Dell Latitude C600 - ArchWiki

# Dell Latitude C600

From ArchWiki

In an attempt to give back to the Arch community I decided to write a wiki page about my laptop the Dell Latitude C600 and what I've found out about it, it's treated me well and plays fairly nicely with Linux. I would recommend it.

Much of this information has been based off of the wiki page for the Dell Latitude C600 at the Gentoo wiki and the linux-dell-laptops faq page which although old is still very good, I suggest you also read both of these if you do not find answers here.

## Known Hardware

Cardbus: 2 slots, Texas Instruments PCI1420
Audio: 3Com Corporation 3c556 Hurricane CardBus [Cyclone] (rev 10)
Video: ATI Technologies Inc Rage Mobility M3 AGP 2x (rev 02)
Ethernet: 3Com Corporation 3c556 Hurricane CardBus [Cyclone] (rev 10)
Modem: 3Com Corporation Mini PCI 56k Winmodem (rev 10)

## PCMCIA Cardbus

After some configuration changes I know personally that this cardbus works perfectly.

First install the pcmciautils[broken link: package not found] package.

Once installed to stop boot freezes you have to edit /etc/pcmcia/config.opts and find the line

    include port 0x820-0x8ff

and comment it out. Dell likes to be special for some reason and if that range is probed at boot it will usually result in the laptop dying, I think this configuration change can be applied to most Dell laptops.

If you're compiling your own kernel remember that this is a yenta-compatible cardbus and that should be enabled in the pccard section of the kernel config.

    <M>   CardBus yenta-compatible bridge support

## Audio

I've had absolutely no problems with audio for this laptop, if you're using the Arch stock kernel it should work straight out of the box after it is enabled like a regular sound card.

If you're compiling your own kernel you should enable this card in the sound pci device section

    <*> ESS Allegro/Maestro3

## Video

### Framebuffer

If you're using a stock kernel I can confirm that you can get a high resolution framebuffer by simply adding

    vga=791

to your kernel's boot options for a good 1024x768 resolution. I'll leave you to find out other values to use for other resolutions but this one workd for me and is a good guideline.

Using the beyond kernel it is also quite easy to achieve extras like a background or progress bar on boot using other articles in this wiki.

If you're compiling your own kernel then you're out of luck with getting a framebuffer to work with this guide, I've not been able to find the right options and the rage128 driver causes a freeze, that being said it has to be possible some how and feel free to add your solution here.

### Xorg

I always use xorgconfig to generate my xorg config and it's quite easy to get xorg going at first, a general rule is to use the ati and rage128 drivers for it. The Gentoo wiki article has links to this xorg.conf which has some great additions you can add for your video sections. One thing to add is that contrary what the config says this laptop can get a top resolution of 1400x1050 for me at least.

## Network

### Ethernet

This works perfectly straight out of the box without any configuration using any of the stock kernels. Not much to say about it.

If you're compiling your own kernel remember to enable this card in the net device section

    <*>   3c590/3c900 series (592/595/597) "Vortex/Boomerang" support

### Winmodem

Apparently this laptop has a 3Com Corporation Mini PCI 56k Winmodem but I'm yet to get it working and doubt it would. I also have no need or desire to get it working anyway.

Please anyone feel free to add to this section how you got it working if you have.

## Touchpad

This laptop has a great touchpad and has lots of features if used in conjunction with the synaptics driver for xorg.

Install the xf86-input-synaptics package and use this in your xorg config's mouse section

    Driver          "synaptics"
    Option          "Protocol"              "auto-dev"
    Option          "Device"                "/dev/psaux"
    Option          "Emulate3Buttons"
    Option          "HorizScrollDelta"      "0"

This adds all sorts neat features like a "scroll wheel" on the right, tap-to-click, tapping in corners for right-clicking, middle-clicking etc. and using the bottom as another scroll wheel for things like back and forward buttons in Firefox. I have this disabled with the HorizScrollDelta line as it gets really annoying.

The little joystick in the center of the keyboard also works perfectly.

## External Links

- This document is listed at the TuxMobil Linux laptop and notebook installation guides survey (DELL).

Category:

- Dell

Hidden category:

- Pages with broken package links