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DebianOn is an effort to document how to install, configure and use Debian on some specific hardware. Therefore potential buyers would know if that hardware is supported and owners would know how get the best out of that hardware.

The purpose is not to duplicate the Debian Official Documentation, but to document how to install Debian on some specific hardware.

If you need help to get Debian running on your hardware, please have a look at our user support channels where you may find specific channels (mailing list, IRC channel) dedicated to certain types of hardware.

Dell Latitude E6420

- Video card Intel with HDMI and VGA output
- Screen size (14" wide)
- Wireless card
- 128GB Samsung SSD, 4GB Ram, DVD multirecoder
- eSATA

Overall Status

Core Components

[ATTACH]

Boot Standard Kernel:

{OK}

LAN network card:

{OK}

Detect CD/DVD:

{OK}

Detect hard drives:

{OK}

Extra Features

CPU Frequency Scaling

{OK}

Hibernation

[?]

Sleep / Suspend

{OK} (active sound is wacky)

Xorg

{OK}

- OpenGL

{OK} {i} (backports required!)

- Resize-and-Rotate(randr)

{OK} {i}

Switch to External Screen

{i}

- Built-in (Trackpoint)

{OK}

- Built-in (Touchpad)

{OK}

Wireless/Wifi

{OK} {i} X-( (backports required!)

Keyboard's Hotkeys

{OK} (almost all send valid key symbols)

SD Card reader

{OK} (tested with backports kernel)

fingerprint reader

{X}

SmartCard reader

[?]

Keyboard illumination

{OK}

LCD backlight adjustment

{OK}

Legend :
{OK} = OK ; {X} Unsupported(No Driver) ; /!\ = Error (Couldn't get it working); [?] Unknown, Not Test ; [-] Not-applicable
{i} = Configuration Required; X-( = Only works with a non-free driver and or firmware

Important Note

{X} The Squeeze kernel doesn't support Sandybridge Wifi. So you've to copy and install a kernel from backports.debian.org by hand.

{X} Reboot doesn't work by default.

{X} For a reasonable X system you've to use the X.org packages from http://backports.debian.org.

Configuration

Display

Build-in is a Sandybridge Intel HD chip. It's supported in general but Xv doesn't work / crashes thes X server. OpenGL/GLX fails with an unrecognized deviceID 126. Since 2011-08-19 there is a X.org backport available from http://backports.debian.org. Using the backported X.org (xserver-xorg, the Intel driver and mesa packages) both Xv and OpenGL/GLX work.

Reboot issue

To solve the reboot issue you've to pass the kernel reboot=pci. You can achieve this by adding reboot=pci to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="" in /etc/default/grub.

Audio

The Intel Cougar Point HD Audio controller works out of the box. It has some problems with resuming after a suspend. You've to stop all playing music or videos before you suspend.

Power Management

Using /usr/sbin/hibernate-ram from the hibernate package works out of the box.

Ethernet

Intel 82579 LAN on Motherboard devices (LOMs) are supported by the e1000e Linux kernel driver since the 6.0.3 point release (627700).

WiFi

Beside a recent kernel from http://backports.debian.org it's required to install the non-free firmware-iwlwifi package to get WiFi working. You need to download three packages manually and install them with dpkg -i by hand from e.g. a USB stick (remember wifi will not work after the base installation). Required packages are: initramfs-tools, linux-base and linux-image-<whatever-version-and-flavour-you-need>

Update July 2021 (lecoqlibre) (Debian buster): Have BCM4313 chipset, I just needed to add non-free repo and update, install firmware-brcm80211 package from apt, execute modprobe -r brcmsmac ; modprobe brcmsmac and reboot according to https://wiki.debian.org/brcm80211.

CPU Frequency Scaling

Frequency scaling with the Intel Core i5 works with the acpi-cpufreq kernel module. You can add it to /etc/modules to make its loading persistent.

External screen and resizing

So far I only tried an external display connected via DVI to the docking station. The following xrandr commands adjust the external screen to be the primary display and use the highest available resolution with the internal display at a lower resolution. It's not perfect but works with fluxbox. Resizing mostly works but happens to disconnect one completly from the external display sometimes. Restarting the X server helps in those cases to let you start over again. 

$ xrandr --output HDMI3 --primary
$ xrandr --output HDMI3 --mode 1680x1050
$ xrandr --output LVDS1 --right-of HDMI3
$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2832 x 1050, maximum 8192 x 8192
LVDS1 connected 1152x864+1680+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 309mm x 174mm
   1600x900       60.0 +   40.1
   1440x900       59.9
   1360x768       59.8     60.0
   1152x864       60.0*
   1024x768       60.0
   800x600        60.3     56.2
   640x480        59.9
VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI2 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI3 connected 1680x1050+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 474mm x 296mm
   1680x1050      59.9*+
   1280x1024      75.0     60.0
   1152x864       75.0
   1024x768       75.1     60.0
   800x600        75.0     60.3
   640x480        75.0     60.0
   720x400        70.1
DP2 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP3 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

Rotating works. But be aware that you've to set the output mode to --auto first. With a fixed resolution set I can reproduce crashes of the whole system.

Special keys

Key

Symbol

Fn-F1

XF86Sleep

Fn-F10

XF86AudioPrev

Fn-F11

XF86AudioPlay

Fn-F12

XF86AudioNext

Audio up

XF86AudioRaiseVolume

Audio down

XF86AudioLowerVolume

Audio mute

XF86AudioMute

For you fluxbox ~/.keys file you can use something like the following (requires sudo and amixer): 

XF86AudioMute :ExecCommand amixer set Master toggle
XF86AudioLowerVolume :ExecCommand amixer set Master 2dB- unmute
XF86AudioRaiseVolume :ExecCommand amixer set Master 2dB+ unmute
XF86Sleep :ExecCommand sudo /usr/sbin/hibernate-ram

System Summary

lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Sandy Bridge DRAM Controller [8086:0104] (rev 09)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Sandy Bridge Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0126] (rev 09)
00:16.0 Communication controller [0780]: Intel Corporation Cougar Point HECI Controller #1 [8086:1c3a] (rev 04)
00:19.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection [8086:1502] (rev 04)
00:1a.0 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation Cougar Point USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 [8086:1c2d] (rev 04)
00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation Cougar Point High Definition Audio Controller [8086:1c20] (rev 04)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Cougar Point PCI Express Root Port 1 [8086:1c10] (rev b4)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Cougar Point PCI Express Root Port 2 [8086:1c12] (rev b4)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Cougar Point PCI Express Root Port 3 [8086:1c14] (rev b4)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Cougar Point PCI Express Root Port 4 [8086:1c16] (rev b4)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Cougar Point PCI Express Root Port 6 [8086:1c1a] (rev b4)
00:1d.0 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation Cougar Point USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 [8086:1c26] (rev 04)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation Cougar Point LPC Controller [8086:1c4f] (rev 04)
00:1f.2 RAID bus controller [0104]: Intel Corporation Mobile 82801 SATA RAID Controller [8086:282a] (rev 04)
00:1f.3 SMBus [0c05]: Intel Corporation Cougar Point SMBus Controller [8086:1c22] (rev 04)
02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation 6000 Series Gen2 [8086:0082] (rev 34)
0a:00.0 SD Host controller [0805]: O2 Micro, Inc. Device [1217:8221] (rev 05)
0a:00.1 Mass storage controller [0180]: O2 Micro, Inc. Device [1217:8231] (rev 03)

lsusb

Bus 002 Device 003: ID 0a5c:5801 Broadcom Corp. BCM5880 Secure Applications Processor with fingerprint swipe sensor
  bDeviceClass            0 (Defined at Interface level)
  bDeviceProtocol         0 
  iProduct                2 5880
  (Bus Powered)
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
  bDeviceClass            9 Hub
  bDeviceProtocol         1 Single TT
  iProduct                0 
  bDeviceClass            9 Hub
  bDeviceProtocol         0 Full speed (or root) hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
  bDeviceClass            9 Hub
  bDeviceProtocol         0 Full speed (or root) hub
  iProduct                2 EHCI Host Controller
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 413c:8187 Dell Computer Corp. DW375 Bluetooth Module
  bDeviceClass          224 Wireless
  bDeviceProtocol         1 Bluetooth
  iProduct                2 DW375 Bluetooth Module
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
  bDeviceClass            9 Hub
  bDeviceProtocol         1 Single TT
  iProduct                0 
  bDeviceClass            9 Hub
  bDeviceProtocol         0 Full speed (or root) hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
  bDeviceClass            9 Hub
  bDeviceProtocol         0 Full speed (or root) hub
  iProduct                2 EHCI Host Controller

Resources

Attachments

Some configuration files and sample outputs.

Dedicated Forum thread : http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=83005

Install nvidia driver : http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=82978

Credits

CategoryLaptopComputer