You might remember a while back that I was fighting to get Ubuntu to run smoothly on my Toshiba laptop – A Satellite C650 – and ran into a few issues where connectivity was concerned, as in, there wasn’t any. The kernel didn’t recognise understand or know what to do with the Ethernet adaptor or the wireless card.
Well I’ve been hammering at it and still can’t get the damn thing to work. There are lots of people on the ubuntu forums that have run into the same situation, both with the L650 and the C650. It seems that a BIOS update for the L-series fixes a lot of issues, but there’s not one available for my laptop – serves me right for getting a Toshiba, they’re always trouble, but damn it, it was cheap… learn from this fail. You get what you pay for. Just because it’s a big names brand, doesn’t mean it’s going to do all the things you want it to.
So for the moment I’m learning, trying – and for the most part succeeding in loving Windows 7. It’s fine, but it’s not what I want. Ideally I want to hackbook the laptop so I can have a 15″ widescreen mac at less than half the price, but again, it’s too new and a decent iso hasn’t come to the world yet, and I’m damned if I’m going to spend my time making one, I just don’t have the patience – the ability I do have, just not the inclination to do it.
This remains the situation at the moment. I think I’m going to go out and get some fresh air on this final bank holiday of the year… it’s sunny outside, and I need to get out the house!
Hi Phil,
Just a few moments ago I noticed your comment on omgubuntu about your wireless not working with Ubuntu.
I checked, it will probably work in the next release Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat.
You might need to specify acpi=copy_dsdt at the commandline on startup (for example in grub), but other then that I expect it to work.
I think it is solved based on that I noticed it needed a copy_dst-patch:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1301101&page=8 http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9317100&postcount=11
And the kernel 2.5.35.3 which the new release will use already seems to include that patch.
You could try downloading a beta-release live-cd right now and see if it works:
http://www.ubuntu.com/start-download?release=pre
When you try the livecd, before it starts up you might need to hold a shift-key. You should press F6 and a list of kernel startup arguments will pop up, you will need to press ESC and type the extra arguments acpi=copy_dsdt at the end of the commandline which comes up.
The instructions for changing the settings in /etc/default/grub are on the threads above.
The final release of this version of Ubuntu should be next month.
Have a nice weekend,
@silentlennie on Twitter.
Ohh, the reason why a standard kernel/default options did not work with your laptop is because the (BIOS ?)manufacturer messed up when implementing the BIOS. The BIOS gives information about the system to Linux but they made a total mess of it. The kernel developers have a workaround, but not a real solution yet. That is why you need to specify something at the end of the kernel startup arguments.
I downloaded beta 3 when it was released and installed it on a second HD I put in the laptop… Ethernet works ok, but still no wireless… I started the process of installing the madwifi atheros drivers, but swiftly got bored.
I’ll wait until the RC of 10.10 and see where we’re at. I regret buying this laptop. Should have got the Lenovo Edge, but this was heavily discounted, so I bought that and an iPad for the same money.
Did you atleast like the iPad ?
I don’t think I could ever buy one, I’m not much of a consumer, if I don’t want to do anything there is television and I have real books. Although the technical books I do have I don’t have time to read all of them lately.
I think the iPad is great. It’s by no means ‘magical’ as decribed by messers. Jobs and Ive, but it’s certainly a thing of beauty and function. I’d like to see it with iOS4.x and proper multitasking. I’m an Apple fanboy at heart, but I enjoy using Linux and contribute to a weekly gathering about moving over to and using open source software. Ubuntu makes the most sense to use as it’s the distro that most people have head of over any other – apart from the hardcore of linux geeks that say FreeBSD is king, and all others with their gaudy GUIs are just poor relations of the original code.
But I don’t talk to them much.
I’m going to try the method as described in that link you posted. Thank you for that. I’ll let you know how I get on.
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