Dell Latitude D820 and docking station

juszczec · #1 21st November 2008, 03:25 PM

Hi folks

I've just installed FC9 on my work laptop. Its a Dell Latitude D820.

When I'm in the office, I hook it up to a docking station. The station itself is built into a monitor stand.

The only identification on it is a serial number CN-06U643-42940-517-00LB

Is anyone using any Fedora Core with a docking station?

Does anyone know where to get additional information?

Does anyone have additional information?

Mark

dlm4ut · #2 21st November 2008, 05:11 PM

I have Dell 820 that I use with my Docking Station at work with FC9. What info do you need? What problems are you having? Works fine with 1 monitor. Have not yet set it up for two monitors. I use an additional hard disk in DS to store backups.

dlm4ut

juszczec · #3 21st November 2008, 06:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dlm4ut

I have Dell 820 that I use with my Docking Station at work with FC9. What info do you need? What problems are you having? Works fine with 1 monitor. Have not yet set it up for two monitors. I use an additional hard disk in DS to store backups.

dlm4ut

What kernel modules did you have to install? Or did it work without you doing anything special?

Mark

dlm4ut · #4 21st November 2008, 07:15 PM

I have only added the nvidia drivers from livna or rpmfusion. I think everything else hardware that I use works without additional drivers or modules outside of those already in FC9. My finger print reader took some additional stuff.

dlm4ut

juszczec · #5 21st November 2008, 08:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dlm4ut

I have only added the nvidia drivers from livna or rpmfusion. I think everything else hardware that I use works without additional drivers or modules outside of those already in FC9. My finger print reader took some additional stuff.

dlm4ut

This almost seems too good to be true.

I'm going to ask an obvious question, just to double check.

You loaded FC9 on a D820, plugged it into the docking station, hit the power button and everything came up just fine. You didn't have to add and additional stuff to support the docking station.

Do I understand that right?

*crosses fingers and shakes rabbit's foot*

Mark

fwelland · #6 21st November 2008, 10:44 PM

I have a d820 that has been thru FC7 F8 and F9...and soon to be 10...

I recently chanced upon a PR01X -- Dell port expander/replicator.

I can drop in my D820 (into the replicator) and linux is OK with it. I use the DVI and USB ports routinely -- they are fine.

Haven't tried anything else (actually using wireless with the dock/replicator -- havent' done wired yet).

I have no drivers or anything special. I do run the nVidia drivers (not the livna nVidia ones) and my screen is fine -- I can display via DVI, or my laptops LCD or both. (I have not tried dual heads with external monitor and laptop screen).

TheMadIndian · #7 21st November 2008, 11:18 PM

if you grab sysinfo you can make easy work of dual head display with the 820 and the nvidia drivers

I run the nvidia drivers (not livna) currently on 177.x and it works great with one vga and one dvi flat panel connected I've even tried using the LVDS but with the two flatpanels in 1280x1024 you have to scroll when on the laptop display so I just dont bother

you can also use xrandr to get the dual head display working but that takes some manual manipulation of the xorg.conf

juszczec · #8 21st November 2008, 11:45 PM

thanks everyone. i'll give it a whirl at work on monday.

Mark

juszczec · #9 25th November 2008, 04:00 PM

Hi folks

Well, I tried it yesterday and....it didn't quite work.

I turned the laptop on, put it in the docking station and got the grub menu.

I picked linux, and then the few seconds of boot messages that show on the text screen were visible.

Then the screen went black (I'm assuming it was at the point in the boot process when the X server starts) and stayed black.

On the D820 there's a CRT/LCD function key - do I need to hit this at some point?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Mark

dlm4ut · #10 25th November 2008, 04:31 PM

Sorry it did not work. The video drivers is probably the problem. You can test this by just connecting the monitor connected to the DS directly to the laptop and see how it boots up. I would expect that it boots up the same. Thus it probably is not the DS. It needs to be configured to use the other display. Sometimes it will configure itself automatically and other times I have had to change the xorg.conf file in /etc/X11.

Also, once it gets booted up and screen is black, you can reset the X server by hitting CRTL ALT Backspace. This might reset it to come up using the new display. Reset 3-4 times like this and sometimes it reconfigures the display. Also, if you hit CTRL ALT F1 it cause the display to bring up a text prompt, which allows you to go to runlevel 3 (no X, text only) with "init 3" and then back to runlevel 5 (X) with "init 5" cleanly. Check out the startx command too. While in runlevel 3 you can modify the xorg.conf file if you go that route.

What video drivers are you using? Have you added the Nvidia drivers through livna, nvidia, or are you just using those that originally came with FC9?

Maybe FC10 will work better?

dlm4ut

dlm4ut · #11 25th November 2008, 04:40 PM

Just to answer what works in my docking station.

The usb ports all work
I use the wired internet port on it.
I can plug in a hard drive and cdrom/dvd drive and they work.
I don't think I have disconnected the laptop without shutting down or connected the laptop to DS while already on.
I have not added a card inside the DS yet.
Keyboard connect works fine.
Have not tested the parallel or serial ports.
DVI and VGA ports work (when driver is configured correctly)

I added no drivers except for nvidia card.

dlm4ut

hobbes80 · #12 25th November 2008, 04:59 PM

Also using a latitude D820 with a docking station.

Only problem I have, is every 9 or 10 boots, I have to unplug and replug my USB mouse, a minor deal that doesn't bother me.

The problem you may be having with the X server is if the lid is closed on your laptop, you are going to the screen on it instead of going to the external ports.

When I run mine, I run as two X screens, one on my laptop screen, one on my docking station port, instead of twinview... you can't drag stuff form one window to another, but you don't have the issue where you have to move around on the screen to see the extra space....

Just the way I decided to do it.

TheMadIndian · #13 25th November 2008, 10:11 PM

If it doesnt detect the screen the first time one just open the lid and you should at least have the laptop screen

you can do things in prefdm as well to run to different xorg.conf one for docked and one for undocked

if you dont want to run with the lid open on the laptop use xrandr

usually the laptop display is LVDS you can check by using xrandr -q

then to turn of the LVDS

xrandr --ouput LVDS --off

juszczec · #14 5th December 2008, 11:38 PM

A little update.

The docking station was attached to a little stand that the monitor sat on. I could not put the opened laptop into the docking station.

Then I figured out how to detach the docking station from the stand. I hooked up all the cables and stuff to the docking station, dropped in the turned off laptop, opened the case and turned on the laptop. It booted into grub, I hit the LCD/CRT, output went to the monitor and all was well.