Linux on the Dell Latitude E6400

Question

Hi,
as there are probably more people than me out there using this laptop i thought it might be a good idea to collect problems/workarounds etc in a nice thread.
For my old Inspiron 6000 there used to be such a thread on the gentoo forums and it was really a great help to get things working.
(I am using the nvidia version, so if there are some problems with the intel graphics please post, so that we can collect them :-))
So lets get to it.
Known Problems:
Video
quick seems to have problems with the intel video, so if anyone has the intel version and has everything running, please help us out
Input
Q: The dualpoint produces erratic movement when eg touching the touchpad while using the trackpoint.
A: There is a patch at the lkml, it implements the 9 byte package format and seems to fix the issues for me[0]. Compiles against 2.6.27-29
Q: Pointstick settings, scrolling with 3rd mouse button
A: add the following to an appropriate hal fdi file
<match key="info.product" string="DualPoint Stick">
<merge key="input.x11_options.EmulateWheel" type="string">true</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.EmulateWheelButton" type="string">2</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.EmulateWheelTimeout" type="string">200</merge>
</match>
Audio related
As of 2.6.29-rc7 : add the following line to eg /etc/modprobe.d/options to make everything work
options snd-hda-intel model=dell-m4-1
If you don't want to upgrade your kernel: have a look here
Q: The Internal mic doesn't work.
A: in the playback tab of alsamixer set 'input source' to 'digital'
   in the capture tab enable one of the capture lines and set the apropriate 'input source' to 'front mic'
Q: The in/out jacks of the dock don't work
A: use import0/import1 from the capture tab of alsamixer to get the output of front/headphone cloned to the dock output,
ex: you want to have output only from the dock: mute front, enable headphone, enable mixer1
misc
Q: Bluetooth - Dell Wireless 370 isn`t working.
A:
$ pacman -S bluez
$ /etc/rc.d/bluetooth start
#make sure bluetooth led shine
$ hid2hci
$ hcitools dev
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Bluetooth
These are all problems i've had so far, if you encountered others or have solutions, please share them :-)
regards
raf
[0] Im a heavy keyboard user and if i use the mouse i only use the trackpoint, so i might have missed something
changelog (newest first):
added solution for doc, internal mic, thanks  w1rele55
fixed typo in bt stuff, thanks golwin
added scrolling with trackpoint
added bluetooth from quick :-)
and thanks moderators for moving this to the aprop section :-)
Last edited by raf_kig (2009-03-19 14:39:46)

Answer 1

raf_kig wrote:P: The Internal mic doesn't work.
S: None so far
Okay, maybe I'm too naive, but I'm using Arch on a Dell Latitude D620 which is the pre-predecessor of the E6400, so this might help you as well.
My mic didn't work at first either, but I just went to my KDE 4.2 Mixer --> configure channels and ticked the checkbox "Capture" and "Digital". Then back in the mixer interface I chose "front mic" from the input source dropdown menu and ticked the "Capture" checkbox.
These might help you as well when it comes to sound:
http://ubuntu-utah.ubuntuforums.org/sho … p?t=616845
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=51246
In my /etc/rc.conf the modules look like this:
MODULES=(slhc tg3 snd-mixer-oss snd-pcm-oss snd-hwdep snd-page-alloc snd-pcm snd-timer snd snd-hda-intel
soundcore !pcspkr !snd_pcsp !bcm43xx ndiswrapper)
That worked for me under KDE 4.2. From your post I realize that you're probably a far more experienced user than I am, but maybe my noobish tipps might help you anyway (if you're using KDE 4). Sometimes it's the small things...
Take care,
Blackhole