Bought a Panasonic CF-28 MK2 w/ Touchscreen

This guide will get you started running Ubuntu linux on your CF 18. I've tried to keep it at a fairly high level, and only cover things that are specific to the 18.
This guide will also get you working with only a few changes on a CF-28, and possibly on other models as well

0. Installation
A standard install of Ubuntu 8.10 was used as the base. Most of the functions on the CF-18 will work out of the box, including sound and wired and wireless networking, so it makes an excellent starting point. There are plenty of guides for general Ubuntu installation, so I'm not going to go into details here. Boot the CD, answer a few questions, and let it do its thing. Once the install is complete, the first thing you will want to do is log in, connect to a network, and run the update manager to update your system. This will get you the latest updates and patches, and get you ready for the next steps.

1. Hotkey Driver
In order to enable the hotkey functionality, you will need to download, build, and install a driver.

The driver is available from http://www.da-cha.jp/letsnote The file you need is pcc-acpi-0.9.tar.bz2. download and save this file using firefox.
By default, firefox will save the file to your Desktop.
I suggest creating a "src" directory to work on this in:

cd ~ will change to your home directory
mkdir src will create the new directory
cd src to enter the new src directory
bunzip2 -c ../Desktop/pcc-acpi-0.9.tar.bz2 | tar -xvf - will extract the file and create a pcc-acpi-0.9 directory. Also a hint: The shell will do filename completion if you hit the tab key, so you can shortcut the entry of the filename. Hitting tab twice will show all possible completions

enter the pcc-acpi-0.9 directory (cd pcc-acpi-0.9) and run the following commands:

make
sudo make install
sudo depmod -a
sudo modprobe pcc_acpi

the sudo commands may prompt you for your password. Enter it if prompted.

check out your working hotkeys! All the fn+Fkey hotkeys should work at this point, as well as the front panel brightness buttons.

2. Touchscreen
To get the touchscreen working you will need to download and install a driver, and edit the xorg configuration file.
A note for our advanced readers: This driver is available via apt, but is an older version which does not work correctly with screen rotation

The driver is available from http://www.conan.de/touchscreen/evtouch.html The file you need is evtouch-0.8.8.tar.gz. Download and save this file using firefox.
Extract the driver using gunzip -c evtouch-0.8.8.tar.gz | tar -xvf -
this will create an evtouch-0.8.8 directory. enter that directory and run the following command:

sudo cp evtouch_drv.so /usr/lib/xorg/modules/input

this may prompt you for your password. Enter it if prompted.

You will then need to edit your xorg configuration file. Run the following command:

sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak
sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

this will start the gedit editor. If there is another editor you prefer, feel free to use it instead, just remember you will still need to preface the command with sudo

Update the file to match the following; note that anything on a line after the # symbol is a comment, and is not read by the system:

Code:
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Default Screen"
InputDevice "TouchScreen" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "TouchPad" "SendCoreEvents"
EndSection


Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
Device "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "TouchScreen"
Driver "evtouch"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/by-path/platform-i8042-serio-3-event-mouse"
Option "Name" "CF-18 Touchscreen"
Option "DeviceName" "CF-18 Touchscreen"
Option "ReportingMode" "Raw"
Option "Emulate3Buttons"
#Option "Calibrate" "1"
#CALIBRATION VALUES
Option "maxx" "945"
Option "maxy" "927"
Option "minx" "78"
Option "miny" "75"
#Option "x0" "0"
#Option "x1" "0"
#Option "x2" "-2"
#Option "x3" "0"
#Option "x4" "4"
#Option "x5" "0"
#Option "x6" "0"
#Option "x7" "0"
#Option "x8" "0"
#Option "y0" "-4"
#Option "y1" "0"
#Option "y2" "4"
#Option "y3" "0"
#Option "y4" "4"
#Option "y5" "0"
#Option "y6" "7"
#Option "y7" "4"
#Option "y8" "3"
Option "MoveLimit" "3"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "TouchPad"
Driver "mouse"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/by-path/platform-i8042-serio-4-event-mouse"
Option "Name" "PS/2 Touchpad"
EndSection


after editing this file, you will need to log out and back in for changes to take effect.

This should get you a working touchscreen, however the calibration is probably off. Unfortunately, the calibration program included with the driver is broken, so you will be stuck calibrating manually by changing the calibration values listed in the configuration. The minx and miny values control the upper left corner. work on those first, as everything else is based on them. then move to the maxx and maxy values. these set the bottom right corner. Once those are set, the x0-x8 and y0-y8 values can be uncommented, and used to tweak the calibration in the various portions of the screen. The numbered pairs go left to right then top to bottom, so x0 and y0 tweak the upper left, x8 and y8 are the lower right, and x4 and y4 control the center of the screen. Remember, after making changes, you need to log out and log back in for them to take effect.

3. Tweaks
3a. Screen Rotation.
screen rotation works out of the box from the command line using the xrandr command. However, with the desktop effects enabled, it will occasionally cause X to crash, causing you to lose any open windows. To disable effects, right click on the desktop and select Change Desktop Background, then select the Visual Effects tab, and select the None option.
To rotate the screen, run xrandr -o right
to rotate it back, run xrandr -o normal
you can also use left and inverted to get other orientations.

The following script will toggle between right and normal orientations.
Code:
if [ "`xrandr|grep 'current 1024'|wc -l`" -eq "1" ]
then
echo "Rotate right"
xrandr -o right
else
echo "Rotate normal"
xrandr -o normal
fi

to use it, save it to a file (I called mine "rotate", and then set the file executable (chmod +x rotate) You can then make a launcher button on your desktop panel that runs the script and toggles rotation. A good place to put this file would be /usr/local/bin

3b. Suspend
By default, closing the display will only result in the screen going blank. To change this, Select System->Preferences->Power Management, and change the settings.

3c. Power
TODO: There are a bunch of tweaks to improve battery life, but I haven't had a chance to implement them yet.

3d. Wifi rf_kill
disabling the wifi card under network manager does not turn off the power to the radio. The following script will allow you to turn the radio on or off from the command line:
Code:
#!/bin/bash

RFKILL=/sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200/0000\:01\:03.0/rf_kill

case $1 in
(on|ON|On|oN)
echo 0 >> $RFKILL
;;
(off|OFF|Off)
echo 1 >> $RFKILL
;;
esac

I've placed this file in /usr/local/bin/wifi-power. as with the rotate script, you must set it executable to run it.