Linux on the MSI S270

This page is based on Bodo von der Heiden's MSI S270 Page (German). Another source of information was Basile STARYNKEVITCH's page

I try to collect all necessary informations to work around known problems. The assumption is that you have a x86_64 version of SuSE Linux installed; if you have a different version (Debian, e.g.), things should work just as well.

I've now installed SuSE 10.0 on the machine, and updated the list.

Problem: Clock runs at twice the speed

Solution: Start the kernel with noapic option.

This problem doesn't occur with SuSE 10.0.

Problem: Kernel hangs when probing the USB system

Solution: Use irqpoll option as suggested by the error message.

This problem occurs only with SuSE 10.0.

Problem: The INPROCOMM IPN2220 doesn't have a native Linux driver.

Solution: Download the Windows x64 driver (found on Planetamd64).

To install it, you need version 1.4 of ndiswrapper (from CVS). This one works (tried it), other versions are reported not to work (by Bodo). Install the kernel source module from SuSE to compile it. Enter this in a console (the make install needs to run as root).

cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ndiswrapper co -r VERSION_1_4 ndiswrapper
cd ndiswrapper
export INPROCOMM_AMD64=1
make
make install

The INPROCOMM_AMD variable is important; if you don't set it, ndiswrapper will crash. Now, unzip the Windows driver and do

ndiswrapper -i neti2220x64.inf

You should see that the driver is installed with ndiswrapper -l.

The following is very SuSE-specific. To include this driver into the Yast2 configuration framework, open up the "Network Card" configuration in the "Network Devices" section. You'll see the WLAN module as unconfigured entry. Select it and click on "Configure". Change the type to "Wireless". Under "Advanced"->"Hardware Details", set "Module Name" to ndiswrapper.

The remaining settings then should work like any other WLAN card - you need an ESSID, an authentication method, and the key. I can report success now, Bodo managed to make it work with ndiswrapper 1.4, and I also found an access point to try it.

Caveat: You need to recompile ndiswrapper by hand when you do a kernel update. Don't forget to set INPROCOMM_AMD64=1 then again.

The sound driver is a ATIIXP driver; Alsa supports this driver in general, but a small detail is missing. If you use the ATI driver as is, you won't hear anything through the speakers, and a small signal through the headphone. The sound problem is discussed in detail on the Alsa list.

I didn't compile a new driver, but added the workaround to the /etc/init.d/alsasound script.

--- alsasound.orig      2005-06-11 03:45:58.000000000 +0200
+++ alsasound   2005-09-02 22:52:36.000000000 +0200
@@ -103,6 +103,9 @@
       fi
       echo -n " ${i##snd-}"
       /sbin/modprobe $i && module_loaded=1
+      if [ "$i" == snd-atiixp ]; then
+       echo 7a 2090 >/proc/asound/card0/codec97#0/ac97#0-0+regs
+      fi
     fi
   done
   rc_status -v -r

You should run alsamixer to set the volume and the muting. Mute the microphone for better sound quality.

Sound works out of the box with SuSE 10.0.

Problem: The only driver found is the framebuffer device; slow and bad quality (1024x768).

Solution: Install ATI's proprietary driver.

• Go to ATI's driver download section
• Click on "Linux Drivers and Software"
• In the "Linux x86_64" part, select "Motherboard with ATI Graphics"
• Click on the link called "ATI Proprietary Linux x86_64 Driver for XFree86 / X.Org Version 8.18.8" (the version will change in future, for sure)
• Download the Xorg driver.
• Install it with rpm -i file. You may need to uninstall the fglrx packet provided by SuSE first.

It looks like you have to create an account at this site to successfully download the driver - otherwise you'll only download a HTML page which tells you that you aren't allowed to download the driver.

If you use the ATI package with the plain vanilla kernel from SuSE 10.0, you won't be able to insert the fglrx module. You'll see the following error in your /var/log/messages file:

... kernel: Trying to register duplicated ioctl32 handler c0246400
... kernel: [fglrx:firegl_init_32compat_ioctls] *ERROR* unable to register ioctl32 0
... kernel: [fglrx:firegl_init] *ERROR* Couldn't register compat32 ioctls!

The solution is to configure out DRM in the kernel and recompile. Do the following:

cd /usr/src/linux
zgrep -v DRM /prog/config.gz >.config
make
make install

This is my xorg.conf. You can go through the fglrxconfig yourself, and then add the two lines to the Monitor section:

  DisplaySize  260 162
  Option      "dpms"

Problem: Log file reports "unknown device Bay1Controller" when inserting a SD-card.

Solution: None, so far. There's no documentation available for Ricoh's R5C576A. A request for documentation was already turned down.