This page contains some tips about getting the operating system Debian GNU/Linux running on a Packard Bell V7900 (oddly on the UK site this model can't be found, the link is in Spanish).

Per utenti italiani: mi è stata segnalata una guida all'installazione di linux su PB 7908 (molto simile al 7900).Ecco il link.

1. Hardware specs

2. Debian "etch" installation

2.1 Partitioning

I won't tell you how to partition your hard disk but keep in mind that you shouldn't delete the first FAT32 partition since it's used for recovery along with the PackardBell software.
In my case it is about 7 GB and as far as I remember the Windows XP installer doesn't even detect it.

Personally I always create a FAT32 partition for swapping files between Linux and WinXP but remember about the upcoming stable release of the NTFS kernel module (here) or the ReiserFS driver (here).

2.2 Bootloader

3. Custom kernel

Since the CPU is dual-core and the default Debian kernel doesn't include SMP I strongly suggest to compile your own.
I won't go thru how to build a new kernel, if you're unsure read this (for the debian-way) or this (standard procedure).

Remember to install Debian's kernel-package that contains all the needed tools for kernel compilation.


This is my .config and following are the important features to enable:

3.1 CPU

Processor type and features  --->
 [*] Symmetric multi-processing support
     Subarchitecture Type (PC-compatible)  --->
     Processor family (Pentium M)  --->
 [ ] Generic x86 support
 [*] HPET Timer Support
 (2) Maximum number of CPUs (2-255)
     Preemption Model (Voluntary Kernel Preemption (Low-Latency Desktop))  --->
 < > Toshiba Laptop support
 < > Dell laptop support
 [*] Support for hot-pluggable CPUs (EXPERIMENTAL)
     High Memory Support (4GB)  --->

3.2 Power Management

ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) Support  --->
   [*] ACPI Support
   [*]   Sleep States
   <*>   AC Adapter
   <*>   Battery
   <*>   Button
   <*>   Video
   < >   Generic Hotkey (EXPERIMENTAL)
   <*>   Fan
   <*>   Processor
   <*>     Thermal Zone
   < >   ASUS/Medion Laptop Extras
   < >   IBM ThinkPad Laptop Extras
   < >   Toshiba Laptop Extras
   (0)   Disable ACPI for systems before Jan 1st this year
   [ ]   Debug Statements
   [*]   Power Management Timer Support
   <*>   ACPI0004,PNP0A05 and PNP0A06 Container Driver (EXPERIMENTAL)
APM (Advanced Power Management) BIOS Support  --->
   < > APM (Advanced Power Management) BIOS support
CPU Frequency scaling  --->
   [*] CPU Frequency scaling
   [ ]   Enable CPUfreq debugging
   <*>   CPU frequency translation statistics
   [*]     CPU frequency translation statistics details
         Default CPUFreq governor (performance)  --->
   ---   'performance' governor
   <*>   'powersave' governor
   <*>   'userspace' governor for userspace frequency scaling
   <*>   'ondemand' cpufreq policy governor
   <*>   'conservative' cpufreq governor
   ---   CPUFreq processor drivers
   <*>   ACPI Processor P-States driver
   < >   AMD Mobile K6-2/K6-3 PowerNow!
   < >   AMD Mobile Athlon/Duron PowerNow!
   < >   AMD Opteron/Athlon64 PowerNow!
   < >   Cyrix MediaGX/NatSemi Geode Suspend Modulation
   <*>   Intel Enhanced SpeedStep
   [*]     Use ACPI tables to decode valid frequency/voltage pairs
   [ ]     Built-in tables for Banias CPUs
   <*>   Intel Speedstep on ICH-M chipsets (ioport interface)
   < >   Intel SpeedStep on 440BX/ZX/MX chipsets (SMI interface)
   < >   Intel Pentium 4 clock modulation
   < >   nVidia nForce2 FSB changing
   < >   Transmeta LongRun

3.3 Bus options

Bus options (PCI, PCMCIA, EISA, MCA, ISA)  --->
    [*] PCI Express support
            

What looked like a PCMCIA port is in fact an ExpressCard port and allows you to save a few kb's on your kernel by removing the PCCARD support.

From thinkwiki.org

[..] The ExpressCard slot is a PC Card slot, that is not backwards compatible with the 32-bit CardBus or 16-bit PCMCIA standard.ExpressCard adapters are handled either by the Linux PCI subsystem as hotplug PCI-Express adapters, or by the USB subsystem (depending on the adapter card). [..]

You can get some more info about it on expresscard.org.

3.4 Device drivers

IEEE 1394 (FireWire) support  --->
   <M>   IEEE 1394 (FireWire) support
   <M>   Texas Instruments PCILynx support
Input device support  --->
   <*>   Event interface
Network device support  --->
   Ethernet (10 or 100Mbit)  --->
     [*] Ethernet (10 or 100Mbit)
     [*] EISA, VLB, PCI and on board controllers
       <*>   EtherExpressPro/100 support (eepro100, original Becker driver)
       <*>   Intel(R) PRO/100+ support
   Wireless LAN (non-hamradio)  --->
     [*]   Wireless LAN drivers (non-hamradio) & Wireless Extensions
Graphics support  ---> 
   <*>   Support for frame buffer devices
   [*]   Enable firmware EDID
   [*]   Enable Video Mode Handling Helpers
   [*]   Enable Tile Blitting Support
   <M>   VGA 16-color graphics support
   [*]   VESA VGA graphics support
   [*]   Backlight & LCD device support  --->
     <M>   Lowlevel Backlight controls 
     <M>   Lowlevel Backlight controls
SCSI device support -->
   <*> SCSI device support
   <*> SCSI disk support
   <*> SCSI generic support (may not be needed?)
     [*] Probe all LUNS on each SCSI device
USB support -->
   <*> EHCI HCD (USB 2.0) support
   <*> USB Mass Storage support

3.5 File systems

DOS/FAT/NT Filesystems  --->
   <*> MSDOS fs support
   <*> VFAT (Windows-95) fs support
   (437) Default codepage for FAT
   (iso8859-1) Default iocharset for FAT

4 Graphics support & X.org

The ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 is a pretty good video adapter (benchmarks), you can get over 120 FPS with tuxracer and run the new X server xgl for nice 3D desktop effects.
You will need to build the ATI drivers and use their utility to reconfigure the X.org server.
Everything can be found here and if you want you can take a look at my xorg.conf.

NOTE: A couple of days ago X.org 6.9.0 was replaced in Etch's repositories by the lastest 7.1.1 version.Troble was, the fglrx module (v8.29.6) failed to load and X automatically switched to Mesa drivers (not supporting direct accelleration).

If you are experiencing the same troubles, download & install ATI's drivers for Radeon X1600 from here.

5 Sound

As of 6/9/2006 nobody was able to hear any sound from the speakers; the S/PDIF jack works but has a very reduced sound volume.Neither enabling ALSA in the kernel nor compiling it from source worked, I suggest you to follow up the bug report on alsa-project.org until a solution is found.

11/11/2006 : I have been in contact with several ALSA developers and it seems that Packard Bell implemented its own amplifier between the ALC260 chipset and the speakers.Up till now the only result was to get clean sound from the Line-In jack.

For this you will need to compile alsa-driver, alsa-lib and alsa-utils from source and then load the modules at boot time.You MUST compile alsa-driver with the following options:

./configure --with-debug=full --with-cards=hda-intel --with-sequencer=yes

This is because the ALSA module snd-hda-intel needs to be started with the model=test option in order to enable extra mixer controls.Read here if you're unsure of the procedure.
After booting with the correct ALSA modules run alsamixer and set all the controls to Line Out; now by connecting headphones to the Line In plug (middle one on the laptop's front panel) and boosting LOUT1 volume you will be able to hear sound.

Still no luck with the speakers though..

14/4/2007: Thanks to "pshou" (Realtek employee?) the speakers, headphones, mic&line-in finally work.

A patch was posted on the ALSA bugtrack page solving all the sound issues - since it hasn't been submitted to the ALSA tree yet, I applied the changes to a regular 1.0.14r3 file. You can download it here.

You will need to replace the original "patch_realtek.c" file in alsa-kernel/pci/hda with the patched one. Then recompile ALSA and load the module with option model=pbv7900 .

6 Wi-Fi

To enable and use the Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 follow this procedure.Huge thanks to Christophe!

7 Files

• The 2.6.17.10 kernel .config
• X.org's configuration file xorg.conf
• The lspci -vv output
• My apt's sources.list
• ALSA file patch_realtek.c

Created: 5/9/2006

Edited: 2/07/2007