Today:
Dick Smith Electronics has Acer Aspire 4315-100508Ci Notebooks for sale with Ubuntu 7.10 pre-installed. And they are selling well.
Update: There are reports that outstanding problems are solved with Intrepid Ibex - the next release due in October. Therefore, I've added a page here which attempts to follow it's progress. Meantime, it's probably worth getting the kernel updates.
Since the sales are limited to Australasia, mainly New Zealand, there has been precious little information about them online. Well, I'm fixing that.
This page documents my personal attempt to install Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) to this machine.
The idea here is to create the minimum installation which enables the maximum functionality. My target is the list of outstanding flaws in the default installation. The result should be the sort of thing a customer would expect, out of the box, from a retail laptop.
The Hardy Heron ISO's became available at midnight NZDT - which is quite impressive. I expected to have to wait at least ten hours. I started the download right away, from http://releases.ubuntu.com/8.04/, and seem to have beaten the rush (the servers generally get a hammering in the first week!)
I used the Desktop CD for the initial install, though I also grabbed the alternate CD as the basis of the final, custom, ISO.
Note - a fresh install is strongly urged. Especially for those with the Acer pre-install. If you choose to update instead, you can expect trouble. You have been warned.
The default partition has 4.2GiB swap with the rest ext2-root on the 80GiB SATA drive. The installed RAM in a whole Gig - so the swap should be overkill. I chose to repartition manually anyway, just to make sure there are no hidden bits left by Acer, potentially messing things up. The new scheme is a simple one:
I used the dosktop install CD, selected "guided, use the entire disk", and accepted the defaults. Couldn't be simpler. The partition image is based on this configuration.
The following table lists the out-of-the-box functionality. I'm still testing, so some of these entries may change as more information comes to light. Also - details will be added.
| Working | Not Working |
|
Outstanding issues suspend-to-RAM, modem.
The microphone support is proving to be unstable - stopped working on a reinstall.
Microphone: On the first install, the microphone recorded very quietly. Increasing the capture and digital input sliders, with mic boost, gave good recordings. So I declaired the mic "fixed" in Hardy.
An external mic is working just fine. I suspect the internal mic is just plain broken! You need to rt-click the volume control applet (top panel, right side, looks like a speaker) and select "open volume control". Check all the boxes to activate the sliders. This will also give you extra tabs in the volume control dialog.
Explore the tabs. You want to increase the front-mic boost and the digital capture about half-to-three-quarters. Test using Applications > Sound and Video > Sound Recorder. If the recorded sound is crackly, the sliders are set too high.
People interested in doing their own experimenting, or with other problems, should start here.
[update: June 4, 08]
I am declaring the mic fully supported - previously this was suspected "broken" and there are reports of Acer mics being somewhat delecate. Following a meeting with Acer NZ, I have been corrected. Care needs to be taken in setting the sliders - merely maxing them is not going to work.
Create a file under /etc/pm/config.d/ and add the problematic module
to it, e.g.
# sudo vi /etc/pm/config.d/acer
SUSPEND_MODULES="psmouse"
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install build-essential
wget -c http://snapshots.madwifi.org/special/madwifi-ng-r3366+ar5007.tar.gz
tar xvf madwifi-ng-r3366+ar5007.tar.gz
cd madwifi-ng-r3366+ar5007
sudo make install
sudo modprobe ath_pci
sudo modprobe wlan_scan_sta
On my system, this worked immediately. Some people may need to reboot. You may need to add the last two lines to /etc/rc.local to make them persistent.
If you are having trouble getting a connection, you may need to troubleshoot your network connection. This process is outside the scope of this document, but there is an Ubuntu Geek article which is helpful.
[Thanks to Graeme Simpson for the link.]
The active drivers will mess with hibernate. Kernel updates seem to have fixed this - particularly if you use the Intrepid kernel.
Remember that you will need to recompile the drivers after each kernel upgrade. Also, the driver package, above, may not be recent. It is worth checking the site for updates.
The acer-acpi solution is confirmed effective for enabling the wifi button.
This button and the others can be remapped using xmodmap (included by default) if you know the scancodes. The scancodes are:
Wifi On: e055, Wifi Off: e056, Euro: e033, Dollar: e034
However - it is not advisable to use the wifi button for anything else as it seems to be hard-wired to the card.
The latest kernels and hsfmodem driver seem to work well together. However, expect support to break unexpectedly as the proprietary binary driver falls in and out of sync with Ubuntu's Alsa package version.
Note: we do not expect restricted multimedia playback from a self-install. There are legalities preventing wholesale distribution.
Some issues
Audio: some people had trouble with the speakers non-functional or very quiet. An effective solution has been to set the special "acer" option for the driver: in /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base add options snd-hda-intel model=acer at the end.
Video: if you want to use the external screen, it will function in cloned mode by default. Sometimes this is not desirable. To get it to work seperately, you need to add the following to /etc/X11/xorg.conf Section "Screen":
SubSection "Display"
Virtual 2560 1824
EndSubSection
Reference: thinkwiki. (Thanks to Eliot Blennerhassett for this.)
There is a commercial product called LinDVD which does not require (says the ad) libdvdcss2. I have tested this under Mandriva 2008 and persanally think it is crummy. But it's there are emphasises the main point which should be considered: do pay attention to the licences. If you do not, you risk breaking the law.
If you intend to use your laptop to play DVDs in a commercial setting, you are strongly encouraged to aquire the appropriate licenses.
To use the image, you need an alternate boot method which leaves the optical drive free, and the partimage program. I used a usb HDD with Hardy Heron installed.
However - if you don't use the modem, and you don't care about suspend, there is not a lot to do. You will be able to install Hardy and follow this recipe with little fuss.
Simon Bridge
2008