Translation(s): none

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.

Models covered
ideapad S205

Overall Status

Core Components

[ATTACH]

Boot Standard Kernel:

{OK} X-( {i} (requires grub-legacy)

LAN network card:

{OK}

Detect hard drives:

{OK}

Extra Features

CPU Frequency Scaling

{OK} (modprobe powernow-k8)

Sleep / Suspend

{OK} (sound/video is wacky)

Xorg

{OK} X-(

- OpenGL

{OK}

- Resize-and-Rotate(randr)

[?]

Switch to External Screen

[?]

Mouse

- Built-in (Touchpad)

{OK}

Wireless/Wifi

{OK} X-( Occassional hickups, slowing down to 50kb/s, solved at least in Linux 3.8

Bluetooth

[?]

Keyboard's Hotkeys

[?]

SD Card Reader

[?]

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

Due to whatever BIOS/UEFI fuckup this laptop does not work with grub2, you've manually switch to grub-legacy aka grub1 to get it booting. That's doable with a bit of help of a grml live usb stick but requires some basic Debian know how, or you do it within the installation process on tty before rebooting. None the less the textmode installer works (GUI lacks a working touchpad, external mouse might work), it just won't boot after installation.

Installation

Most of this page references information back from the Squeeze/Wheezy days, there is a thread starting at https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2020/07/msg01301.html discussing a more recent installation with bullseye.

Bullseye alpha i386

Working around unresolved grub2 issues with this device is possible by choosing a i386 installation instead of amd64. Base your installation on the current debian installer beta images with non-free firmware at https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/bullseye_di_alpha2/i386/iso-cd/ or any later. Important is that you have to run manual commands on the tty2 (Alt-F2) after the bootloader installation and before the final reboot. 

mount -o bind /dev /target/dev
mount -o bind /sys /target/sys
mount -o bind /proc /target/proc
chroot /target /bin/bash
apt install grub-legacy firmware-linux-nonfree
apt autoremove
dpkg --purge grub-pc grub2-common
grub-install /dev/sda
update-grub

Bullseye amd64

The installation process will run through but the system won't be able to boot afterwards. As mentioned in https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2020/07/msg01301.html you can do the following in the grub2 shell to boot none the less: 

grub> root=(hd0,gpt2)
grub> linux /vmlinuz root=dev/sda2
grub> initrd /initrd.img
grub> boot

Squeeze and Wheezy

I started with a Debian Squeeze amd64 netinst image on an USB stick. Booting the installer and the installation works just fine in text- and graphical mode. Even the Realtek wired NIC will work. After the installation you won't be able to boot into your installed system.

Next boot a Linux live system, e.g. the well known grml, from a USB stick. Mount your filesystem and bind mount /proc, /sys and /dev into it so you can chroot to it. Then execute something like 

apt-get update && apt-get install grub-legacy && grub-install /dev/sda && update-grub

That should be enough to install grub1 and create a /boot/grub/menu.lst. Now a reboot into your installed system should be successful.

Instead of fiddling with backports I decided to switch to wheezy for convenience. The only important point is to make sure that you've all the required non-free firmware packages installed: 

firmware-linux
firmware-linux-nonfree
firmware-ralink
firmware-realtek (not required, but associated with NIC chip)

Configuration

Display

This model comes with a 11,6" glosy display. Xorg works out of the box with xserver-xorg-video-ati. Be aware that you're required to have firmware-linux-nonfree installed to get any useful output, even without X!.

Audio

Audio works out of the box, though most people would prefer to have the speakers and headphone output as card0 instead of card1. I've added the following configuration to /etc/asound.conf 

defaults.pcm.card 1
defaults.pcm.device 0
defaults.ctl.card

Touchpad

Multitouch as in two finger scrolling works out of the box.

Power Management

Using /usr/sbin/hibernate-ram works if you add the following to /etc/hibernate/ram.conf 

USuspendRamForce yes

WiFi

Wifi works party but requires the non-free firmware package firmware-ralink. In the longer term I made the experience of occasional wifi hickups with a lot of packet loss, slowing down the connection to about 50kb/s which is barely useable. A reboot is required to reset the chip properly. That issue is at least solved with Linux 3.8, so I'm currently running Debian/Wheezy with the Kernel trunk package from experimental and the associated firmware packages.

System Summary

lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 14h Processor Root Complex [1022:1510]
00:01.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Wrestler [Radeon HD 6320] [1002:9806]
00:01.1 Audio device [0403]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Wrestler HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 6250/6310] [1002:1314]
00:11.0 SATA controller [0106]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 SATA Controller [AHCI mode] [1002:4391]
00:12.0 USB controller [0c03]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller [1002:4397]
00:12.2 USB controller [0c03]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller [1002:4396]
00:13.0 USB controller [0c03]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller [1002:4397]
00:13.2 USB controller [0c03]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller [1002:4396]
00:14.0 SMBus [0c05]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SBx00 SMBus Controller [1002:4385] (rev 42)
00:14.2 Audio device [0403]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) [1002:4383] (rev 40)
00:14.3 ISA bridge [0601]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 LPC host controller [1002:439d] (rev 40)
00:14.4 PCI bridge [0604]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge [1002:4384] (rev 40)
00:15.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB700/SB800/SB900 PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 0) [1002:43a0]
00:15.2 PCI bridge [0604]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB900 PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 2) [1002:43a2]
00:18.0 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 0 [1022:1700] (rev 43)
00:18.1 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 1 [1022:1701]
00:18.2 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 2 [1022:1702]
00:18.3 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 3 [1022:1703]
00:18.4 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 4 [1022:1704]
00:18.5 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 6 [1022:1718]
00:18.6 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 5 [1022:1716]
00:18.7 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 7 [1022:1719]
02:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller [10ec:8136] (rev 05)
03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Ralink corp. RT3090 Wireless 802.11n 1T/1R PCIe [1814:3090]

lsusb

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
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 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
  bDeviceClass            9 Hub
  bDeviceProtocol         0 Full speed (or root) hub
  iProduct                2 OHCI Host Controller
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
  bDeviceClass            9 Hub
  bDeviceProtocol         0 Full speed (or root) hub
  iProduct                2 OHCI Host Controller
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 5986:0292 Acer, Inc 
  bDeviceClass          239 Miscellaneous Device
  bDeviceProtocol         1 Interface Association
  iProduct                2 Lenovo EasyCamera
      (Bus Powered)
  bDeviceClass          239 Miscellaneous Device
  bDeviceProtocol         1 Interface Association
  (Bus Powered)
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 0bda:0139 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. Card reader
  bDeviceClass          255 Vendor Specific Class
  bDeviceProtocol       255 Vendor Specific Protocol
  iProduct                2 USB2.0-CRW
      (Bus Powered)
  bDeviceClass            0 (Defined at Interface level)
  bDeviceProtocol         0 
  (Bus Powered)
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 0489:e00d Foxconn / Hon Hai Broadcom Bluetooth 2.1 Device
  bDeviceClass          224 Wireless
  bDeviceProtocol         1 Bluetooth
  iProduct                2 Broadcom Bluetooth 2.1 Devic

Resources

Attachments

Some configuration files and sample outputs.

Credits