External VGA monitor, internal modem on Mandrake 9.2, Dell Inspiron 1100

From: Arvind Saraf (arvind_s_at_mit.edu)
Date: 12/24/04 

Date: 24 Dec 2004 08:03:21 -0800

Hello,

I have a Dell Inspiron 1100 running Windows XP for quite a while. I
recently installed Mandrake 9.2 (kernel 2.4.22-10mdk) with XP as a
Lilo dual boot system, and have been having following problems with
it:

1> Connecting External VGA monitor (Philips 105E):

I will like to connect external CRT VGA monitor to my system and be
able to toggle between using either that or my laptop's LCD display. I
can do so using the routine <Fn><F8> on Windows XP. However, I am
unable to do on Linux. I tried the following options (after having the
system boot with external CRT VGA monitor connected):

   -- <Fn><F8> freezes my system -- I can't do anything, and just have
to reboot the system

   -- I tried playing with my /etc/X11/XFConfig86-4 (my system uses
XFree86 4.3.0 as the X server) -- namely adding separate Monitor,
Screen, and Layout sections for my external monitor, and/or adding
       Option "extern_disp"
       Option "intern_disp"
to my Device section, and then restarting the X server and/or my Linux
system. Neither seems to help -- I only see the display on my LCD.

   -- I don't find any option in BIOS to force it to inform it about
external monitor -- if I can, I will prefer to have the display on my
external monitor even before I start X.

2> Getting my internal modem to run on Linux

My system has a Broadcom internal modem:
   00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corp. 82801DB AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 02)
   (prog-if 00 [Generic])
         Subsystem: Broadcom Corporation: Unknown device 4d64

I tried installing both, pctel-0.9.6 and hsfmodem-7.18.00, to detect
and use the modem. Both the softwares install fine, however, none of
them are able to detect my modem ("minicom" and "kppd" can't
initialize any of /dev/ttyS15, /dev/ttySHSF, or /dev/modem)

I will appreciate fixes/ solutions/ advice on how to solve these two
problems.

Thanks
Arvind

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