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A few weeks only after the Leopard release, Apple released an update to Leopard : 10.5.1 Releases Notes

Even worse : the above update fix really serious security issues : 10.5.1 security fixes

Those hot fixes just remember me how often Microsoft is releasing updates for Windows... (and how serious security issues they are trying to fix )

Gentoo Howto

Dell provides a nice docking station where the Dell D630 can be plugged on. But Linux kernel lacks support of this kind of hardware. Even if a "dock" ACPI module is existing in recent 2.6 kernels, it fails to provide ACPI events to acpid : it just have not been implemented in the kernel code :( The quick hack below send some crappy events to the ACPI event bus :

--- ../../../linux-2.6.22-gentoo-r9/drivers/acpi/dock.c 2007-10-31 17:30:44.000000000 +0100
+++ dock.c 2007-11-09 15:06:25.000000000 +0100
@@ -68,6 +68,8 @@

static struct dock_station *dock_station;

+static struct acpi_device device;
+
/****************************************************************************
Dock Dependent device functions
*****************************************************************************/
@@ -320,7 +322,7 @@
if (event == ACPI_NOTIFY_EJECT_REQUEST)
dock_remove_acpi_device(dd->handle);
else
- dock_create_acpi_device(dd->handle);
+ device = dock_create_acpi_device(dd->handle);
}
mutex_unlock(&ds->hp_lock);
}
@@ -333,6 +335,7 @@
changed.
/
kobject_uevent(&dev->kobj, KOBJ_CHANGE);
+ acpi_bus_generate_event(device, event, num);
}

/**


In Gentoo the event can be matched using the code extracted from my /etc/acpi/default.sh :

if [ $1 = "GDCK" ] ;then
export XAUTHORITY=/var/run/xauth/`ls /var/run/xauth/`
export DISPLAY=:0
if [ $2 = "00000000" ] ; then
logger "docking ?"
else
logger "undocking ?"
fi
exit;
fi


Unfortunately, this quick hack fails to detect the first "undock" event if the laptop is docked at boot time...

Having the dual head working properly on Linux is a pain in the ass. Especially when your laptop comes with an Intel card.

For an unknown reason using the latest stable intel drivers of the Gentoo linux distribution, getting the DVI output of the docking station working is not possible ; you have to unmask the intel drivers package to get it work. Unfortunately, even with the last drivers, it fails to detects video modes of the DELL 2007WFP flat screen It detects a wrong 1680x1050 video mode (59Hz instead of the required 60Hz). Even worse, this video mode is not selected by default and only detected if X starts while the laptop is docked. To solve this, a ad-hoc xorg.conf file must be setup :

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "dvi"
Option "PreferredMode" "1680x1050@60"
Option "Position" "1280 0"
Modeline "1680x1050@60" 147.14 1680 1784 1968 2256 1050 1051 1054 1087 -HSync +Vsync
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "lcd"
Option "LeftOf" "dvi"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Card0"
Driver "i810"
ChipSet "965GM"
Card "i810 965GM"
Option "monitor-LVDS" "lcd"
Option "monitor-TMDS-1" "dvi"
EndSection

Even with this config specials scripts have to be written in order to get it work (this must be launched after the X startup) :

#!/bin/bash
/usr/bin/xrandr --output TMDS-1 --mode 1680x1050@60
/usr/bin/xrandr --output TMDS-1 --pos 1280x0


By default, the Leopard TimeMachine is not able to write to Windows network shares. But it comes with an hidden option that allows this to happen. You only have to do this :

defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1