Installation of Ubuntu Linux on a Toshiba Satellite P25-S676 went rather well. The only major trouble I had was determing the correct modeline to place in the xorg.conf. With a little searching and a few failures I was able to use the full 1440×900 widescreen goodness. I am not recommending this laptop for Linux users. My next purchase will likely not be a Toshiba. I’m not happy with the key arrangement on the keyboard. The tilde in particular is in an odd place. It also does not shutdown properly when plugged in. You will have to unplug the power before it will completely shut down. At the time I purchased it most laptops went to ATI video cards and I was looking for the latest NVidia, which the P25-S676 had.

Toshiba Satellite P25-S676 Specifications:

Processor Intel Pentium 4 3.40GHz
Memory(MAX) 512MB/2048MB
HDD 80GB
Display Display 17.0 TFT WXGA 1440×900
Display controller NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5700
Video RAM 128MB
Sound Realtek ALC202 Codec Chip
PC Card controller TYPE II x 2 or TYPE III x 1
IrDA 4Mbps
USB 4 ports
Modem Integrated V.92/56Kbps
LAN 10/100 Ethernet LAN

Issues
This laptop does not use the normal Toshiba bios. It is a Pheonix bios, so the toshiba acpi tools for Linux do not work. I was not aware of this when I purchased the laptop, and is another reason to avoid it.

The laptop will not reboot until if the power adapter is plugged in and you halt the computer. You must first unplug the power before it will reboot. Most likely an ACPI issue, which I haven’t been able to figure out.

Display
I initially installed Ubuntu Warty on this laptop, so it is possible that the latest Ubuntu’s installer will autodetect the proper setting. I however, had to modify the /etc/X11/xorg.conf to get the display working. The installer did autodetect the Nvidia card and load the proper module.

Relevant xorg.conf Sections:

Section “Device”
Identifier “00e6″
Driver “nvidia”
BusID “PCI:1:0:0″
# NvAGP 0: disable agp 1: Nvidia’s agp 2: AGPGART 3: AGPGART then Nvs
Option “NvAGP” “2″
Option “CursorShadow” “on” # default=on
Option “CursorShadowAlpha” “32″ # 0-transparent 255-opaque
Option “CursorShadowXOffset” “4″ # 0-32
Option “HWCursor” “off” # default=on
Option “SWCursor” “on” # default=off
Option “IgnoreEDID” “off” # default=off
Option “NoRenderAccel” “off” # default=off
Option “NoLogo” “off” # default=off
Option “UseEdidFreqs” “on” # default=off
Option “FlatPanelProperties” “Scaling = aspect-scaled”

EndSection

Section “Modes”
# Here we define 16:10 modes
Identifier “16:10″
Modeline “1440×900″ 99.9 1440 1472 1800 1832 900 901 907 909
ModeLine “1280×800″ 83.5 1280 1344 1480 1680 800 801 804 828
EndSection

Section “Monitor”
Identifier “Generic Monitor”
UseModes “16:10″
EndSection

Section “Screen”
Identifier “Default Screen”
Device “00e6″
Monitor “Generic Monitor”
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection “Display”
Depth 1
Modes “1440×900″ “1280×800″ “1152×768″ “1152×864″ “1280×1024″ “1024×768″ “800×600″ “640×480″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 4
Modes “1440×900″ “1280×800″ “1152×768″ “1152×864″ “1280×1024″ “1024×768″ “800×600″ “640×480″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 8
Modes “1440×900″ “1280×800″ “1152×768″ “1152×864″ “1280×1024″ “1024×768″ “800×600″ “640×480″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 15
Modes “1440×900″ “1280×800″ “1152×768″ “1152×864″ “1280×1024″ “1024×768″ “800×600″ “640×480″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 16
Modes “1440×900″ “1280×800″ “1152×768″ “1152×864″ “1280×1024″ “1024×768″ “800×600″ “640×480″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 24
Modes “1440×900″ “1280×800″ “1152×768″ “1152×864″ “1280×1024″ “1024×768″ “800×600″ “640×480″
EndSubSection
EndSection

Processor / Linux Kernel
The Intel Pentium 4 3.40GHz uses Hyper-Threading technology and will use the linux-686-smp kernel, which is intented for multiple processors.

$ sudo apt-get install linux-686-smp

There are issues with this laptop and Breezy’s usplash boot splash. You will want to disable it.

$ sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst
Find this entry “# nonaltoptions=quiet splash” and edit it by removing “splash”. You should have “# nonaltoptions=quiet” now and save.
$ sudo update-grub

Modem
The modem does work after a little effort.
$ lspci
0000:00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corp. 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) AC’97 Modem Controller (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [Generic])

Open a terminal window.

$ sudo apt-get install sl-modem-source
$ sudo apt-get install kernel-package

install kernel-headers for your particular kernel.

$ uname -a
Linux lappy 2.6.10-5-686-smp #1 SMP Thu Sep 8 06:40:16 UTC 2005 i686 GNU/Linux

$ sudo apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.10-5-686-smp

$ cp /usr/src
$ sudo tar -xjvf sl-modem.tar.bz2

$ sudo module-assistant auto-install sl-modem-source
That should create a deb package in /usr/src

$ sudo dpkg -i sl-modem-modules-<your package>_i386.deb
My package looked like this:
sl-modem-modules-2.6.10-5-686-smp_2.9.9a-1ubuntu4+2.6.10-34.5_i386.deb

$ sudo apt-get install sl-modem-daemon

I also like gkdial, the current Gnome Network Management sucks:
$ sudo apt-get install gkdial

Reboot the computer.

From menu: “Applications–>Run Application…”
Enter: gksudo gkdial

configure your dialup connection(s).
The modem device should be “/dev/modem”

To have gkdial start up in the system try on login:

In GkDial “Settings–>Preferences–>Interface”
Check “Main window is hidden when the program starts” & “Always show tray icon”.

Then go to Gnome’s “System–>Preferences–>Sessions”
In “Startup Programs”
Push “Add”
In “Startup Command:” enter “sudo gkdial”.
Click OK

Wireless
The Atheros a/b/g wireless will work fine. There is a switch on the left side of the laptop that turn the wireless on and off. You will want to make sure it is on to use the wireless. The wireless should have been autodected and the module loaded.

DVD
The DVD player/burner works fine. If you wish to watch your DVDs, you will need to install the required packages. Look into libdvdcss2 and install totem-xine.

Sound
Sound works, but the various mixers don’t work well together. You will have to play with the mixer setting in you environment and the volume dial on the left side of the laptop.

Suspend
At one time I had this working, however I disabled it due to issues with VMWare. So, I can not recommend it one way or another. I use it primarily as a desktop computer so this is not a needed feature for me.