[lug] Problems with SuSe 8.0 on Toshiba Tecra 8100

[John Karns]

On Sun, 1 Dec 2002, William Petty said:

> I have been playing with Suse 7.1 on my Toshiba Tecra 8100 laptop for
> a while with excellent results, but could never get the WiFi wireless
> pcmcia card to work.  I am now trying SuSe 8.0 (Which fixed the
> wireless problems) but I now have two issues I can't seem to resolve.
> The sound, which worked OK in 7.1, is now just buzzing.
>
> The sound system is using snd-xxx.o modules which were installed with
> the initial installation.  However, there seems to be no source files
> in the src path with matching names.  The only sound source files use
> the old naming style.  I have rebuilt the modules with make modules,
> but none of the failing drivers were built and the SuSe web site is no
> use either.  This laptop uses the yamaha chip set. and that is what is
> being used, but the sound is clipped to what seems to be a single
> binary level.

The modules you refer to are part of the alsa sound pkg I believe.  Alsa
can be difficult to set up depending on the hardware.  There is an alsa
alternative - sound driver modules which are included in the kernel,
which are available for a wide range of audio chips, but not all.

> The second problem is with compact flash cards (used with my digital
> camera) and ide_cs.o.  The file installed with initial installation
> errors out with "kernel: ide_cs: Card Services release does not
> match!"  I do not understand this one at all!  I cannot find an
> ide_cs.o file but there is an ide-cs.o which doesn't seem to work
> either.  The message log has many references to attempting to load the
> ide_cs.o file after card insertion, but I don't know where the
> dependancies are being set for this file.
>
> I live in Colorado Springs, but have been unable to turn up any local
> experts for Suse. Any suggestions would be helpfull.

Most people on this list use RH or one of it's derivatives.  I've been
using SuSE since 1998 or so.

Kernel module depencies are listed in /etc/modules.conf, which is the
basis of the "modprobe" command.

As of a couple of yrs ago, the pcmcia pkg was integrated into the kernel,
but has some differences from the stand-alone pcmcia pkg.  It appears as
if you may have the stand-alone pkg installed.  Did you install 8.0 as an
update or from a freshly formatted hd?  If the former, perhaps the update
somehow skipped the pcmcia pkg, and you're using the one from your
previous 7.1 install.  Try running YaST to re-install the pcmcia pkg.

In general, there are one or two sites which have extensive info regarding
implementing Linux on laptops.  I have one bookmarked as:

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/linux-laptop/

which is somewhat dated - I think it has since been changed.  Googling for
"laptops" or "kharker" should turn up something.  The site should provide
some clues if not a solution.

One trick is to DL a CD image of a distro which does a better job of
detecting hardare (SuSE Live, and Knoppix are two that I tend to use)
which you can burn to CD then boot from it.  It might be a good idea to
try the SuSE CD 1st, as that's what you're using, and uses alsa.  After
booting from the CD, login and use the 'lsmod' command to view the module
configuration.

----------------------------------------------------------------
John Karns                                        jkarns at csd.net