Debian/Ubuntu on KDS Valiant 6480iPTD

   Use this how-to if your sound and/or battery meters don't work out of the box using Ubuntu on a KDS Valiant laptop. This how-to should work on any KDS laptop and any version of Ubuntu. It has only been tested on the KDS Valiant 6480iPTD using Ubuntu 6.06.1 and 6.10 .
Background information (Why you need this):

   The Valiant has a limited number of interrupts available to it. ACPI wants a large chuck for itself. The Serial Port B on my computer was also conflicting with the interrupts. While the sound card only needs a very small range, it wants a range directly in the middle of the ACPI range. While you could custom compile a new kernel and work around this problem it is much easier to simply disable ACPI. ACPI provides power management services. Like automatic frequency scaling and Standby and Hibernate support. I have found that these services don't work to well on the Valiant anyway. It has an 800Mhz CPU and to throttle that is next to useless. The XFCE Battery Meter does not use ACPI like most of the other battery meters and will continue to work after this how-to.
Enter the bios F2 and disable the serial ports, specially port B.

When the desktop starts open a terminal and add acpi=off to your list of kernel options in the file /boot/grub/menu.lst. And in /etc/modules add apm power_off=1 in a new line. In the open a terminal run alsamixer. Using the left/right arrows to navigate to Master. Using the up/down turn up your master volume. Using the left/right arrows to navigate to PCM Using the up/down turn up your PCM volume.
Try playing a CD using your favorite media player.