Toshibal Sat. A105-4001 Review + Questions [RTL ALC861 Sound, Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG issues]

[Steven James Samuel Stapleton]

I have this notebook, and it seems to work well, except for two luxury items
which I can't get working... The wireless and sound, listed in the subject.
I know the sound works in linux, and I know Intel made linux drivers for the
chipset... However, after trying Linux, and not even going 24 hours without
a tedious, poorly documented issue I had to fix in a critical system for me,
I remember why I didn't care for Linux, and went back to BSD. Sound and
Wireless aren't worth that annoyance.

Now my notes on the machine for prospective BSD interested buyers...
Specifications:
Satellite A105-S4001
 Intel® Core Solo Processor T1300 (1.66GHz);
 512MB DDR2-533 RAM;
 60GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive;
 SuperMulti Double Layer 8x DVD±RW Drive;
 5-in-1 Bridge Media Adapter;
 Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 Video Chipset;
 Realtek ALC861 Sound;
 10/100 Network Adapter;
 Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG
 15.4" Widescreen XGA TruBrite Display;
 Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition (Service Pack 2)  [not anymore...]


 ===== What works: =====
  Intel® Core Solo Processor T1300 (1.66GHz);
  512MB DDR2-533 RAM;
  10/100 Network Adapter;
  15.4" Widescreen XGA TruBrite Display;
  Touchpad;
  4xUSB;
    No real surprises with these, though the XOrg was tricky to get working
    with the native res. If you have trouble with the native monitor res,
look at
    my monitor configuration entry at the end of the mail.
    You'll need to turn on the moused in your rc.conf to get the touchpad to
    work. USB mice work fine, as well as USB drives.

  60GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive;
    Yes, the hard drive controller works!

  SuperMulti Double Layer 8x DVD±RW Drive;
    At least reading CDs/CDRs, haven't tested anything else yet.

  Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 Video Chipset;
    The i810 driver in XOrg works fine, as stated in the docs. However, the
    shared memory can be problematic when doing memory intensive tasks...


 ===== Not Tested: =====
  5-in-1 Bridge Media Adapter;
  1x Firewire;
    I have any memory-card or firewire type devices.


 ===== Things that I can't get working so far: =====
  Realtek ALC861 Sound;
    The default sound driver (snd_drv) in the handbook has no effect, the
    soundstat doesn't produce any loaded drivers. snd_ich also doesn't
    provide any results (not that I expected any)

  Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG
    The wi and iwi drivers do not function here, I saw another thread about
    them, but haven't had a chance to sift through it yet. It looked lite
the main
    idea was that the patchsets for this card were still buggy?



Thanks,
-Jim Stapleton



XOrg monitor config (This is taken from a googled post on a 15.4" widescreen
for a slightly different Toshiba model), and selected other XOrg sections:

Section "Module"
 Load  "dbe"
 Load  "dri"
 Load  "i810"
 Load  "extmod"
 Load  "glx"
 Load  "GLcore"
 Load  "record"
 Load  "xtrap"
 Load  "freetype"
 Load  "type1"
EndSection

Section "Device"
        ### Available Driver options are:-
        ### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False",
        ### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz"
        ### [arg]: arg optional
        #Option     "ShadowFB"            # [<bool>]
        #Option     "DefaultRefresh"      # [<bool>]
        #Option     "ModeSetClearScreen"  # [<bool>]
 Identifier  "Card0"
 Driver      "vesa"
 VendorName  "Intel Corporation"
 BoardName   "Mobile Integrated Graphics Controller"
 BusID       "PCI:0:2:0"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
 Identifier   "Monitor0"
 VendorName   "Toshiba"
 ModelName    "SatelliteLCD"
        HorizSync    30.0 - 107.0
        VertRefresh  50.0 - 185.0
        Option       "DPMS"
        Modeline     "1280x800" 159.74 1280 1296 1552 1664 800 800 815 835
EndSection