The Toshiba Satellite Pro 470 CDT is a small but powerful laptop computer
when used properly. I have used various Satellite Pro laptops for many
years, and have become quite skilled at troubleshooting Linux issues with
installation and configuration.
The computer itself is powered by a 200 mhz Intel Pentium
processor w/ MMX capabilaties. It has an integrated math coprocessor
(good to know for kernel recompiles), and comes standard with 32 mb of RAM,
able to max-out at 160. I run it w/ 64, and have no problems. The
BIOS allows APM, and (thankfully) boot from cdrom. Take note of the
IRQ and io information on page two of the bios (to access this, hold escape
during boot-up, press f1 when instructed, and press page-down to see the second
page).
Here
is some specs for the machine; from Toshiba.com.
I have installed RedHat, Suse, Mandrake, Turbo, Open, Debian, Slackware,
and FreeBSD (as well as some home-brew distros). Support for this model
(and most Toshibas, I imagine) is very good. My distro of choice these
days is Slack-9, but for config purposes, they are very similar. For
most distros, it is a pretty standard installation; just boot from cdrom (or
however you initiate the install). You shouldn't have to do anything
special.
The biggest problem I had with this laptop was getting it online. It
seems that is will not work with most network cards; I have only had
luck with 3com and Linksys pcmcia ethernet controllers. Also, I was
able to connect with a USB Ethernet device (provided by the good folks at
Comcast High Speed Internet). I find that the best cards to use are
from the above-mentioned brands, and be sure to check with interrupts are
being used.
thuis
The next biggest problem was with sound. With any version
that had sndconfig, it was easy; just choose the opl3sa driver. But
with slackware and FreeBSD (and most BSD's, I imagine), I had to do a little
extra work. Here is my modules.conf file
With any version of X prior to 4.2.0, expect problems. Anything
after that, and you should be fine. There is good support for the video
card, which is chips and technologies 6555. There is two mb of video
memory, which is enough to run a basic, no frills X-server. Sorry, no
Quake 3. The mouse is one of cool little eraser jobs, and is set up
as a PS/2 compatable mouse.
APM works well with most distros, but again, Slack and BSD are "special".
You have to either modprobe apm, or place it in modules.conf. May
be possible to put it in rc.modules, but you decide. It lets you monitor
the battery status, as well as standby and suspend mode. A good tool
to have. I also use toshiba-utilities. A nifty little package
that gives you control over the fan, lcd backlight, and other stuff. It
is available from Jonathan Buzzard's
page.
The Toshiba 470CDS uses a ESS688 Audio Drive, which is supported by
Linux under the Sound Blaster driver. This is a 16-bit Sound Blaster Pro compatible.
The notebook comes with integrated speaker and microphone, but you can also
connect an external microphone and/or speaker through standard jacks. The
card is factory configured to use irq 10, but for DOS game compatibility I
reassigned it to use irq 5. If you have problems not hearing the audio, please
try to use a mixer program to set the output levels correctly. You will most
certainly need to recompile the kernel to use the card, so here is my kernel
setup for the sound (I use the sound driver as a module):
There is a program in Jonathan
Buzzard's page, to turn the fan on/off. This is a port of the DOS program
that can be found in
Toshiba's Downloads page (search for fan.zip). I believe it works
with all Toshiba models.
This page is based upon the pages for Linux on the Toshiba
Satellite 100CS Laptop. My Thanks as well to David Hinds, for being so
helpful with my problem with the PCMCIA card, David Bateman for providing
me with a alpha XFree driver before 3.3, and of course Linus Torvalds, for
making all this possible.
This is freely available information which comes with absolutely no
guarantees. Use at your own risk. Neither I nor the persons responsible for
the site in which this page is located work for or endorse Toshiba. All trademarks
are the property of their respective owners..
