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Linux - Laptop and Netbook Having a problem installing or configuring Linux on your laptop? Need help running Linux on your netbook? This forum is for you. This forum is for any topics relating to Linux and either traditional laptops or netbooks (such as the Asus EEE PC, Everex CloudBook or MSI Wind).

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Old 01-21-2005, 08:49 PM   #1
kurrupt
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Registered: Jul 2004
Distribution: Debian, Ubuntu, FreeBSD, RHEL
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Acer TravelMate 2300


has anyone or know anyone who had successfully installed a distro on this laptop? i have tried, gentoo,debian,ubuntu,yoper and fedora core 3 and i have had nothing but problems with wither wireless, sound or battery support.. mainly battery and wireless

if anyone can suggest anything to me that would be great.. i hope i dont have to stick with windows
 
Old 06-12-2005, 09:39 PM   #2
ronware
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Registered: Dec 2003
Distribution: Frugalware
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Hi -

I've got Slackware 10 and now I got 'Frugalware 0.2' on it working fine.

"Fine" took a bit of work, though:

You need 'ndiswrapper' to get the network card running properly. Then you have to play around to get your startup scripts to set up the wireless card correctly.

You have to disable 'snd_intel8x0m' by adding it to /etc/hotplug/blacklist. Then the sound will work.

To get X running at the 1280x800 you'll need to patch the BIOS (yes, really). There is a program called 855resolution which patches it at runtime. Then X 'vesa' can use that "BIOS" resolution and the screen will look very nice (if you have the 15.4" screen, which I do).

I have not succeeded in getting the @#$#$ ACPI (suspend/resume) to work, at all. I think Acer sucks, and sucks really hard. The machine is really nice, except for this suspend not working at all (I had two Toshibas before this and both worked OK with ACPI suspend). This seems to have a bad BIOS.
 
Old 06-14-2005, 12:05 AM   #3
evilstrike
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Registered: Jun 2005
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I have an Acer 4000 but all the problem with the Acer is all the same no matter what serie you have. The reason why the Acer's are complicated to configure with linux is because Acer seems not to be too compliant in developping linux drivers for their laptops and their hardware is very modern and mostly unsuported yet in most distro

But there is alot of post and patchs in existance to make everything work, if you take the time to do it and read

Im running the lastest slackware distro (one of the most complicated distro to configure as it works wirth xorg.org rather then xfree86)

At first boot the only things that worked are the DVD, The video card(with crappy drivers) and the network card
The things that didnt work are the Soundcard, The wireless and The Battery(all the ACPI controls)

Im not sure for other distro but im pretty sure its all the same
The soundcard though in some more mainstream distro like RedHat might work at boot and so will the wireless but not the battery support because the problem with Acer is that it has what is now known to be "Smart battery" which if to my understanding i think that Smart battery is controled by the BIOS where as regular battery is controled by the OS (or ther other way arround) And it is not fully developped yet

For the sound card check this post which I have written not long ago on how to install intel8x0 based sound cards (for xorg.org) which is the sound card that is in the Acer laptops
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=332709

These were the steps that I did to get it working

Then for the wifi I have not written the steps yet but like ronware said, you need "ndiswrapper" which i think is a pluging that allows to run windows drivers on linux since there is no linux drivers for the wifi card of the Acer laptops i think

For the ACPI, like ronware, I have not yet manage to get it fully working but I did manage to get ACPI to install but because ACer uses SmartBattery there is another patch which is the SBS patch that is required to modify the DSDT files in order for the battery to be recongnized and read by the battery monitor. It is a very complicated procedure which I am still in the process of getting it to work but i know that it does work

Althoug in slackware to install ACPI is simple enought
get into the linux source tree usually (if you installed the source)
/usr/src/linux
then type
make menuconfig
then in the menu go to

General setup ---->
then go all the way down to
ACPI support --->
then press "y" to all of the options execpt maybe for the debug mode (if you dont need to debug ACPI)
Then exit the menu and save the config file
then still in the linux source tree you have to recomiple the kernel
the best way for me was with

make dep && make clean && make bzImage

after compilation is done go to
/etc/

and type
lilo

this will add an entry to you lilo file so that you can have the choice to boot with the untouched kernel or with the modified with ACPI support kernel

This if it has worked correctly will add the following to you system tree
/proc/acpi

if it is there then ACPI has been install and if you go to
/proc/acpi/battery
and it is empty, it is because it is not detected (which is the problem related to smartbattery with the Acer laptops) if there is something it is because it is detected and the battery monitor should actually work

have fun

Last edited by evilstrike; 06-14-2005 at 12:20 AM.
 
Old 06-15-2005, 11:06 AM   #4
ronware
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Registered: Dec 2003
Distribution: Frugalware
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See this link for very good complete instructions to get ACPI working (I haven't yet done them due to lack of time, but I will soon):

http://www.whoopy.it/linux/
 
Old 06-16-2005, 04:40 PM   #5
ronware
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Registered: Dec 2003
Distribution: Frugalware
Posts: 39

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I tried following the ACPI patching instructions last night, but the iacl compiler complained about too many things (after having applied the patch) and I am not too confident about changing things too much.
 
Old 06-25-2005, 10:28 AM   #6
lospericos
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Jun 2005
Location: Geneva
Distribution: Gentoo
Posts: 1

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Hello you could find the best way to get all information to get working ACPI for SmartBattery on Acer, follow this link on Gentoo forum:
smart battery
Linux are so fast and nice...
 
Old 06-30-2005, 04:30 AM   #7
sKuarecircle
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Jun 2005
Location: South Africa
Posts: 2

Rep: Reputation: 0
Acer Travelmate 2300

Installed SUSE 9.1 without ant hassles whatsoever.
Can'r get network and internet to work(connect to adsl router through network)
I will post update as i go along, feel free to offer advice or experience
 
Old 06-30-2005, 04:58 AM   #8
sKuarecircle
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Registered: Jun 2005
Location: South Africa
Posts: 2

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Working?

Well I type to from Linux,
just after I finished typing the previous post from Xp, I dived into SUSE and fiddled with some stuff, I now have internet connection, Thats all i know .
I will say this, I have not put it through it's paces yet, but the installation on to the travelmate was a breeze, dual boot system with xp.
Getting connected, a little tussle but not difficult at the end of the day considering I know nothing, i repeat nothing about Linux.Hope to change that soon.

Cheers, I will check this post if anone wants to know my settings etc.

Nexrt problem to solve, getting my scroll wheel on my mouse to work
 
  


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