Ubuntu Wiki

• Contact: JenniferHodgdon

• Brand: Everex
• Make : Stepnote
• Model: SA2053T

• Website: http://www.everex.com/products/sa2053t/sa2053t.htm

Current Issues

See Notes section below for issues that were resolved in some way. This section contains issues that have so far not been resolved, and that needed some explanation.

Hotkeys

Display-related hotkeys do not work (brightness, monitor blank, switch monitors). See [https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/hotkey-setup/+bug/128572]. Do not press these keys!

Card Reader

I put a MMC card into the internal card reader (see system info below). It doesn't automount or appear in dmesg.

I looked at the MUSCLE site ([http://www.linuxnet.com/sourcedrivers.html]) for a driver, but the reader on this laptop does not have a driver there.

I also checked this site: [http://kmuto.jp/debian/hcl/index.cgi], following the instructions on the HardwareSupportComponentsCardReaders page, but there were no drivers for the card reader. I also checked the other links from HardwareSupportComponentsCardReaders, but no luck.

Note: Someone [http://megawiki.org/wiki/DimitriS420] has a laptop with the same card reader working with the SDHCI driver. The kernel I am using does not have SDHCI in it (see Notes below). So maybe if I can get a kernel with SDHCI in it to work on this computer, it will recognize the card reader.

A generic USB external card reader that I plugged in worked just fine with an MMC card, by the way.

Modem

The modem (Motorola SM56) on this system is not working. After installing the sl-modem-daemon package (compiled from source), various pieces of software say they can see the modem, but it's not actually dialing out.

System Info

## cd /var/lib/acpi-support/ ; grep . -r *-*)
bios-version:080013
system-manufacturer:Everex Systems, Inc.
system-product-name:Everex StepNote Series
system-version:To Be Filled By O.E.M.

## lspci -nn output:
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub [8086:27a0] (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:27a2] (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller [0380]: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:27a6] (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller [8086:27d8] (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 [8086:27d0] (rev 02)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2 [8086:27d2] (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #1 [8086:27c8] (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #2 [8086:27c9] (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #3 [8086:27ca] (rev 02)
00:1d.3 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #4 [8086:27cb] (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller [8086:27cc] (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge [8086:2448] (rev e2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge [8086:27b9] (rev 02)
00:1f.2 IDE interface [0101]: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) Serial ATA Storage Controller IDE [8086:27c4] (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus [0c05]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller [8086:27da] (rev 02)
03:04.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ [10ec:8139] (rev 10)
03:06.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394) [0c00]: O2 Micro, Inc. Firewire (IEEE 1394) [1217:00f7] (rev 02)
03:06.2 Generic system peripheral [0805]: O2 Micro, Inc. Integrated MMC/SD Controller [1217:7120] (rev 01)
03:06.3 Mass storage controller [0180]: O2 Micro, Inc. Integrated MS/xD Controller [1217:7130] (rev 01)

## Output of lsusb for internal USB device 
## (The internal wireless card is a Micro Star USB wireless card with a Ralink RT73 chip)
## (The Logitech mouse is connected to one of the 3 externally-visible USB ports, and
## was used for testing USB)
Bus 005 Device 004: ID 0db0:6877 Micro Star International 
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 004 Device 003: ID 046d:c50e Logitech, Inc. MX-1000 Cordless Mouse Receiver
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000 

## Graphics glxgears benchmark:  
## which glxgears | xargs strings | grep benchmark | xargs glxgears
avg is about 4400 frames in 5.0 secs = 884 FPS

Hardware details

Notes

This section lists notes of issues that were resolved.

Install

The Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Faun installer ISO disk downloaded on July 23 2007 (using kernel 2.6.20-15-generic) does not work out of the box. This Everex machine has the same issue as the Averatec and other laptops mentioned on this page: [http://www.fitzenreiter.de/averatec/index-e.htm], which is that the installer CD does not boot. It hangs in the hardware detection phase.

I tried a bunch of different boot options mentioned on various Ubuntu forums, and also a bunch of different distros (Fedora, Mandriva, Knoppix, Simply Mepis), and none of them worked.

The installer download available on the site above ("doesn't contain the SDHCI module and a 8139too module compiled for PIO only access") allowed Ubuntu to install normally.

Screen Resolution

After installation, the maximum screen resolution shown in System / Preferences / Screen Resolution is 1024x768. The native resolution is 1280x800. Installation of 915resolution and a reboot fixed this issue. Command:  apt-get install 915resolution 

Wireless

Wireless did not work out of the box on this laptop, which has a Ralink RT73-based USB wireless card, on an internal USB bus (i.e. the card is not removable). The symptom was that the Network Manager could sometimes scan and detect local access points, but it would not connect to them (it would time out eventually; message on screen was "Waiting for Network Key"; dmesg reports timeout). This happened with both open access and WEP.

I tried several remedies from several sites, and finally got things to work as follows. See [https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Device/Belkin_F5D7050_ver_3000_%28Ralink_rt73_driver%29] for more information, but note that there is one step missing (see below).

• Download the driver source from Ralink ([http://www.ralink.com.tw/Home/Support/Linux.html]). Make sure to get the latest USB-version for the RT73 chip.

• Extract all the files, cd to the Modules directly. chmod 755 and fromdos all the files.
• Follow the instructions in the README file to build, install, and configure the driver. The instructions on the site above are missing a step or two!
• Follow the instructions on the site above to modify the /etc/network/interfaces file. Note that I do not know if this is necessary or not.

It appears to me that if I want to go to an open-access wireless area, if I reboot (or restart the network), I think it will automatically connect. But so far I have only connected to the wireless router(s) in our house.

Wired networking automatically kicks in when the network cable is plugged in too. Success!

CD/DVD Drive

This computer has an internal CD/DVD RW drive. The CD portion worked initially without any trouble. Playing DVD movies also works fine, after following the instructions on [https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats], using the Xine player. Burning a CD also works fine, out of the box.

CategoryLaptop