Linux on Medion 9675 / ASUS L2D

First of all : this laptop works pretty well under linux. Great, isn't it ?

Good looking ?

First thing to know is that your laptop is in fact an ASUS L2000D series laptop !! The picture above was taken from a site on ASUS L2400D laptop ... Constructor's specifications can be found here

Processor	Athlon 4 Mobile 1.2 Ghz
Disk	Hitachi DK23CA-20, 20 Go hard drive
Network Card	SiS 900
Modem	Intel MD563X-HaM V.92
Video Card	SiS 630
Sound Card	SiS 7018 PCI Audio Accelerator
CD Burner	MATSHITA UJDA340 8x2x24

Which, in lspci language is :

00:00.0 Host bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 730 Host (rev 02)
00:00.1 IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5513 [IDE] (rev d0)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 85C503/5513
00:01.1 Ethernet controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS900 10/100 Ethernet (rev 82)
00:01.2 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 7001 (rev 07)
00:01.3 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 7001 (rev 07)
00:01.4 Multimedia audio controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS PCI Audio Accelerator (rev 02)
00:02.0 PCI bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5591/5592 AGP
00:0a.0 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev 80)
00:0a.1 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev 80)
00:0c.0 Communication controller: Ambient Technologies Inc: Unknown device 4000 (rev 02)
00:0e.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB43AB22 1394a-2000 Controller
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS630 GUI Accelerator+3D (rev 31)

Processor

AMD PowerNow technology is supported for K7 in 2.4 and 2.6 kernel. Not all features are supported. I didn't test it yet, but any feedback is welcome :)
For more information, see Linux CPUFreq.

Disk

The Hitachi disk is very noisy : heads just don't stop from parking/moving... this noise is really annoying if you like silence. Last versions of hdparm (5.2 and above) seems to make things better (try -M and -B options with an -ac kernel, which are respectively for Acoustic Management and Advanced power management). You can also try to update the disk's firmware by downloading an update from Dell (I didn't try that but some people reported it made things better...if you try, tell me :))

Network Card

Works out of the box, just build the driver (CONFIG_SIS900)

Modem

You can download the driver from Intel's page, here. The driver works fine. Your kernel have to be build with CONFIG_MODVERSIONS=y

Video Card

You can find the drivers and explanationshere. The work done on this driver is impressive. As of now (September 2003), it is included in the vanilla kernel. The X11 driver on the page above will allow you to use DRI for graphic acceleration.
TV output works great too, thomas has written a small utility to configure everything :).

Sound Card

Works fine with the right driver (CONFIG_SOUND_TRIDENT)

CD Burner

Works fine, configure your kernel for SCSI emulation (see CD-Writing-HOWTO)

IrDa

Not tested, reported to work. See LIRC.

USB

Should work :] depends on your device. Don't forget to load module usb-ohci to get internal USB ports up.

Touch Pad

The Synaptic Touchpad driver works really fine, for the full list of features and installation instructions, see mobilix.org.

ACPI

ACPI works fine with the latest kernel (from 2.4.18). Fan starts at 70 °C, and speeds up at 90 °C. Battery Status is right...wonderful !! I entered Sleep mode once, and the computer rebooted :( ACPI is still in early development, so, don't be too impatient. The good news is that fans work correctly, so you won't burn your Medion if you use Linux.
I use acpid to monitor ACPI events such as Lid Switch, or Power Button. You can associate any action with any of supported events.
The Medion Bios doesn't support APM, only ACPI. ACPI Project
Here is the DSDT table of this laptop

Special Keys/LEDs (AKA acpi4asus)

The driver should support most of ASUS laptop, if it not the case, just send an email to acpi4asus-user@lists.sourceforge.net , mentioning your laptop model, the ouput of the dmesg on driver insmod, and the ouput of "cat /proc/acpi/dsdt" (should be done as root).
Beginning with kernel 2.4.22, the driver is included in the vanilla kernel :)

To download this driver, or for any information please go on the sourceforge page : http://sourceforge.net/projects/acpi4asus/. If you have problems, just send me an email.

Every informations needed should be in the README contained in the package

There is also a ML on sourceforge. Click here to subscribe. This ML is free, anybody who wants to be involved in the driver can subscribe.

Here are some programs/patches to use those LEDs :

I have made a small patch for gkrellm to monitor network traffic and incoming mail. You can get it here. To apply this patch, simply download gkrellm-1.2.13 and apply this patch in src/.
For newer versions of gkrellm (2.1.7a), the patch is better (thanks to Emmanuel BERRE). You can get it here. To apply this patch, simply download gkrellm-2.1.7a and apply this patch in src/.
Martin Domig made a patch for the tleds program, you can get it here

All patches, drivers, are available here

Kernel Configuration

Here are some kernel configs I use :

Last updated on Wed, 03 Sep 2003 03:54:38 +0200
Any questions/suggestion/comment/new feature/feedback ? Mail me