Mitac 7321 Linux Install Guide
Michael Jemmeson - linux@bongolia.org
If you have any additions or corrections for this document please email me.
18th May 2003
Added info on screen and distributions.
4th February 2003
Added Medion MD 5057 to model list
2nd January 2003
Novatech Scholar Plus added to model list.
Modem information updated.
[More hardware updates coming soon]
5th October 2002
Modem works using PCTel driver (see links section)
4th October 2002
Added news that modem, CD writing, Infra-Red, and USB all work - more details to follow.
Many thanks to Lee Simmonds, Martin Sydenham, Ed Voncken, ahimsa and Maria for contributions!
This is a guide to installing Linux on a MiTAC MiNote 7321 laptop computer. It is not intended to be a complete or definitive guide, I am merely sharing what I have learnt - hopefully it will benefit someone else with similar hardware or someone considering purchase of similar hardware.
The MiTAC MiNote 7321 is a popular 'clone' laptop computer. At the time of writing this model is branded and sold in the UK under various names, including:
If you know of any additions to this list please let me know.
I'll be updating this guide as soon as I get more hardware working or find out more about any of the components.
Disclaimer: This is freely available information which comes with absolutely no guarantees. Use at your own risk.
The machine is an all-in-one 'desktop replacement' model which means it's heavy, but has no annoying external components. Having both floppy and CD-ROM drives permanently connected can make Linux installation easier. My machine (a Rock Agenda Si) has a mobile AMD Athlon 4 1500+ which runs very quietly and coolly (when using ACPI) - some other cheap laptops often have standard desktop CPUs which run hotter and which use the laptop battery faster.
Disadvantages of the machine:
The machine is available in 14" and 15" screen versions. Both appear to be identical hardware-wise aside from the different screens - the 14" screen can only manage 1024x768 resolution, whereas the 15" can run at 1280x1024.
Before installing Linux you will need your Windows installation media (if you're making a dual-boot machine), Linux installation media, some formatted floppy disks, and an idea of what partitions you need to make. My machine came with Windows 2000 pre-installed on a single NTFS partition the same size as the hard disk. I reinstalled Windows 2000 to get it to only use a 5Gb partition at the start of the disk. Obviously if you have data you wish to keep you may want to resize this partition using Partition Magic. The (free) GNU Parted program doesn't work with NTFS partitions unfortunately.
The BIOS allows booting from CDROM, which simplifies the Linux installation procedure.
Installing Windows is not relevant to this guide, but I will mention an awkward problem I had. My OEM copy of Win2K only came with a single CD and no boot floppies. These can be made using 'makebt32' or 'makeboot', both found in the 'BOOTDISK' directory on the Win2K CD, and you will need 4 disks for Win2K. However, when I tried to boot from this to test them I got the error 'INS file TXTSETUP.SIF is missing or corrupt', yet I tried several disks and compared the file on the floppy with the file on the CD using the UNIX 'diff' command (they were identical). More annoyingly the computer didn't want to boot from the CD, and the disks worked on a different machine. After fruitlessly searching on the web for an answer, I tried changing the BIOS to only boot from the CD and it worked... very odd.
Before installing Linux you will also need details of all the hardware in the laptop. The MiTAC homepage (see the links section) together with Windows Control Panel may give you the necessary information
Windows 2000 (and possibly NT and XP?) has a useful feature available from Administrative Tools: Computer Management. Right click on 'System Information' and you can send all the data to a text file. A lot of this data is irrelevant, such as which DLLs are installed, but it does give a detailed list of all the hardware. Note sometimes the name listed is not the most common name, but a search on the internet will often find that from the data you have.
The good news is that I had no immediate problems installing Red Hat 7.3 (with the 2.4.18 kernel), and I presume this will be the case for most recent distributions.
More details on each component will appear under this table.
'Identified' lists whether Red Hat 7.3 (kernel 2.4.18) correctly identified the component
| Component | Model | Identified | Compatibility |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | AMD Mobile Athlon 4 1500+ | Y | Supported. 'PowerNow' seems to work under ACPI, but not APM. |
| Power management | ? | ? | BIOS supports both APM and ACPI. Problems with APM - ACPI seems better, but not tested everything yet. |
| Graphics | S3 Twister K | N | Supported. Is another name (laptop version?) for the S3 Savage 4 |
| Screen | ? | N | No problems. Max resolution: 1024x768 for 14", 1280x1024 for 15" |
| Touchpad | Synaptics PS/2(?) | Y | Worked immediately, including basic tapping. Occasionally fails, and not got advanced features to work yet. Might be an ALPS Glidepad instead. |
| Keyboard | ? | N | No problems - am going to try and get the 'Windows' keys working. |
| Ethernet | VIA VT6102 [Rhine-II] | Y | No problems. |
| Modem | PCTel HSP56 MR (Winmodem) | N? | Works using PCTel driver. However, have been informed that you cannot use sound and modem at the same time. Also driver has bug preventing use with certain ISPs. |
| Sound | VIA VT82C686 AC97 Audio Controller | Y | Identified and worked immediately, using via82cxxx_audio driver. |
| PCMCIA | Texas Instruments PCI1420 | Y | Not tested. Correctly identifies them and their contents. |
| USB | ? | ? | Not tested but informed that it works using the usb-uhci driver. |
| Serial port | ? | ? | Not tested. |
| Parallel port | ? | ? | Not tested. |
| Infra-red | ? | ? | Not tested but informed that it works. |
| TV out | ? | ? | Not tested |
| CD-ROM/DVD/CD-RW burner | Matshita UJDA720 DVD/CDRW | Y | Works as CD-ROM with no problems. Not tried DVD or CDRW yet, but informed that CD writing works if SCSI emulation (ide-scsi module) is enabled. |
| 'Easy start' and 'check email' buttons | ? | ? | Not investigated at all - They seem a bit pointless! |
You can get details of the hardware under Linux via more /etc/sysconfig/hwconf and cat /proc/ioports. You will need to run a lot of hardware related commands as root.
The graphics, sound, ethernet, modem and USB controller all appear to be controlled from the same piece of hardware, the VIA KN133 chipset, which consists of the VT8362 and VT8231 controllers (see link at end of document).
The command lspci lists all the PCI devices, viz:
[root@bongolia root]# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8363/8365 [KT133/KM133] (rev 80)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8363/8365 [KT133/KM133 AGP]
00:08.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1420
00:08.1 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1420
00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8231 [PCI-to-ISA Bridge] (rev 10)
00:11.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. Bus Master IDE (rev 06)
00:11.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB (rev 1e)
00:11.4 Bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8235 ACPI (rev 10)
00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 40)
00:11.6 Communication controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. AC97 Modem Controller (rev 20)
00:12.0 Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6102 [Rhine-II] (rev 51)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: S3 Inc.: Unknown device 8d02 (rev 01)
The MiTAC site gives the following details for the CPU:
Check via cat /proc/cpuinfo that your processor has been correctly identified and what options the kernel is running with.
The bios supports both APM and ACPI. Under APM the fan is constantly on (and noisy), the machine gets hot, and the battery and AC power are not recognised. Since I recompiled the kernel to include ACPI support these problems seem to have gone. I haven't looked at the hibernate and suspend functions yet. Note that at the time of writing [08/02] to include ACPI support you need to choose the 'Prompt for development and/or incomplete code/drivers' option at the start (in the 'Code maturity level options' section).
cat /proc/apm shows the APM settings, but you'll need to look up what the numbers mean.
The /proc/acpi directory shows detailed information about the various ACPI components (battery, CPU, AC adaptor etc). After recompiling the kernel with ACPI support I downloaded acpid, a monitoring daemon (link below).
One final problem - sometimes the machine doesn't fully switch off. The fan stops and it appears to all be off, but the machine still feels hot around the CPU and battery several hours later. Not investigated this yet - I just always remember to unplug the power supply - and it may have only been a problem with APM.
The graphics card (S3 Twister K) was not recognised and I chose 'Generic VESA' during configuration of X. It appears this is just a different name for the S3 Savage 4 (this is listed on the MiTAC site) and that it is supported by X. The chip is the '8D02'.
The card can take up to 32 Mb of RAM (16Mb with an AMD CPU) for graphics from the main memory, but I've read that 1024x768 only requires a maximum of 4 Mb graphics memory anyway. I've set mine at 8 Mb currently which I think was the lowest setting.
Section "Device"
Identifier "Savage"
VendorName "S3"
BoardName "Savage"
VideoRam 8192
EndSection
(from /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/XF86Config)
The 7321 comes with either a 14" or 15" LCD screen. The 14" screen will display 1024x768, and the 15" 1280x1024. The 14" screen is possibly a Hannstar HSD 141 PX11, and the 15" possibly a Hannstar HSD 150 PX11-b. The settings I picked for my 14" screen were:
"Generic Laptop Display Panel 1024x768"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "Unknown"
HorizSync 31.5-48.5
VertRefresh 40-70
and:
Section "Screen"
Driver "svga"
Device "Savage"
Monitor "Generic Laptop Display Panel 1024x768"
DefaultColorDepth 16
Subsection "Display"
Depth 8
# Omit the Modes line for the "Generic VGA" device
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 32
Modes "1024x768"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
EndSection
(from /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/XF86Config)
Worked immediately, including the useful tap-to-click mode (which everyone else on the internet seems to hate!). I selected 'PS/2 mouse' and 'emulate 3 buttons' during the installation. The MiTAC page says it's a ALPS Glidepad, but I think mine has been identified somewhere as a Synaptics Touchpad.
To get the other useful advanced features, like the 'Edge Motion' and scrolling I am looking at the tpconfig touchpad driver. After installing the driver and disabling GPM (in the /etc/rc directories) the touchpad kept working, but when I ran tpconfig --help it gave an error. However, it seems tpconfig won't run at all when X is running - running it at a different run level seems to work.
Works with no problems - I intend to get the 'Windows' keys working under X in the near future. The 'Fn' function key and numeric keypad work fine.
VIA VT6102 [Rhine-II]
Seemed to work immediately: ifconfig -a showed it installed as eth0. To use my Blueyonder Cable Modem I simply edited /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 like this:
DEVICE=eth0
ONBOOT=yes
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
and edited /etc/sysconfig/network to turn networking on:
NETWORKING=yes
HOSTNAME=bongolia
and that was it. I've included a some good Cable Modem links at the end of this document which were very useful for general cable modem problems.
Remember to install a firewall before connecting to the internet - I've included some links for this too. A firewall was an installation option in Red Hat: [Red Hat 7.3 firewall documentation]. I think the Red Hat firewall uses ipchains. After rebuilding my kernel, this was switched off and replaced with iptables which is the default for 2.4 kernels.
Windows identified it as a PCTel 'HSP56 MR' - a 'Winmodem'. The PCTel (proprietary) driver works (see link section). However, have been informed that it is not possible to use the soundcard at the same time.
Note: the driver contains a nasty bug which seems to prevent the modem working with certain ISPs, including Freeserve in the UK.
No problems found so far, save for possible clash with modem.
The 7321 comes with 2 Texas Instruments 1420 PCMCIA sockets which will take one double width card or two single width cards. probe shows they've been detected, but I haven't tested them yet.
Not investigated. I don't have any USB devices to test, either. However, I have been informed that it works with the usb-uhci module.
This is a Matshita UJDA720 DVD/CDRW. Matshita are also known as Matsushita and Panasonic. Not sure about DVDs but I have been informed that CD writing works under Linux, providing the SCSI emulation is enabled (using the ide-scsi module). Searching for Linux drivers kept taking me again and again to a Panasonic web page which has Linux drivers for other Panasonic drives but not the UJDA720.
[from others' experiences]
Red Hat 7.3, 8.0 and 9.0 have all been installed sucessfully on these laptops, although the monitor type and graphics card may need to be set. Mandrake 9.0 recognised the screen and graphics successfully. Slackware 8.1 would not boot from the CD or 'startx', needing more information on the screen specs.