Array 5 liveCD - report (X11, ide issues; suspend success)

[Zack Weinberg]

Matt Zimmerman <mdz at ubuntu.com> writes:

> On Sun, Feb 20, 2005 at 02:53:49PM -0800, Zack Weinberg wrote:
>
>> The first problem I was hoping to solve, is that since upgrading to kernel
>> 2.6 and ACPI (which has otherwise been quite nice, e.g. battery life is
>> improved) I have not been able to use suspend-to-RAM.  This used to work
>> perfectly with 2.4 and APM.
>>
>> I'm pleased to report that
>> following the directions at http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/HoaryPM
>> also works perfectly, from a text console or from an X session.  (A
>> minor improvement would be, from an X session, to present the
>> xscreensaver unlock dialogue immediately on resume - I had to guess
>> that the reason I was seeing a black screen was because the
>> screensaver was active.)
>
> These two statements seem to be in conflict; the instructions on HoaryPM
> include setting up suspend-to-RAM.  Does this mean that suspend-to-RAM works
> after you follow the instructions?

Yes, that's what I mean.  I think your confusion is because the first
statement refers to my old Debian installation whereas the second
refers to Ubuntu (either running from liveCD, or now actually
installed).

>> While I'm complaining about X issues, this annoyance isn't fixed in
>> Ubuntu either: If I am in an X session, and I close the lid, when I
>> reopen it the backlight does not turn back on.  I must press Fn+F8
>> (the magic direct-to-BIOS sequence to switch between the LCD panel and
>> the external VGA connector).  I then get a garbled screen.  Switching
>> to a text console and back corrects the display.  David Dawes gave me
>> to understand this was fixed in the XFree86 4.4 "nv" driver, so I was
>> really hoping it would be fixed in Xorg whosis as well...
>
> Please report a bug (Package: xserver-xorg).

Will do so.

>>  - The LiveCD boot sequence should notice when no network adapter
>>    has a good link-layer connection, and not bother running the DHCP
>>    client.
>
> It already does that; if it doesn't work for your hardware (with the
> latest daily live CD), then either the driver lacks the capability
> to detect linkbeat, or there is a bug.

Well, now I have the OS installed to the hard drive and I'm not
particularly eager to download the whole live CD again just to test
this.  I can tell you that the driver for the onboard Ethernet socket
appears to be 3c59x, and that "cat /sys/class/net/eth0/carrier" prints
"cat: <path>: Invalid argument", which would seem to point at a driver
bug; I am only guessing that that is the relevant sysfs file,
however.  This with linux-image-2.6.10-4-686.

>>  - The initrd loads every single IDE driver with -k, and then tries to
>>    remove all the unnecessary ones later.  Since they were all loaded
>>    with -k, this fails.
...
> This works fine for me (the modules are removed as should be expected).
>
> If it isn't working for you, it certainly isn't because of the -k option.
> modprobe -k <foo> is exactly equivalent to modprobe <foo> with
> module-init-tools.

Hmm.  This seems to have gone away now that I have the OS installed to
the hard drive -- lsmod prints all sorts of drivers I've never heard
of, but not the enormously long list of unwanted IDE drivers all
tagged unremovable.

>>  - Sound does not work, except that mysteriously it starts working
>>    after a suspend/resume cycle.  (AC'97 sound chip, IIRC.)  In Debian
>>    it doesn't work at all.
>
> Please file a bug with the relevant dmesg output.

This problem has also mysteriously gone away.  Sound now works from boot.

> Additionaly, there have since been further refinements, and there are no
> longer any passwords set on the live CD at all.

Glad to hear it.

>>  - The only documentation on the livecd is for the installer, which is
>>    not particularly useful.  A README at top level, including all the
>>    stuff that's in the F1-F10 boot help screens, plus other useful
>>    info (such as the root password ;-) would be really nice.
>
> There is no password, and I'm not sure that I understand the value of
> duplicating the information available in the help screens. 

Having booted the live CD, it is not obvious where to look for the
information in the help screens.  I'm sure it's hiding somewhere on
the CD, but a top-level README would be much easier to find.

> Is there something in particular that you feel needs to be
> documented, which is specific to the live CD?

Nothing comes to mind now that there are no passwords anymore.

zw