This website summarizes the Linux compatibility status of the Samsung R55 notebook series. I made the assumption that my experience holds for every notebook of the R55 class, although this is not for certain. If you have a R55 notebook and experience problems not outlined on this website, please let me know.

All observations were made based on one particular Linux distribution, namely Ubuntu Linux 6.10 (codenamed ``Edgy Eft´´). Depending on the distribution you use, your mileage may vary. I assume that you have the necessary knowledge to operate Ubuntu properly, because I won't explain e.g. how to use a package manager. If you need further help, you may want to consult The Official Ubuntu Desktop Guide or The Unofficial Ubuntu 6.10 Starter Guide before moving on.

• Technical Specifications
• Component Matrix
• Enabling 3D-acceleration
• Getting the sound card working properly
• Getting the touchpad working properly
• Other features and observations

Using the components identified in the previous section, the following table summarizes which components were fully operational immediately after installing Ubuntu, which ones became fully operational after manual intervention, which ones don't work at all and which ones are yet to be tested. If manual intervention was required, a link points you to the section of this website describing the steps you have to perform to make the component work.

Legend:
= Fully operational (out of the box)
= Fully operational (with further effort)
= Not operational
= Unknown/not tested

Component/Functionality	Status	Note
Processor		The dual core CPU is recognized properly
Main Memory		-
Graphics Card		Enabling 3D-acceleration
Display		Enabling widescreen resolutions
Hard Disk Drive		-
Optical Disc Drive		-
Card Reader		-
Network Adapter		-
Wireless Adapter		-
Sound Card		Getting the sound card working
Touchpad		Getting the touchpad working properly

Although the video device worked out of the box, you won't have any true 3D hardware acceleration until you install the proprietary driver provided by nVidia. The default driver Ubuntu loaded was the nv driver module; Ubuntu does not install the proprietary nVidia driver by default due to licensing issues. To install the nVidia driver package, you have to enable the restricted repository first (either by enabling it using the Synaptic package manager or by manually editing /etc/apt/sources.list). Having done that, you have to install the nvidia-glx package, e.g. by issueing:

Having done that, open /etc/X11/xorg.conf as root and look for the Device section. Alter it to look like this:

Setting the two Option values is optional (yeah...), but they enable you to use the (very funky) AIGLX visuals. For the changes to take effect you have to restart X11. You can do that e.g. by switching to the console using CTRL+ALT+F1. Log in and issue the following command:

This will end your running GNOME session and restart the X server and the display manager. You can quickly check whether your changes were successful e.g. by looking at the glxinfo output:

If the vendor string equals "NVIDIA Corporation" then the rendering device is using the nVidia driver. You can also run glxgears with the -printfps flag to check for FPS improvements over the nv driver, but remember: iacknowledgethatthistoolisnotabenchmark ;-)

Ubuntu by default didn't recognize the widescreen display as being actually widescreen. Rather, it booted up using a poor 800x600 resolution. This may be because the display fails at correctly reporting its supported modes to Linux or to the graphics device, but I am just guessing here so don't quote me on that. Anyways, both the nv and the nvidia driver modules support the display's native 1280x800 resolution and you can enable it with very little effort. Just augment the Screen section in /etc/X11/xorg.conf with the respective resolution (the modes are evaluated from left to right, left having the highest priority):

Reboot X11 (as described in the previous section) and you're all set.

When I first booted Ubuntu, it welcomed me with some very nasty noizes emerging from the speakers. Obviously, the sound card didn't work properly by default. Ubuntu does already load the correct driver for Intel's High Definition Audio, however, the default settings for the driver module don't work for Samsung notebooks. It took me quite some time to figure out the correct settings, because Google didn't completely help this time, so I took the trial-and-error approach. I figured out that you can easily fix the sound by adding the following line to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base:

You have to reload the driver module snd-hda-intel for the change to take effect. After adding that line, my sound worked perfectly fine. I didn't have the time to test the Microphone however, so I'm not sure if that works.

Although the touchpad basically works, you won't have support for using the right side part of the pad for scrolling. You will have to load the synaptics driver module to get full support for your touchpad. To do that, edit your /etc/X11/xorg.conf and find the InputDevice section with the TouchPad identifier. It already contains loads of options, most of which you don't really need (I disabled all but the most basic ones and it still works just fine). Edit it to look like this:

The SHMConfig option is necessary for being able to change touchpad settings on the fly (i.e. without restarting the X server; see below for more info). Now you need to tell the X server to load the driver module. Find the Module section and add a new line:

Function keys:
The Fn-Keys worked properly out of the box.

Stand by/Hibernate:
Stand by and Hibernate (aka suspend-to-disk) seem to work as well (only tried a couple of times).