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Laptop Special Interest Group

Mission

Goal: To improve the Fedora Laptop experience and make more stable, flexible and usable over time.


Members

Important Links


Tasks

  • General:
  • Summarize the hard/software items that are already know to work
  • Make a FAQ with info on how to fix some common problems or how to get

some hardware to work with workarounds

  • Possible to autodetect timezone (probably not)
  • Improve documentation for the various user level parts (g-p-m etc.)
  • Tool to gather information what kind of suspend/hibernate methods work

for a given model and be able to submit that easily to bugzilla

  • Make Fedora LiveCD work nicely on laptops, too
  • Custom DSDT support
  • "Airplane" support: Be able to enable/disable radio/tv recivers via a UI
  • Storage:
  • Removable:
  • Support all kinds of removable storage
  • Make the behaviour of the various storages consistent and similar to

what we can do on servers.

  • Filesystems:
  • Encrypted filesystems (in case laptops get stolen etc)
  • (Enable NTFS read support (check legal for that))
  • Backup:
  • Support or do something similar to iDisk
  • Network:
  • Configuration:
  • Add a checkbox for each device if "automated services" should be

allowed to use this device (e.g. updates over GPRS isn't a real good idea ;).

  • Allow more secure setup for WiFi networks (if anything is missing)
  • Possible automatic detection of network printers and http proxies
  • Bring back the idea of profiles (based on available interfaces etc)
  • WiFi:
  • Automatic detection of new networks
  • In UI sort by radar strength
  • Have checkbox to filter out any networks (pw protected ones etc)
  • Remove multiple SSID's by ALT selection and delete
  • Drivers:
  • Improve Wireless drivers support, add more Open Source drivers

http://fedoramobile.org/fc-wireless/bcm43xx-yum-livna/

  • Improve AC97 modem support
  • Bluetooth:
  • Automate bluetooth setup as much as possible
  • Make it easier to configure bluetooth and have a default config which

just works with mobile phones

  • Automatic device discovery and setup (especially phones)
  • Services:
  • Proper selection of services for laptops, combined with power

savings and disableing of certain services.

  • Proper restart, depending on network connectivity after resume
  • Make sure service (re)starts don't hang when there is no network

connectivity (e.g. sendmail up to 1 minutes, other 10-15s)

  • DNS:
  • Automatically use cachine DNS server locally?
  • LDAP:
  • Integration with stored/cached password when offline
  • Graphics:
  • Monitor:
  • Support dual monitor/head mode
  • Allow runtime switch from single to dual head and general display

switches

  • Fix problem when booting with closed lid (not configured properly)
  • Fix problem of laptop starting up after doing a suspend and then

closing the lid (Some FS laptops)

  • Make native resolutions selectable on several laptops (Dell etc.)
  • Detect plugin/plugout of monitors properly and react properly
  • X11:
  • Fix problem with network changes while X11 is running
  • Drivers:
  • Make display switching more stable
  • Sync problems on some FS laptops on external displays
  • Autodetection of video and s-video outputs (where possible)
  • Sound:
  • Drivers:
  • Better driver support for some models (Dell)
  • Power:
  • UI:
  • ACPID configuration tool
  • UI to select cpuspeed strategies
  • Easy to switch profiles for power saving in general
  • Add configurable suspend/hibernate actions for for lid close
  • Allow max power saving to be used when running low on battery
  • Finer grained control via UI to enable/disable certain aspects of

power saving things

  • Saving:
  • Choice of different strategies for cpuspeed daemon
  • Make more services and demons "power" aware (HAL, prelink, cron etc)
  • Look into the acpi-sbs project and whats worth integrating
  • Support suspend2 http://www.suspend2.net/
  • Configurable shutdown of unused devices/peripherals
  • Include s2ram? http://en.opensuse.org/S2ram
  • ACPI:
  • ACPI support for more devices (e.g. harddisks)
  • Docking:
  • Dock/undock:
  • Make sure no reboots are needed for all common services
  • On some laptops during plugin/plugout of the laptops devices won't get

initialized/deinitalized properly

  • Mouse:
  • Touchpad:
  • Improve behaviour of some drivers (Compaq 2209, IBM T42, Synaptics)
  • Being able to turn on/off the touchpad
  • Keyboard:
  • Keys:
  • Support special keys and suspend/resume keys that don't generate

the proper ACPI events depending on manufactor/model - see /HotKeys

  • External:
  • Fix bug with numlock and plugging in/out the external keyboard on

some laptops

  • Software:
  • Installation:
  • Allow installation and booting from external USB/Firewire drives.
  • Packages:
  • Know about hardware specific packages and possibly installed them

during install time (or make the accessible later easier with pirut or firstboot)

  • Trim memory use on laptops as they tend to have less memory than

desktop machines

  • During install either have a specific Laptop group or at the start

a laptop install which contains the typical laptop packages

  • Groupware:
  • Calender tool with typical groupware functionality (groups,

invitations, synchronication, offline mode etc)

  • Mail:
  • Improve offline support for email clients:
  • Schedule creation of new folders offline
  • Sync emails before going offline
  • Updates:
  • Have a notify icon if updates are available
  • Repo management
  • List of packages from repos (yumex or pirut)
  • Data:
  • Make it easier to keep data in sync between a laptop and a home

machine (keywords: rsync or similar)

  • Allow signaling apps to save modified work (e.g. for remote reboots)

FAQ

Q: I'm having problems with suspend/hibernate on my laptop. What can i do?

A: We're currently looking into makeing this more realiable for a larger range of laptops. Also we hope to provide a test tool soon with which you can run some tests on your laptop to figure out how to do proper suspend/hibernate on your specific machine.

Q: I have a laptop with Dritek hotkeys, how can i make them work?

A: For several laptops who use those there is a package available here which might help: http://www.haxxed.com/code/dritek-tool-0.1.tar.bz2


Status

  • 06/13/2006: Start of the SIG page.
  • 06/14/2006: Start collecting ideas/features.
  • 06/21/2006: First update of tasks, still in the process of filtering out

Mailinglist

Feel free to join our mailinglist at http://lists.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/laptop

References