Linux on a gateway M275 Tablet PC

[psychicc]

Hey everyone, I'm working on my friend's tablet, it's a gateway M275 Tablet PC, and he lost the windows CD, so I'm installing linux on it. I need help primerilly with the drivers. Here are all the problems:

• Sound
• wireless internet
• ethernet
• wireless networking
• tablet monitor with the pen
• buttons
• dial-up modem
• card reader
• USB ports

It would be great if you could help. the specks are all on the gateway site, there's alot too. here's the link: http://support.gateway.com/s/Mobile/...501734nv.shtml

[ladoga]

http://www.linux-laptop.net/

You can prolly find the same components there in other laptops with instructions to get em working.

[psychicc]

nope I coulden't find that model unless I would have read it...

[bb002]

I happen to have this exact tablet pc myself. I've installed Ubuntu Hoary (Breezy doesn't work very well and i'm too lazy to fiddle. Breezy gives off the exact issues you are having now.) and everything worked great, almost.

I got the tablet working by simply adding some config options to the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.

To get the tablet working add this to /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

Section "InputDevice"
	Driver		"wacom"
	Identifier	"cursor"
	Option		"Device" "/dev/ttyS1"
	Option		"Type" "cursor"
	Option		"ForceDevice" "ISDV4"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
	Driver		"wacom"
	Identifier	"stylus"
	Option		"Device" "/dev/ttyS1"
	Option		"Type" "stylus"
	Option		"ForceDevice" "ISDV4"
	Option		"Button2" "3"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
	Driver		"wacom"
	Identifier	"eraser"
	Option		"Device" "/dev/ttyS1"
	Option		"Type" "eraser"
	Option		"ForceDevice" "ISDV4"
EndSection

This also goes in the xorg.conf but inside the ServerLayout section:

	InputDevice	"cursor" "SendCoreEvents"
	InputDevice	"stylus" "SendCoreEvents"
	InputDevice	"eraser" "SendCoreEvents"

In Ubuntu Hoary the wireless worked. I just had to follow a howto to get WPA support for the intel 2200BG wireless card. The how to says to use the latest versions but that didn't work for me, I used the versions listed in the howto. Here's the howto for ubuntu with some luck it'll work on your distro too: http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=26623

The sound worked but for some reason the "external amplifier" (don't know, don't care) was on. after fiddleing in the "volume control" found a switch to turn it off and laptop sound started to work.

No problem with ethernet. Haven't test the modem. The buttons don't work but I have no use for them so i have tried making them work. The usb ports are crap on the m275's! I had issues with them even in windows. Some times the work some times they don't but they work more reliably in linux.

The card reader seems to work off and on in linux, mostly off (haven't figured out why just yet.). works just fine in windows.

I tried mandriva 2005LE on this laptop and it blew up real bad...Then I tried Hoary and I stopped there. Tried breezy when it came out but it broke everything and fixed nothing (fresh install too). I was too lazy to tinker since hoary had worked so well and breezy offered nothing i considered worth the effort.

Yeah my post is mostly biased in favor of hoary but I hope this info is still of use to you no matter what distro you are using. Good luck! see ya.

[leonpmu]

Have you tried Suse or OpenSuSE??

[psychicc]

Ok, what I'll do is try fooling around with the drivers, then if I have any more probs I'll switch to SuSE.

[psychicc]

nope no dice sill, so I will change distros...

[marcusdean.adam]

I managed to get the stylus working, but the cursor is off to the right and down. It's not random, it's a consistent distance to the right and down from the stylus. A friend of mine had a similar problem in Fedora Core 4. I am using Mandriva 2005 LE because no other distro that I had would support my video, even Mandriva 2006. My sound works fine as does my ethernet. My USB ports worked perfect during install, my usb mouse worked fine as did my usb printer, but after install they no longer work. They're in and out, but out for the most part. My wireless card I believe is fine, but I haven't tried configuring it yet because the university network still doesn't support Linux, it requires you to download a Windows certificate. Anyway, I was wondering if there was a way to synchronize the mouse pointer with the stylus so it will work better, and also if there is a way to fix the problem with the USB ports.

[marcusdean.adam]

Correction, the offset of the mouse is not consistent to the position of the stylus, it seems to be exponential because it still doesn't seem "random", but depending on where I start the mouse will get closer until it gets right under the stylus, then as I keep moving it it passes the stylus. Much like a car getting closer and passing another one.