Installing Debian lenny/sid on Fujitsu Lifebook P7230

General Hardware Specifications of Fujitsu P7230:

This laptop is operating under Kernel version 2.6.22

• Why to use lenny/sid: I prefer to setup and maintain a minimal configuration for GUI and all other apps, and prefer a fast boot time, so I don't use Ubuntu. For desperate situations when I need extra features I boot Vista.
• Obtaining lenny/sid: I downloaded the daily snapshot of the testing installer.
• Installing: used parted to shrink the Vista partition, create some empty space, in which I specified I wanted Debian with seperate partitions for /, /var, /home etc. This makes for faster boots especially when fsck is invoked ever 30 boots. Also allows /home to be encrypted with LVM/dm-crypt. installation went smoothly, dual booting works.
• Post-Install modifications/tweaks: This is a dual-boot with Vista, so the clock was set to localtime. To correct the time, i needed hwclock --systohw --directisa --localtime. Also modified /etc/rcS.d/S11hwclock.sh as below.

• I use LUKS device mapper encryption with LVM for swap and /home. I chose not to encrypt the entire harddrive in the Debian boot since this is a dual-boot, and I also do not like getting bogged down in a large fsck every 30 boots; this always to happen right when making an important presentation etc.
  • First I used parted to shrink the Vista partition.
  • Then I told Debian to create seperate partitions using the free space.
  • After completing the Debian install, I then added LVM and LUKS.
  • First, add
    swap /dev/hda[n] /dev/random swap
    to /etc/crypttab. This encrypts the swap space (because of my preference for lightweight programs, along with 2G ram installed, I never actually seem to hit swap anyway.)
  • Backup /home.
  • Encrypted /home using steps like these:

    sudo pvcreate /dev/hda[h]
    sudo vgcreate homevg /dev/hda[h]
    sudo lvcreate --name homelv homevg
    sudo cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/homelv/homevg
    sudo cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/homelv/homevg home
    sudo mkfs.ext3 /dev/mapper/home
    sudo mount /dev/mapper/home /home
          

  • To be prompted for the password on boot, add
    home /dev/homevg/homelv none luks
    to /etc/crypttab. Also recall you will need
    /dev/mapper/home /home ext3 defaults 0 2
    in /etc/fstab.
  • I would like to encrypt /tmp /var, but don't want to provide password every time on boot. Eventually I may try to put a password file on the encrypted /home which LUKS reads to then open /tmp and /var. Not enough free time yet.
• Eliminating CapsLock, getting it to give Ctrl instead. This is a nuisance. Create a .xmodmap:

  remove Lock = Caps_Lock
  remove Control = Control_L
  keysym Caps_Lock = Control_L
  add Lock = Caps_Lock
  add Control = Control_L
    

  Then in .xinitrc, add a line xmodmap .xmodmap
• With all my extra RAM, I decided to create a RAMDISK for some commonly used nonchanging files:

  mkdir /mnt/ramdisk              # Make a mount point
  mke2fs /dev/ram0                # Create a filesystem
  mount /dev/ram0 /tmp/ramdisk    # Mount
        

  I put the vim.nox executable and Roget's Thesaurus on the Ramdisk. If I get time to resize the RAMdisk I will load firefox on there also.

• Sound doesn't work
• getmail/nmh aren't working
• /var and /tmp aren't encrypted.
• Trying to get a sense for hard drive's Load_Cycle_Count using SMART; seems to be increasing normally using default configuration, but I am typically using AC power.

• Add --directisa to /etc/rcS.d/S11hwclock.sh under HWCLOCKPARS

• LUKS/LVM on Debian
• LVM on Debian

Impressions on the laptop in general - This is the best laptop I've owned among the following: Acer 602TER, Dell 9300, Sony, Toshiba U205, and the ultraportable Toshiba 602TER. The build is very nice, screen is bright, fan doesn't run often, keyboard is a fine size for me, though I prefer a larger IBM buckling spring keyboard which I use when I can.

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