Toshiba Satellite P500-ST2G02

This is a tutorial on how to install and configure Arch Linux on a Toshiba Satellite P500 Laptop.

ACPI

You have to tweak acpi a little, otherwise the laptop will randomly freeze. First add the following modules to your rc.conf: ac, battery, button, fan, thermal. Second edit /etc/acpi/handler.sh and under battery create another case for BAT1) which is the same as BAT0).

Here is an example of my /etc/acpi/handler.sh:

#!/bin/sh
# Default acpi script that takes an entry for all actions

# NOTE: This is a 2.6-centric script.  If you use 2.4.x, you'll have to
#       modify it to not use /sys

minspeed=`cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_min_freq`
maxspeed=`cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_max_freq`
setspeed="/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_setspeed"

set $*

case "$1" in
    button/power)
        #echo "PowerButton pressed!">/dev/tty5
        case "$2" in
            PWRF)   logger "PowerButton pressed: $2" ;;
            *)      logger "ACPI action undefined: $2" ;;
        esac
        ;;
    button/sleep)
        case "$2" in
            SLPB)   echo -n mem >/sys/power/state ;;
            *)      logger "ACPI action undefined: $2" ;;
        esac
        ;;
    ac_adapter)
        case "$2" in
            AC)
                case "$4" in
                    00000000)
                        echo -n $minspeed >$setspeed
                        #/etc/laptop-mode/laptop-mode start
                    ;;
                    00000001)
                        echo -n $maxspeed >$setspeed
                        #/etc/laptop-mode/laptop-mode stop
                    ;;
                esac
                ;;
            *)  logger "ACPI action undefined: $2" ;;
        esac
        ;;
    battery)
        case "$2" in
            BAT0)
                case "$4" in
                    00000000)   #echo "offline" >/dev/tty5
                    ;;
                    00000001)   #echo "online"  >/dev/tty5
                    ;;
                esac
                ;;
            BAT1)
                case "$4" in
                    00000000)   #echo "offline" >/dev/tty5
                    ;;
                    00000001)   #echo "online"  >/dev/tty5
                    ;;
                esac
                ;;
            CPU0)	
                ;;
            *)  logger "ACPI action undefined: $2" ;;
        esac
        ;;
    button/lid)
        #echo "LID switched!">/dev/tty5
        ;;
    *)
        logger "ACPI group/action undefined: $1 / $2"
        ;;
esac

You may also want to add pm-suspend under button/lid) to make your laptop suspend when closed. I particularly do not ever close my laptop, because I use it as a desktop computer.

Laptop Mode Tools

I installed laptop-mode-tools^AUR, but it did not seem to improve anything so I disabled it. The battery life of this laptop is less than an hour and there is not much you can do. I use the laptop as a replacement for a desktop computer, so it's always plugged in.

Multimedia Buttons

The volume buttons work out of the box. I am, however, slightly annoyed with them, because they are a little too close to the keyboard and can be accidentally pressed when typing. They can be disabled from the GNOME menu System -> Preferences -> Keyboard Shortcuts

External Microphone

The external microphone works well with OSS, but in order to work with ALSA, you have to add this line to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

/etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

...
options snd-hda-intel model=dell-vostro