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Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation

Started by Shai, 2008.07.03, 11:46:10

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Sigurd

 ;) Hi,

I replaced Danis506.add with the new version 1.8.5 (in RC 5 there is 1.8.4) and as Daniela Engert mentioned in the "changes" of this version: Experimental support for "Atom"

I have not had a crash for a longer time now, rebooted ten times, seems to be more stable now :o

Sigurd

Shai

thx, I will try this. Maybe it helps with the eCS installer, too.
I just completely trashed my eCS installation while trying to access the eCS JFS partition from Linux - I've got a XUbuntu now (in fact I'm currently posting this on my netbook running XUbuntu).

Another tip: According to Heise (http://www.heise.de/newsticker/Aldi-Netbook-im-Linux-Test--/meldung/110422/from/rss09) the LAN device of the Medion Akoya "shuts down" when Windows shuts down, so you need to remove the batteries and reattach it after every Windows shutdown, to be able to use it from a non-Windows system. Maybe that helps with eComStation, too. But don't pay too much attention to the Heise article - it contains some mistakes. Especially regarding the chipsets. The LAN is Realtek RTL8102E and Wifi is Ralink RT2860 - it's not yet supported by the latest Genmac (Ralink package) - I managed to check that when it still worked. Maybe we should simply ask the author to add support of RT2860.

DavidG

#17
During install, eCS 2 RC5 uses the Dani 1.84 version.  However, the 1.85 version is installed to the system.  Dani's 1.85 will be used totally in RC6.  I found this information in the eCS bugtracker.

People need to investigate the eCS bugtracker.  There is a wealth in information to be found in it.

Sigurd

Thanks for the information!

We are now some hours later - I left the akoya aside - and now - trying to boot after using windows:


trap 0008


............


Thats enough for me.....

I will try later, may be it is because of the network card, that is a good hint! It may be that I usually say "restart system" when shuting down windows and starting ecomstation - then it is working. But when I shut down the Computer with windows and try again later, then the trap 0008. With the network card seems to be logical... But, the weekend is over, I'll try later on.


Shai

I don't want to draw conclusions too quickly again but when I switched to the old IBM IDE controller driver I was able to boot the installer three times in a row which seems incredible unlikely if I recall that I tried it dozens of times yesterday without making any modifications. I'm using the IBM driver for my new installation - let's see what happens...
Regarding the LAN device: Genmac (the old one for LAN devices) doesn't seem to detect the chipset, even after the battery reattachment, so my tip was probably worthless :(

Shai

furthermore after trying a lot of different configurations, HPFS and JFS with and without ACPI/APM, I'm nearly convinced that it's impossible to boot eCS reliably. Of course there's more we could try: Find out where *exactly* the trap 0008 occurs. Must be one of the last things before starting PMSHELL - I cannot get to the command line either. I used the IBM IDE controllers for my latest test, so I could repeat everything with DANIS 1.85. Also I didn't try the SMP kernel and/or the OS2LDR replacement. Finally, I could still try to install without Uniaud as it may be another source of errors.
I cannot exclude the possibility that there is a configuration that works but I need much more time...

Shai

I've managed to find a configuration which seems to be stable. The trick (this is called a strategy I think) was to start with a minimal configuration, see how it works and then add drivers step by step. I started without any IFSs (except JFS), DANIS506 1.85, without floppy, cdrom (and I won't enable both of them even if they work), USB, audio, network, ACPI, APM.
I found that ACPI, APM and audio (at least Uniaud itself) don't make any problems. I rebooted very often and it worked every time. "Power off" works, too. But suspending doesn't - I cannot restart properly or Uniaud causes a crash if - not so important anyway. The battery widgets work fine. I don't know whether the CPU speed adjustment tool by Sungsoo Khim works. It runs but I never saw it actually throttling the CPU.

Ok, then I tried to enable USB again. USB controller drivers (UHCI/EHCI)
were no problem - I have them activated currently, but if I enable USBD.SYS, it suddenly stops to work. I deactivate it, it works again...
It seems to be similar with the eCS installer.
@Sigurd:
Maybe you can verify that. What happens if you disable all USB related stuff in your config.sys and does the other stuff work if it's disabled?

I tried several usbd.sys and all of them failed. Didn't someone recompile the USB stack? I'd like to try it. I heard it wasn't helping very much but if would work poorly, that's better than no USB support at all.
But why always depend on the work of others. I am a C developer myself and I'm familiar with x86 assembly, although I don't have any driver experience. So maybe I should have a look. The trap/lock must have a particular cause. Are the sources available? There are a lot of modified versions around. The problem is that USBD.SYS itself doesn't crash, it crashes later after all BASEDEV/DEVICE drivers have been loaded.

Another problem is sound and multimedia. Uniaud 1.14 RC6 appears to work but I couldn't get MMPM/2 installed, which is necessary- it seems - for most multimedia apps as it includes DART (seems like that at least). It somehow wasn't installed by eCS even though I know exactly that "Multimedia" was activated. If I try to execute MINSTALL in \CID\SERVER\MMECS\BASE, it prompts me to insert the eCS CD... I tried to install it manually (according to my workstation's config.sys) - I thought some drivers would be sufficient to get it to work at a basic level. Of course I know that it also includes WPS classes which need to be registered. Nevertheless, after that procedure it worked partly, at least MINSTALL thought the subsystem was installed and I could try to install MMPM/2 as a multimedia package (there was a control.scr), which didn't work. Does the installer work with audio drivers only? At least it looked like that. Using the "selective install" feature (Warp 4 installation procedure???) to install Multimedia support didn't do much, too regardless whether I have some of the drivers loaded via config.sys or not.
Any idea how to install it? Do I have to fake that there's a eCS CD via ramdisk (USB stick won't work, s.a.) or are there alternative installers? Sound is a must-have.

Regarding LAN support: Rumour has it that there are undocumented switches for the old Genmac driver and the readme says that too (without telling us the switches!!). Does anyone know them? Only the elders could still know them...
Also, I found a Realtek package on Chuck McKinnis' NICPACK page (http://www.os2warp.be/index2.php?name=nicpak): http://www.os2warp.be/nicpak/files/realtek.zip
It states to have support for "RTL820x" chipsets, I will try it soon.

Regarding WiFi, I will soon write to the Genmac mailing list and ask for support of that particular chipset.

In the meantime, we just have to stay optimistic. :)
After all, who spends days installing a poorly supported OS without any enthusiasm?

cheers,
Robin

Sigurd

#22
Hi Robin!

Well Done! Will try this in the evening. Really well done!

Regarding Minstall:

The same happended to me several times. The Multimedia folder was not created, only a few files have been copied. I could see a short message (appears only for seconds) during install phase 2, close to the end, when the installer says " error 0003 can not find directory " (I do not remeber exactly) - but:

this never happend to me, if I formatted the ECS_CDRUN drive with HPFS and installed from that again.

So I always did two installations: the first using FAT, then started eCS, formated the ECS_CDRUN with HPFS, startet installation again. I had to do so, because Partition Magic 8 I use with Windows does not support formatting HPFS.


Will inform you about any progress I make, stay tuned for more :-)

Sigurd

The Blue Warper

Hi, Robert and Sigurd!

Sorry for not being able to contribute to your discussions more than this (as I haven't got such a netbook as yours), but there's a thread on the eComStation newsgroup which *might* be related with your Multimedia issue:
http://news.ecomstation.com/article.php?id=2443&group=ecomstation.beta#2443

Good luck!

Shai

Quote from: Sigurd on 2008.07.08, 14:01:46
...

Regarding Minstall:

The same happended to me several times. The Multimedia folder was not created, only a few files have been copied. I could see a short message (appears only for seconds) during install phase 2, close to the end, when the installer says " error 0003 can not find directory " (I do not remeber exactly) - but:

this never happend to me, if I formatted the ECS_CDRUN drive with HPFS and installed from that again.

So I always did two installations: the first using FAT, then started eCS, formated the ECS_CDRUN with HPFS, startet installation again. I had to do so, because Partition Magic 8 I use with Windows does not support formatting HPFS.
...

thanks, that helped. I've now got sound :)

However the Realtek 810x driver, it comes with eCS by the way, did not work. It says that no PCI card was detected or something.

Sigurd

Hi,

I have to give up - because I (as a suprise) can not (even with DFSEE) get eCS to see the ECS_CDRUN any more. I dont know why this happened, but even if I delete all LVM entries, update the MBR and so on and so on and so on, the CD always says: insert ecomstation cd-rom.

This is really getting on my nerves, I did have problems while doing this with the EEE, but there was always a way to get through, but this time it seems I have done something wrong with the HDD. But - not Partition Magic nor DFSEE shows any errors. I really did anything I now, totally installed everthing (Windows) new and so on.

So, I will leave some free space at the HDD and install eCS once it is able to install it from an USB Drive. If this will not be possible, than "thats it".



Sigurd

Comeback  ;)

Finally I did it. eCS and XP with the Bootmanager together... The only way was to totally clean the HDD with the DFSEE BootCD and to create everything from Scratch.

You can see a picture of it here:

http://www.commtalk.org/FileRepository/ForumAttachments/5-75921-Akoya.JPG

Tasks to be still open (and have to be done, in case not eCS will not fit the MSI Wind, it will not be really usable):

USB
WLAN
LAN
and possibly the resoltution 1024 X 600


Cheers

Shai

Hi,
I've commented this: http://en.ecomstation.ru/hardware.php?action=item&id=1471

like I said: I couldn't get LAN or WLAN to work with Genmac 2.2 in "UNSUPPORTED" mode and I'm pretty sure I've done it the right way. When I've got more time, I'll write to the Genmac mailing list and ask for support in a future version - but it won't come in the very short term.
Currently, the machine works but is useless - you must boot into another OS to transfer any data to or from eCS. JFS access works fine in Linux, by the way but I looks like you need root user permissions to access an already mounted JFS partition. Wouldn't be that surprising, but the ECS_CDRUN partition (HPFS) can be accessed by any user - which is how I configured both partition mounts in fstab... Furthermore I haven't found a way to "clean up" the filesystem (unlock it when it is in a "dirty" state, like you would do with CHKDSK) via Linux yet.

I've spent a lot of money on this (by my means) and I won't give up so easily.

@Sigurd:
regarding USB, I've sent you a personal message (Forum->My Messages).

cheers,
Robin

Shai

The problem with the RT2860 driver is that it requires a firmware. Discovered that after consulting the Genmac log and after googling the issue. I read that it should be included in the Windows SYS file which makes sense because the Windows driver doesn't contain any extra firmware files. Genmac however is unable to read it (I guess) and expects to find a RT2860.BIN and RATE.BIN which contains the firmware. I could find a RT2860.BIN in the Linux driver distribution but I'm still looking for the RATE.BIN or a way to extract it from the SYS file. I guess this should be a feature of Genmac and I should really write to the mailing list for that reason. Otherwise the WLAN driver appears to work, LANTRAN.LOG reports that the hardware was initiated successfully and I've got an interface (NETSTAT -N). However it's not recognized as a WiFi driver by XWLAN probably because of the firmware problem.
The Realtek driver doesn't report any problems in the Genmac log but LANTRAN.LOG says that the hardware couldn't be initialized. I used the driver from the driver CD and the device ID PCI.EXE reported matches device IDs in the driver's INF file so I'm pretty sure it's the right driver.