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Installing Ubuntu on Toshiba Satellite L305D-S5890

Last updated: June 27, 2009

General Hardware Specifications of Toshiba:

Hardware Components	Status under Linux	Notes
AMD Athlon X2 64 QL62 GHz	Works	No special procedure required during installation.
15.1 SXGA+ TFT Display	Works	Select Generic LCD Display in Installer
ATI Video ( Radeon HD 3100 Graphics )	Works	Installed ATI/AMD proprietary FGLRX graphics driver (from System->Administration->Hardware Drivers)
4GB, SDRAM, 2DIMMs	Works	No special procedure required during installation
500GB Seagate Hard Drive	Works	No special procedure required during installation (replaced existing Toshiba 150GB drive)
Floppy Drive	Not used.
Integrated Network Card	Works	No special procedure required during installation.
Internal Modem	Not used
DVD SuperMulti Drive	Works	No special procedure required during installation
Internal Wireless	Works	Do NOT install alternate Atheros "madwifi" driver.
Lithium-Ion Battery	Works	No special procedure required during installation
Sound	Works	No special procedure required

This laptop is operating under Kernel version 9.04

Basic Installation of Ubuntu:

Get Ubuntu 9.04 here.
Ubuntu is installed in second boot partition alongside Windows XP (after replacing Vista with XP on new machine)
Post-Install modifications/tweaks
- Had to go to System->Preferences->Keyboard->Layout and select Toshiba keyboard, and the only one available was for the S3000 series. It didn't help much (see Unresolved issues)
- Added WINE

Setting up additional features for Ubuntu 9.04

Just needed to get the right keyboard driver and graphics driver installed.

Unresolved Ubuntu issues

Cannot get FN <F-key> to work for keys F1, F2, F4-F9 and F12. Hence, unable to use external monitor or change display brightness.

Unresolved WINE issues

Cannot get Safari 4 to work under WINE - possibly due to running a 32-bit program on a 64-bit machine.
Cannot get Quicken 2007 to work - it installs, but crashes when attempting to open a valid file.

Configuration Files

Did not need to modify any configuration files.

More Specific Information. Specific stuff such as:

df -hl:
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda5             144G  8.0G  129G   6% /
tmpfs                 1.8G     0  1.8G   0% /lib/init/rw
varrun                1.8G  216K  1.8G   1% /var/run
varlock               1.8G     0  1.8G   0% /var/lock
udev                  1.8G  160K  1.8G   1% /dev
tmpfs                 1.8G   76K  1.8G   1% /dev/shm
lrm                   1.8G  2.5M  1.8G   1% /lib/modules/2.6.28-13-generic/volatile

lspci:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] RS780 Host Bridge
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] RS780 PCI to PCI bridge (int gfx)
00:04.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] RS780 PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 0)
00:05.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] RS780 PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 1)
00:06.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] RS780 PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 2)
00:07.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] RS780 PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 3)
00:11.0 SATA controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 SATA Controller [IDE mode]
00:12.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB OHCI0 Controller
00:12.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700 USB OHCI1 Controller
00:12.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB EHCI Controller
00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB OHCI0 Controller
00:13.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700 USB OHCI1 Controller
00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB EHCI Controller
00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 SMBus Controller (rev 3a)
00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 IDE Controller
00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)
00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 LPC host controller
00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 11h HyperTransport Configuration (rev 40)
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 11h Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 11h DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 11h Miscellaneous Control
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 11h Link Control
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RS780MC [Radeon HD 3100 Graphics]
04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 02)
05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)

Contact Information

e-mail address: john-at-jrcarter-dot-com

Links:

Toshiba drivers for this laptop

Pidgin and Skype work.