compatible ESS1788 (integrated).
     - 1 parallel port (bidirectional by default).
     - 1 serial port (DB9, COM1).
     - TV-OUT and Monitor-OUT exits.
     - A ps/2 entry for mouse or keyboard.
     - Cirrus Logic GD7548 with 1Mb of videoRAM.
     - 1.44Mb Floppy disk (can be extracted to put an CDreader).
     - Color TFT Display.
     - TouchPad emulating a PS2 mouse (works together with the external mouse).

PARTITIONS ON COMPAQ ARMADA

In my case I had no BIOS partition so I couldn't enter the BIOS. I went to Compaq's Webpage and entered on "Software And Drivers", section "Laptops: Armada Family", subsection "4100 Family" and finally clicked on "Windows 95", as Compaq only gives software for Windows, and as under Windows98 there was no all the software available. I downloaded all the programs on that page for the Compaq 4100 family. Those included a ROM upgrade, a program for changing the Parallel Port mode, another one to reprogram the Custom Keys, Diagnostic Utilities, and ... the SETUP PARTITION and DIAGNOSTICS floppy disk. I found too (searching by hand) a PHDISK.EXE program.

My Laptop came with a 1Gb Windows FAT16 partition, that I reduced to 350Mb using Partition Magic (yes, I know I shouldn't use it :). Then I moved the partition up by 4Mb to leave space for the setup partition. After that, I ran the PHDISK.EXE program, that creates a 16-24Mb partition (in my case 24Mb) to flush the RAM in when suspending the Laptop, and save more battery when suspending the system. PHDISK created it at the end of my HDD, and left 4Mb more (for future upgrades?). I'm still not sure if this is needed on my Laptop. If not, please report to me and I'll delete the Hibernation SuspendToDisk partition and use those 24Mb for the /root directory under Linux :-).

NOTE: I've finally formated that partition as EXT2 and I've mounted it under /root/files (a 24Mb partition where saving the kernel sources on .tar.bz2 and deb files of programs I don't use often), because I've heard that the SuspendToDisk partition is only needed to use the special HYBERNATION function of some O.S. . So really you don't need to run PHDISK to create the SuspendToDisk partition: you can suspend the system normally without that partition. This gives you 16/24 extra MB for the Linux partition.

After that I created both the SETUP and DIAGNOSTICS floppies that allowed me to create the System Partition. Since that moment I can enter into the BIOS-Setup by pressing F10 during startup.

That BIOS partition is /dev/hda1 for Windows' FDISK and /dev/hda3 for Linux's fdisk. Thanks to LILO we can boot to the setup partition directly (I added an entry called "setup" to boot /dev/hda3 and enter the BIOS without using F10).

At this moment I created the Linux native and Linux Swap partitions (650 and 70Mb, respectively). Executing "fdisk /dev/hda -l" outputs something like:

 Disk /dev/hda: 64 heads, 63 sectors, 527 cylinders
 Units = cylinders of 4032 * 512 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
 /dev/hda1             3       166    330592+   6  FAT16
 /dev/hda2   *       167       512    697536    5  Extended
 /dev/hda3             1         2      4000+  12  Compaq diagnostics
 /dev/hda4           513       525     26208   a0  IBM Thinkpad hibernation
 /dev/hda5           167       477    626944+  83  Linux
 /dev/hda6           478       512     70528+  82  Linux swap

 Disk /dev/hda: 64 heads, 63 sectors, 527 cylinders
 Units = cylinders of 4032 * 512 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
 /dev/hda1             3       166    330592+   6  FAT16
 /dev/hda2   *       167       512    697536    5  Extended
 /dev/hda3             1         2      4000+  12  Compaq diagnostics
 /dev/hda4           513       525     26208   83  Linux
 /dev/hda5           167       477    626944+  83  Linux
 /dev/hda6           478       512     70528+  82  Linux swap

INTALLING WINDOWS 95 (before Linux, to save LILO)

It used about 100Mb (plus 50 of the instalation directory) so I still have about 150Mb free, that I've used to install some abandonware (LEGAL) games such as Worms, Lemmings 95, Populous 2, SimCity and so on. Remember that those games are legal as can't be sold anymore. Also I installed funny and small games that use the mouse for playing (I use an external PS2 mouse) because in my ZX-Spectrum times I always broke the O, P, Q, A and SPACE keys due to the use, and I don't want to break this keyboard too just playing. I installed also ZSnes, a SuperNES console emulator (and some of the games I have on my real SuperNES).

INSTALLING LINUX

 dd if=file_to_write of=/dev/fd0

After that just put the RESCUE disk into the floppy drive and restart. Then install Linux as you usually do it :-) (read the Debian documentation at the Debian CDROM if you don't know how to install Linux). This will give you a Debian Linux BASE System of about 25 Megabytes with no X and just the basic packages...

I solved this by connecting an external modem (SupraExpress) to the Laptop, configuring a PPP connection with pppconfig (very easy) and connecting to my ISP. The apt-get command is very useful under Debian, just connect, do an apt-get update, and then you can install the program XXX by writing "apt-get install XXX" and pressing enter. Remember that there are TASK packages used to install lots of packages and their dependencies easily (search them by using apt-cache search task ).

I started to install some task and standard packages (such as task-x-window-system, task-c-dev, and so on) and I've ended (5 hours later) with a fully functional Linux Debian potato including XWindow 3.3.6 with ICEWM and BlackBox Window Managers, WordPerfect 8 for Linux, AbiWord suite, XSpreadSheet, C/C++ compiler, XChat IRC client, netscape 3.04gold, gftp, Vim, w3m/links/lynx, mc, mutt, slrn, Perl, wuftpd, ircd, Samba FS support, XVNCviewer, snes9x-svga, wget, xpaint, xpdf, xnetload, xv, and all the basic stuff such as at, lpr, pcmcia, cron, and a big list of things that used about 270Mb of harddisk. I still have more than 300Mb free under the Linux partition and about 100Mb under the Windows partition.

I've still not recompiled the Linux kernel (although I have the sources installed) because I always use modconf (o debconf-tiny) to install the hardware support as modules, such as sound or pcmcia support.

As this is no a Linux tutorial, I'll stop describing what I installed and how: I'll asume you know how to use Linux and Debian, if not just ask on IRC or newsgroups :-) or ask me if you have any doubt of the installation procedure.

I use the following /etc/lilo.conf file to boot the system:

# /etc/lilo.conf - See: `lilo(8)' and `lilo.conf(5)',
 lba32
 boot=/dev/hda2
 root=/dev/hda5
 install=/boot/boot.b
 map=/boot/map
 prompt
 delay=80
 timeout=90
 vga=normal
 append="apm=on"
 default=linux

 # Linux partition
 image=/vmlinuz
	label=linux
	read-only

 # Windows partition...
 other=/dev/hda1
	label=win
	table=/dev/hda

 # Compaq LAPTOP setup partition...
 other=/dev/hda3
	label=setup
	table=/dev/hda

SOUND CONFIGURATION

 options sb irq=5 io=0x220 dma=1 dma16=7 esstype=1788

After that change, the sound worked perfectly and I could heard MP3 and another kind of sounds (snes9x emulator sounds) under Linux. Remember that you just need the sb module to have sound (modconf will load the soundcore and sound modules needed to use the SB main module).

XFREE86 CONFIGURATION

# XF86Config file for the Compaq Armada 4120 TFT LCD
# XFree86 3.3
Section "Files"
  RgbPath  "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
EndSection

Section "Keyboard"
    Protocol	"Standard"
    XkbRules	"xfree86"
    XkbModel	"pc102"
    XkbLayout	"es"
    AutoRepeat	500 5
EndSection

Section "Pointer"
    Protocol    "PS/2"
    Device      "/dev/mouse"
    Emulate3Buttons
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
  Identifier    "Compaq Armada 4120 TFT LCD"
  VendorName    "Compaq"
  ModelName     "Armada 4120"
  Bandwidth 100.0
  HorizSync 31-69
  VertRefresh 55-120
  ModeLine "800x600"  45 800 840 968 1056 600 601 605 628
#  ModeLine "800x600"  36  800  840  856 1000 600 608 616 632
  ModeLine "640x480"  25.175 640 664 760 800 480 491 493 525
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Cirrus CL-GD7548"
    VendorName  "Cirrus"
    BoardName   "CL-GD7548"

    VideoRam    1024
    Chipset     "clgd7548"
#    Clockchip   "cirrus"
    Option	"linear"
    MemBase	0x40000000
#    Option      "mmio"
#    Option      "fifo_conservative"
#    Option      "no_accel"
#   Option	"no_bitblt"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Driver      "svga"
    Device      "Cirrus CL-GD7548"
    Monitor     "Compaq Armada 4120 TFT LCD"
    DefaultColorDepth 16
    Subsection  "Display"
        Depth       8
        Modes       "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubsection
    Subsection  "Display"
        Depth       16
        Modes       "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubsection
EndSection

I created a .icewm directory on my home and copied to it the /etc/X11/icewm files so that I can configure all the ICEWM menues as user. Take a look at this files to know how to add programs to the menu or the toolbar: it's very easy and this way I added a nice menu with all the programs on my computer. I installed wterm as XTerminal (it uses very low memory) and created links on the ICEWM menubar to open lots of console applications under wterm, such as: For SVGALIB based programs, I changed the /etc/vga/libvga.conf and set the graphical chipset used to the standard VGA, as the Cirrus chipset was not working, at least under snes9x. Just discommenting the VGA chipset option I could use SVGAlib programs under 320x200 (mainly snes9x, the only one I usually execute).

 prog BitchX xterm wterm -bg black -fg gray -font 7x13 -e BitchX

The XVNCviewer client allows me to connect to my big PC (that has the vncserver installed) and use KDE 2 and StarOffice under my laptop when someone is using the main computer (for web surfing, and so on).

I had problems using the mouse under X when gpm (console mouse) was enabled, so I disabled it by removing the link on /etc/rc2.d (then is not launched during system startup at runlevel 2, the one I'm using). The /dev/mouse file is a link to /dev/psaux. I think that X and GPM can coexist if I link /dev/mouse to /dev/gpmdata, but as I use X most of the time, I've not tested it.

PLIP COMMUNICATIONS WITH ANOTHER LINUX MACHINE

Serial NULL-MODEM cables use SLIP, and Parallel NULL-PRINTER cables use PLIP. The second one protocol (using the parallel port) is lots of time faster than using a serial cable, so I bought a 2 meters INTERLNK PARPORT CABLE (I believe is the same than a LAPLINK cable) for about 5 US$ and connected the two computers following those steps:

On both machines I added the following to /etc/hosts:

 192.168.69.1       ppc
 192.168.69.2       ptatil

Use this on the Laptop part to stablish the plip0 link under 2.2.x kernels:

 rmmod parport_pc
 rmmod parport
 insmod parport
 insmod parport_pc io=0x378 irq=9
 echo "9" > /proc/parport/0/irq
 insmod plip
 cat /proc/interrupts
 ifconfig plip0 ptatil pointopoint ppc up
 route add ppc dev plip0
 route add default gw ppc

 9:     1     XTPIC    parport0

On the Big PC part, do (in my own case):

 rmmod parport_pc
 rmmod parport
 insmod parport
 insmod parport_pc io=0x378 irq=7
 echo "7" > /proc/parport/0/irq
 insmod plip
 ifconfig plip0 ppc pointopoint ptatil up
 route add ptatil dev plip0

The best service is IPMasquerade. If you know how to install IPMasquerade on the big PC, and if you have an Internet connection on it, you can ALSO use Internet on the Laptop simultaneously using the PLIP interface as a gateway. Read the IPmasquerade howto to install the right modules and activate IPforwarding and then use the following IPCHAINS rule:

 ipchains -A forward -s 192.168.69.0/24 -j MASQ

To disable PLIP, run the following on both machines:

ifconfig plip0 down
rmmod plip
rmmod parport_pc
rmmod parport

If one of the parallel ports is faster than the other, then you could get some errors in the console, as:

 PLIP0: Transmit Timeout (1,80).

For more info, read the PLIP and PLIP-Install Linux HOWTO.

ETHERNET PCMCIA NETWORK CARD

# Network adapter configuration
# Automatically generated during the Debian installation
# The address format is "scheme,socket,instance,hwaddr".
case "$ADDRESS" in
*,*,*,*)
	IF_PORT="auto"
	PUMP="n"
	# Host's IP address, netmask, network address, broadcast address
	IPADDR="192.168.5.69"
	NETMASK="255.255.255.0"
	NETWORK="192.168.5.0"
	BROADCAST="192.168.5.255"
	GATEWAY="192.168.5.1"
	DNS_1="192.168.5.1"
	;;
esac

STILL UNCONFIGURED

• IRDA: I can see an IRDA0 interface when running ifconfig, but I've never used it. Is supposed to be used by programs like PALM-Link (to communicate with a Palm Pilot) or similar.

UPDATED: Ian R. Justman told me the following by email:

 I had been having trouble getting my Palm m100 to talk to my desktop PCs
 running Linux, yet it works fine on my laptop, not only wired... but also
 via IrDA (in fact, I got IrDA working --FIRST--).

 The thing is you have to treat the IrDA as a serial port.  If you go into
 the setup program, it is the second port you set up.  The first one is the
 DB-9 serial connector.

 Was fully able to communicate with it using PPP; haven't tried syncing
 yet, though given my success doing it wired (which for whatever reason I
 cannot do on my desktops), it should work fine.

 I was also able to do syncing using pilot-xfer.


Thanks a lot Ian for the info :-)

PROBLEMS UNDER LINUX

• I noticed the harddisk was parking the headers all the time, doing lot of noise under Windows. This is due to the fujitsu drive, that parks it's headers 5 seconds after the last disk access. As Linux uses the update daemon to sync and flush the harddisk cache every 5 seconds, the update+fujitsu combination produce lots of noise by accessing disk and parking headers all the time. I solved this by editing the /etc/rcS.d/S10checkroot file and changing the line:

  [-x /sbin/update ] && update

  by

  [-x /sbin/update ] && update -f 300 -s 300

  This forces Linux to flush and sync the HDD buffer every 5 minutes instead of 5 seconds, so I stoped to heard the continuos noise I was hearding. But that was no the end, because I found in the Compaq Web (in the same page as SETUP, DIAG and DRIVERS) a FUJITSU FIRMWARE UPGRADE that changed the "after-5-seconds-park-headers" to "after-more-seconds-park-headers", so now my Laptop makes no strange noises while I'm using it.

  To check if your laptop has the latest firmware just make a disk access (ls /usr by example) and wait. If you hear a sound after 5 seconds, you have the same problem I had. If you use the standard update flushing time, imagine the anoying FLUSH-noise-FLUSH-noise chain that I was hearing all the time...

• When you are under MSWindows and you reset the system to boot Linux, the graphics under XWindow system appear broken. It seems that Windows does something to the display that later affects to Linux. So just don't use reset, just poweroff and then power on you laptop.

• The parallel port needs of a msdos parport.exe file to change the parallel port type between normal, bi-directional, ECP and EPP. If needs to be launched each time you boot the system, and the BIOS has no option to change this, so I can only use BI-DIRECTIONAL mode (default) under Linux. This is not a problem as my ZIP drive, my HP690C printer and my parallel cable for plip connections work perfectly.

• When you return for a system suspend (with apm --suspend or by pressing the Suspend button of the Laptop), the keyboard on the terminal you used to suspend the system starts working strange. Just disable the Scroll Lock and NumLock keys (FN plus the End-Pause-Atn keys on the keyboard) to disable that strange effect, or change to another virtual terminal.

ENHACEMENTS FOR MY LAPTOP

I have also an (PC standard) LG 4X IDE CDRom drive I want to connect to my computer attaching it to the parallel port using an IDE-to-Parallel interface and the Linux PARIDE kernel module. I'll explain here all the process when I find a cheap IDE-to-Parallel interface.

Finally, my Laptop has no GAME/JOYSTICK port, so I can't plug in a Joystick or Joypad to "save" the keyboard when playing games, or simply for better gameplay, so I've decided to BUILD an JOYSTICK-to-PARALLEL_port adapter. On http://www.emulatronia.com (in spanish and English) there is a section where explains how to adapt SuperNES, MegaDrive/Genesis or PSX pads to plug them to the parallel port, including DirectX and MSDOS drivers for using them. Linux includes too the joy-db9 and joy-console drivers to use those joypads under Linux (and a .txt file to show how to build the adapter), so I'm going to use one of my SuperNES pads to play ZSnes, snes9x and Windows games. I finally succeded on my idea thanks to Jolu, who send me a PSX to LPT adapter you can also find in Emulatronia.

FEEL FREE TO CONTRIBUTE

Santiago Romero Iglesias AKA NoP/Compiler
compiler@escomposlinux.org
http://www.escomposlinux.org/sromero

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