Frequently asked Linux-specific questions about the Compaq Contura Aero

Authors:
Ali Albayrak <albayrak@helsinki.fi>
Harald.T.Alvestrand@uninett.no (HTML and maintaining)
Purpose:
This FAQ is written in order to be useful for those Aero users who are installing or already using Linux system with their Aero.
Disclaimer:
The authors take no responsibility for the correctness or completeness of any information in this FAQ, and will take no legal responsibility for any damage caused by using the information presented in this FAQ.
Copyright:
Copyright (c) 1995-1996 Ali Abayrak and Harald T. Alvestrand
Reproduction in whole or in part for any purpose is allowed, provided proper attribution is maintained.
For DOS-related subjects, and subjects not related directly to Linux, you might find the answer in another Aero FAQby Renee Roberts <Renee@cup.portal.com>, or at Philip Wilk's Aero page (by <pwilk@garnet.berkeley.edu>), or Reed Wade's OS overview for info on what OSes run on the Aero.

More generic info on laptops and Linux can be found at Kenneth Harker's Linux Laptop home page.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents
1. Technical features
2. Why doesn't the floppy drive work?
3. Why doesn't the floppy drive work after a SUSPEND?
4. Why doesn't the trackball work with Selection?
5. I can't access the setup of the Aero
6. Why can't I boot from the floppy drive?
7. How long does the battery last?
8. ROMPAQs? (or why don't Fn+F6 and Fn+F7 work)
9. How can I use PCMCIA cards under Linux?
10. What should I use for an X configuration?
11. My clock stops when I press Suspend
12. Does the DOS emulator run?
13. Where can I get other info about the Aero?
14. What expansions are available for the Aero?
15. Why doesn't the disk stop?
16. Why is the BogoMips rating so low?
17. I bought 20 Mbytes of memory, but only see 16 of them?
Ongoing investigations
The floppy driver

1. Technical features

The following is picked from tsx-11.mit.edu:/pub/linux/packages/laptops/laptop-survey
From: ..................................... Ali Albayrak <albayrak@helsinki.fi>
Laptop Make and Model: .................... Compaq Contura Aero 4/25
CPU.speed, type, upgradeable.to: .......... 25MHz, i486SX/SL, -
Disk size, type, upgradeable.to: .......... 84 MB / 250 MB, IDE 2,5" slim
RAM  size, type, upgradeable.to: .......... 4 M, ?, 12 MB
Screen size, type: ........................ 8" (mono LCD) VGA
Max battery life while running linux: ..... < 4 h
Weight with battery: ...................... 1,6 kg
PCMCIA number of slot, type, bridge chip: . 1, Type II CSSI 2.01, -
Mouse, Track Ball (location),   etc.: ..... PS/2 type, trackball right-front
Docking capability: ....................... yes, very cheap
Power conservation: ....................... APM, works under Linux
Misc neat stuff: .......................... - smaller than A4 sheet!
........................................... - floppy optional but recommended
........................................... - a bit noisy hard-disk
........................................... - excellent keyboard
........................................... - small power-adapter
........................................... - very Linux-compatible despite
...........................................   PCMCIA-floppies and other
...........................................   weird stuff
Linux Version: ............................ 1.0 (Slackware 1.2.0)
X386 (color, gray) monitor specs: ......... ?
Networking (dlink/pcmcia modules): ........ ?

From: Harald "T." Alvestrand <Harald.T.Alvestrand@uninett.no>
Laptop Make and Model:                      Compaq Aero 4/33C
CPU speed, type, upgradeable to:            33MHz, 486SX, no upgrade
Disk size, type, upgradeable to:            250 MBytes, 170 MB possible
RAM  size, type, upgradeable to:            8 MBytes, 4M default
Screen size, type, upgradeable to:          8" passive matrix color LCD, no upgrade
Battery type (lithium-ion,NiMh,NiCd):       NiMH
Max battery life while running linux:       Approx 2-3 hours
Weight with battery:                        1.9 kgs
PCMCIA number of slot, type:                1, type II
PCMCIA bridge chip (intel, cirrus, databook, etc.): intel
Mouse, Track Ball (location), Pen, IBM thingy, etc.: Trackball lower RH corner
Docking capability:            No, expander does only ext. screen and so on
Power conservation:            APM BIOS support
Misc neat stuff:               Keyboard up against screen (Apple layout)
Linux Version: 1.1.20
Networking (parallel/portable/pcmcia modules): Working on it - SLIP at the moment
X386 (color, gray, chipset) monitor specs:  X386 1.2.2 VGA_16 at 640x480

Compaq corp. has put out a Web server; the info on the Aero, with lots of pictures, is here. As usual, the stuff you really want to know is missing...

Anyway, the official picture is here.
There's a picture of the motherboard there too!

More tech info, garnered from various sources:

2. Why doesn't the floppy drive work?

Linux doesn't love PCMCIA floppy controllers yet.

To get it to work:

3. Why doesn't the floppy drive work after a SUSPEND?

1. [Q]	Why my floppy drive does not work after I have suspended the machine
	and then waked it up?

   [A]	You have to enable option "Power ON in PCMCIA slot when
	suspended" from the setup 
		(main menu):Power Management:More
	Now drivers from the drive won't dissappear but however power
	is consumed more while machine is suspended.

META A.A.:	I have to check if details of this are correct
This was the experience of Ali M. Abaryak. Later (Oct 95), David L. Johnson <dlj0@lehigh.edu> reported that he couldn't get it to work. Perhaps it doesn't work after all.

4. Why doesn't the trackball work with Selection?

   [Q]	Why my trackball does not work properly when I run Selection
	(the program that allows Cut&Paste in virtual consoles)?

   [A]	Aero's trackball is PS/2 compatible and in some versions of
   	Selection there has been bug in PS/2 support. Following patch
	for version 1.5 is picked from sunsite.unc.edu and is written by
	<hjl@nynexst.com>:

H.J.
-----
*** mouse.c.orig	Thu Jun 17 19:11:04 1993
--- mouse.c	Fri Feb 11 20:56:26 1994
***************
*** 154,160 ****
      {	0xe0,	0x80,	0x80,	0x00,	3	},  /* MMSeries */
      {	0xe0,	0x80,	0x80,	0x00,	3	},  /* Logitech */
      {	0xf8,	0x80,	0x00,	0x00,	5	},  /* BusMouse */
!     {   0xcc,	0x00,	0x00,	0x00,	3	}   /* PS/2 */
  };
  
  static void
--- 154,160 ----
      {	0xe0,	0x80,	0x80,	0x00,	3	},  /* MMSeries */
      {	0xe0,	0x80,	0x80,	0x00,	3	},  /* Logitech */
      {	0xf8,	0x80,	0x00,	0x00,	5	},  /* BusMouse */
!     {   0xc0,	0x00,	0x00,	0x00,	3	}   /* PS/2 */
  };
  
  static void
***************
*** 209,216 ****
  	return -1;
      }
  
!     if (mtype != P_BM && mtype != P_PS2)
      {
  	ms_setspeed(9600, mbaud, cflag[mtype]);
  	ms_setspeed(4800, mbaud, cflag[mtype]);
  	ms_setspeed(2400, mbaud, cflag[mtype]);
--- 209,224 ----
  	return -1;
      }
  
!     switch (mtype)
      {
+     case P_BM:
+       break;
+ 
+     case P_PS2:
+       write (mfd, "\364", 1);
+       break;
+ 
+     default:
  	ms_setspeed(9600, mbaud, cflag[mtype]);
  	ms_setspeed(4800, mbaud, cflag[mtype]);
  	ms_setspeed(2400, mbaud, cflag[mtype]);
***End-of-patch***
******************

5. I can't access the setup of the Aero

If you have installed LILO to a partition (typically by specifying boot=/dev/hda2 in /etc/lilo.conf, and making that partition "active" using FDISK), the problem doesn't appear.

If you have got LILO installed into your master boot record you must uninstall it from hard disk, add setup partition to LILO or boot with diagnostics diskette of Aero.

META A.A.: I'm not sure about that BIOS date, because I got one version of May 94 and it hasn't got this option.

META A.A.: Someone should upload the image of diagnostics diskette somewhere in Net (I would also need it ...))

6. Why can't I boot from the floppy drive?

4. [Q]  Why my PCMCIA floppy-drive doesn't boot?

   [A]  To be able to boot your machine from floppy-drive your BIOS
	must be dated 7. March 1994 or later. Contact your Compaq
	dealer for upgrade.

7. How long does the battery last?

5. [Q]  How long you can operate with one charge (NiCa battery)

   [A]  If you don't use any Advanced Power Management options
	less than 2 hours. With suitable APM options on up to
	4 hours.

8. ROMPAQs? (or why don't Fn+F6 and Fn+F7 work)

[Q]
Aero's Fn+F6 and Fn+F7 keys does not do what they should.
[A]
This happens with some newer BIOS upgrades. If you have upgraded your BIOS from diskette of Compaq Care you can find backup of your older BIOS from that diskette. Just boot the machine with the diskette and follow the instructions. Of course you should do this only if your previous BIOS did not have this problem. I am using BIOS 7th of March 94 and you might find it from ftp.compaq.com.
NOTE: The BIOS upgrades for the Aero are available by FTP from www.compaq.com; the documentation is NOT set up for easy parsing, but the latest seems to be the one called sp1992.exe, with documentation in sp1992.doc according to the listing (May 15) Other numbers that seem to be BIOS upgrades are sp1487.exe, sp1331.exe, sp1291.exe, sp1073.zip, s0946.zip, sp0896.zip, sp0762.zip and sp0723.zip.

I downloaded all the PAQs to an UNIX box and checked them out:

According to Ali Abaryak, the BIOS dated June 8, 1994 did not work at all well together with the Rothwell APM patches, so he has gone back to the March 7 version.

According to kikutani@ams.co.jp (Kikutani Makoto), the Aero refused to suspend with sp1124.exe on APM-BIOS 0.5 and 1.2.8 until he undefined the APM_IGNORE_USER_SUSPEND in drivers/char/apm_bios.c

According to John G. Myers <jgm+@CMU.EDU>, the sp1331 ROMPaq allowed him to hibernate/restore while running X on Linux 1.3.57, which did NOT work without an external monitor on the 06/94 BIOS.

9. How can I use PCMCIA cards under Linux?

The PCMCIA controller is a VLSI clone of the Intel 82365 chip.

David Hinds' PCMCIA drivers work great with this chip; I (HTA) use version 2.5.6 currently (Nov 28 1994); the latest and greatest is available from cb-iris.stanford.edu

The following cards are known to work in the Aero with Hinds' PCMCIA package:

NOTE: The floppy controller will STOP working when you start up the cardmanager!!!!!!!!!

For more general PCMCIA information, look here; there isn't much, really.

10. What should I use for an X configuration?

For the Aero 4/33C, the following X configuration seems to work under XFree86 2.1 with the VGA_16 server. The SVGA server will not work! (Or rather, it works, but only in 300x200 mode with 256 colors. Nice for playing DOOM in, but not terribly useful for ordinary work)

A config file for XFree86 3.1 is here. The same file will work for both color and mono Aero.


# Standard stuff - modify to taste
RGBPath         "/usr/X386/lib/X11/rgb"
FontPath        "/usr/X386/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
FontPath        "/usr/X386/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"
FontPath        "/usr/X386/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/"
FontPath        "/usr/X386/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"
FontPath        "/usr/X386/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/"
# Also standard
Keyboard
  AutoRepeat 500 5
  ServerNumLock
# This is important - remember to make /dev/mouse be a link to ps2aux,
# or have major 10, minor 1
ps/2    "/dev/mouse"
  Emulate3Buttons
# This is the important part. The "virtual" size is my personal taste;
# having both fvwm and the X server do "virtual" large screen confused the
# hell out of me!
VGA16
  Virtual       640 480
  Viewport      0 0 
  Modes         "640x480"

VGA2
  Virtual       800 600
  ViewPort      0 0
  Modes         "640x480"

# The clock (28.322) is the important part.
ModeDB
 "640x480"     28.322  640  680  720  864    480  488  491  521

11. My clock stops when I press Suspend

Since this machine supports the APM BIOS, the solution is simple: Apply Stephen Rothwell's PCMCIA patches, found on tsx-11 in the pub/linux/packages/laptops/apm directory. Note that you need the 0.3 version for kernels 1.1.47 and above; the 0.2 version stopped working somewhere in the 1.1 track.

The current version is 0.5 according to Stephen's home page. Note that for kernels after 1.1.83, and for recent PCMCIA versions, you need the 0.5 version.

Since kernel version 1.3.46, the APM drivers are part of the standard Linux kernel; there's a separate utility kit available for doing things like showing the battery status on screen.

Now the machine will detect the resume event, and reset the clock from CMOS.

12. Does the DOS emulator run?

I (HTA) have managed to get the DOS emulator (version 0.53pl2) running in text mode with no trouble. Graphics mode seems to work too - but to bring it up in graphics mode on a 4/33C caused a brilliant orange line across the screen while starting, and took quite a while.

The lines I tried were:

13. Where can I get other info about the Aero?

There is a mailing list called "aero@cs.utk.edu"; you write to aero-request@cs.utk.edu for any list handling; the list is handled by a human being.

The list is archived too, but I've forgotten the location.

The list is not dedicated to Linux.

14. What expansions are available for the Aero?

The following options are known: All prices are ballpark estimates garnered from random postings; they seem to vary wildly by supplier, distance from California, phase of the moon and so on.

15. Why doesn't the disk stop?

[Q]
Why does the disk start immediately when it attempts to stop to conserve power?
[A]
This question has multiple levels:
  1. When the disk stops, it sends an interrupt to the kernel. The kernel logs this event, which naturally wakes up the disk. One solution is to tear out the ENTIRE contents of the unexpected_hd_interrupt routine in linux/drivers/block/hd.c
  2. A particular problem with the Conner disks used in the 250 MB Aeros is that they wake up when you query it for status. Apparently, the Linux drivers do this fairly frequently. No solution found to this problem yet!

16. Why is the BogoMips rating so low?

From a 33 MHz 486DX, you expect a BogoMips rating around 16.

As observed by kikutani@ams.co.jp (Makoto Kikutani), the rating for the Aero 4/33C is:

This is observed both on 1.0.9 (no patches) and 1.1.5x with the Rothwell APM patches. Other people have reported to makoto that no such slowdown is observed on the 4/25 (the black-and-white machine).

When you press Suspend and Resume, the BogoMips rating goes up to around 16 again! (test with the BogoMips program).

Conclusion: The CPU starts in "slowed" mode to conserve power.

Patching the init routine to call do_busy does NOT help.

Actually, Ali Abaryak has found that this is a BIOS problem; if you downgrade your machine to the March 6 BIOS version (SP0723.ZIP), you will get the faster clock speed always.

17. I bought 20 Mbytes of memory, but only see 16 of them?

Several people have bought the Kingston Memory 16 Mbyte upgrade memory for the Aero, making it have 20 Mbytes total.
Some report that the Linux box sees only 16 Mbytes.

There are two answers:

  1. Javier Hernandez <fjherna@ibm.net> reports that adding the line "mem=20416K" makes Linux see the memory; adding "mem=20MB" created problems (he saw PPP hangups; I saw a machine crash).
  2. Under DOS, a BIOS upgrade is required in order to get access to the full 20 MB of memory. That might help Linux too. (NOTE: This has not been verified yet!)

Ongoing investigations

This is a list of ongoing investigations into the internals of Linux on the Aero; any information on these is appreciated!

The floppy driver

I (HTA) am trying to make the floppy driver work. So far, it depends on 3 things
  1. The VLSI PCMCIA controller supports DMA. Unfortunately, there is no documentation for it, so Dave Hinds cannot write it into the PCMCIA drivers. (The Intel chip it emulates doesn't).
  2. The floppy drivers need to be taught that a floppy controller can go away and come back. I think I have patches for the "coming back" stuff, but it's hard to test them without 1). Alain Knaff will probably take these patches when they are tested. I (Harald) now have programming information on the VLSI chip (which seems rather incomprehensible to me); info on the floppy card is welcome! (the card's CIS claims that it is a CANON floppy card; just ignore the "compaq" label on the outside)

    Also - a floppy note of interest: If the component number of your floppy starts with 01, hot swapping does NOT work under Windows. If it is a higher number, it does. Compaq at least at one time would replace the floppy with a newer model free of charge.


    Harald.T.Alvestrand@uninett.no
    Last modified: Mon Oct 6 09:18:12 1997