SuSE 9.1 on the Acer Aspire 2012 WLMi Notebook
In this page i'll document my way to a nicely configged
installation of SuSE 9.1 on my new Acer Aspire 2012 notebook.
Comments, questions and help on unsolved issues are welcome. You can send me
an email at christophe AT vandeplas DOT com
Christophe Vandeplas
Stats
ChangeLog
- 15 Now 2004: still more info about CardReader
- 09 Oct 2004: more info about CardReader
- 09 Oct 2004: corrected some stuff about minor kernel error messages + ipw2200 driver
- 13 Sep 2004: added some info about suspend/standby
- 03 Sep 2004: moved the Windows Refund part to a separate page
- 29 Aug 2004: added estimation of battery duration
- 27 Aug 2004: updates some minimal stuff
- 26 Aug 2004: started this HOWTO
TODO
- be refunded for the Windows shipped with the pc
- Suspend to Ram and to disk and resume
- Hotkey buttons
- Infrared
- Fix cardreader stuff
- burn some DVD's
Index
Windows Refund Base Installation Hardware Custom Kernel Networking BCM4401 Fast Ethernet Intel 2200BG 802.b/g Wireless Lan Graphics Interfaces IEEE1394 / Firewire Internal SD/Multimedia/Smartmedia Cardreader Infrared Port Cardbus/PCMCIA Modem: Intel AC'97 Modem Controller External VGA TV Out Input Devices Touchpad Keyboard Mobile device issues Power and saving it Thanks
Window Refund
This small part got a little expanded and is updated often. To keep this HOWTO clear I moved all the Windows refund to a dedicated page: winrefund.htm
Base Installation
First I inserted my SuSE DVD .
When booting the first time up, I entered the firts welcome screen of SuSE.
I choose 'native' at the choice of verbosity (=show the output text in the shell)
(the default choice was an SuSE graphical screen that asks you to wait)
I let the SuSE installer detect my whole system, and finally had a nice list of all detected hardware,
of the software that SuSE installs by default, time setting, keyboard layout,...
The first thing I did was to set the keyboard right (Belgian), then I clicked on the 'partitioning' item and went to 'advanced partitioning'. I immediately deleted all the Windows partitions available on the Hard Drive and made 3 partitions:
- /dev/hda1 reiserfs 4,6 GB - /dev/hda2 swap 1 GB - /dev/hda5 reiserfs 50,3 GB
Afterwards I went to the package list and asked to select by myself the packages. I deleted all the games and went searching for specific apps that I knew I needed in the future (you can always install other packages afterwards using YaST). One of them is ndiswrapper & km_ndiswrapper, you'll need this to get your WiFi network card working with the Windows drivers.
I went back to the main installation menu, and finally installed my system.
Don't forget to ask to 'Activate boot loader partition' and to 'Replace code in MBR'
The standard kernel is 2.6.4-52-default, I now upgraded to the 2.6.8.1-mm4 (reasons, see later)
Pentium ® M Processor, 1.5 GHz OK No special procedure required during installation.
15.4" WXGA LCD Display OK Bright, fairly fast and great range of visibility
ATI Radeon Mobility 9700 OK need Closed Source ATI driver for 3D accel.
512 MB memory - 2 DDR333 SO-DIMMS OK
60 GB Toshiba MK6025GAS HD OK Suspend disk, read temperature,...
Floppy N/A
Touchpad OK fully working in kernel 2.6.8.1 and later
previous kernel doesn't support the 4 multi-buttons
TI TSB43AB21 IEEE-1394a-2000(firewire) ???
Broadcom BCM4401 Fast Ethernet OK b44 module (autodetected)
Intel 2200 BG Wireless Card OK ndiswrapper and XP driver for now OR ipw2200
Intel 82801DB/DBL/DBM AC'97 Modem OK Closed source driver (autodetected with standard kernel)
QSI SDW-042 DVD+/-R/RW combo drive N.F.T Not tested DVD writing yet
Intel 82801DB/DBL/DBM AC'97 Audio OK (autodetected)
ENE Technology Inc CB1410 Cardbus OK
Infrared Port ??? I noticed I had some irq problems with the audio
when enabling the ir in the bios
N/A = not available N.F.T = not fully tested ??? = not tested
Hardware
root@aspirius /# lspci 0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 82852/855GM Host Bridge (rev 02) 0000:00:00.1 System peripheral: Intel Corp.: Unknown device 3584 (rev 02) 0000:00:00.3 System peripheral: Intel Corp.: Unknown device 3585 (rev 02) 0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp.: Unknown device 3581 (rev 02) 0000:00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB USB (Hub #1) (rev 03) 0000:00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB USB (Hub #2) (rev 03) 0000:00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB USB (Hub #3) (rev 03) 0000:00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB USB2 (rev 03) 0000:00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801BAM/CAM PCI Bridge (rev 83) 0000:00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82801DBM LPC Interface Controller (rev 03) 0000:00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82801DBM Ultra ATA Storage Controller (rev 03) 0000:00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corp. 82801DB/DBM SMBus Controller (rev 03) 0000:00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 03) 0000:00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corp. 82801DB AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 03) 0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 [Mobility Radeon 9600 M10] 0000:02:00.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB43AB21 IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link) 0000:02:01.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation: Unknown device 170c (rev 02) 0000:02:02.0 Network controller: Intel Corp.: Unknown device 4220 (rev 05) 0000:02:04.0 CardBus bridge: ENE Technology Inc CB1410 Cardbus Controller (rev 01)
Custom Kernel
Seems there are still some errors at the boot with this kernel (due to badly configged .config file)
But they do not really affect the stability/work (except the cd/usb automounter). That's why it's not my priority to fix this now
The speedstep-centrino module of the standard kernel doesn't work with our Pentium M CPU.
I contacted Jeremy Fitzhardinge (the developer of this module) and he states that it's supported in 2.6.8.1-mm1.
So i downloaded the latest kernel from kernel.org 2.6.8.1
and also the mm4 patch.
WARNING:
- you will have to recompile the ndiswrapper module afterwards
- you will have to download and compile the modem driver afterwards
- you will have to recompile the ATI 3D driver again
- you will have to recompile the special keys (acerhk) driver
# wget http:// # wget http:// # tar xjf linux-2.6.8.1.tar.bz2 # tar xjf 2.6.8.1-mm4.bz2 # cp -R linux-2.6.8.1 25 # patch -p0 < 2.6.8.1-mm4 # mv 25 /usr/src/linux-2.6.8.1-mm4
Now we have to configure the kernel (here's my .config)
# make oldconfig # make xconfig # make # sux # make modules_install # make install # mk_initrd
I still need to correct the bootloader, to be able to boot with the old kernel in case of a kernel panic
# vi /boot/grub/menu.lst title Linux 2.6.4.52-default kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.4-52-default root=/dev/hda1 vga=0x317 splash=0 desktop resume=/dev/hda2 showopts initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd-2.6.4-52-default
Networking
The Aspire 2012 sports two network interfaces, a BCM4401 10/100 Mbit Ethernet interface and the new 11/54 Mbit Centrino WLAN chipset by the name of 2200BG.
BCM4401 Fast Ethernet
This device uses the b44 module, it's automatically detected and configured. The interface is called eth0.
Intel 2200BG 802.b/g Wireless Lan
There is a project on sourcefourge to write a native driver for it but it's not yet ready for primetime. The development is advancing very fast (approx every week new version). But some key features are still missing (WEP shared key,...).
Native driver project under http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/
Ndiswrapper (if you installed it with YaST). Download the XP driver from
here
I extracted the files using Wine, you can either do the same or extract if on a windows machine.
Then install the driver:
# ndiswrapper -i WLAN_8.0.12.9000/w22n51.INF # ndiswrapper -l ## to check if it's ok # modprobe ndiswrapper # iwconfig
The interface is called wlan0.
(I added the line 'modprobe ndiswrapper' in my /etc/init.d/boot.local file)
The WiFi radio on/off button work fine due to the fact it's a hardware button
Graphics
The Aspire 2012 has an ATI Radeon Mobility 9700 gfx
card with 64MB and a 1280x800 WXGA lcd display.
I'm using the closed source driver from ATI. Here ar the instructions:
Download the right rpm from here
now check/install the folowing software with YaST
- glibc version 2.2 or 2.3
- XFree86 version 4.1.0, 4.2.0 or 4.3.0
- kernel source code
- kernel header(include) files
- GCC compiler
- Make utility
Then install the package using the following command:
rpm -Uvh fglrx-4.3.0-3.11.1.i386.rpm
You will notice that a kernel module gets compiled
Now you can either choose to run the "fglrxconfig" command to generate a
new XF86Config-4 file, or just copy/analyse my file. XF86Config
(warning: the generated of the config file is really ugly! and badly
configged, it will need a lot of tweaking for inputdevices)
Interfaces
IEEE1394 / Firewire
I don't have a firewire device, so I can't test it. If you have tested it, please tell me if/how it works
Internal SD/Multimedia/Smartmedia Cardreader
I tested it with the SmartMedia Card, it's detected correclty:
root@aspirius /# lsusb | grep Apa Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0d7d:0240 Apacer I/O Magic Drive
Ville Sääski send me an email to tell me it works fine by installing the subfs module from http://submount.sourceforge.net/
If this doesn't work, try reading this page: http://www.cs.sfu.ca/~ggbaker/personal/cf-linux, John Krivitsky informed me that it is a very usefull page.
Infrared Port
Not tested yet
Cardbus/PCMCIA
Works fine out of the box.
Modem: Intel AC'97 Modem Controller
With the standard kernel it's already included, if you use your own kernel you need to compile the kernel module yourself.
You can find the drivers here.
External VGA
Works fine, the best thing is to change the settings in your XF86Config file.
Here's a little cut from my config file
# === Screen Management ===
Option "DesktopSetup" "0x00000400"
# 0x00000000 for 2nd screen disabled
# 0x00000100 for identical screens
# 0x00000200 for wide screen
# 0x00000300 for high screen
Option "MonitorLayout" "LVDS, CRT"
# TMDS for DVI monitors
# CRT for CRT monitors
# STV for TV Out
# LVDS for Laptop Panels
TV Out
I tried it. I got an image on my TV, but the Horizontal and Vertical frequency are wrong.
I never confgured an TV out before, all hints are welcome.
Input Devices
Touchpad
The touchpad works fine with the XF86 driver for synaptics touchpads.
If you want an example for the config have a look at my XF86Config file.
It works fine in combination with an USB mouse, even with the USB mouse connected at boot (Joachim Ring had some problems with that)
Keyboard
Some keys are working standard:
- screen brightness
- screen on/off
- mousepad on/off
- power button
- WiFi on/off
There are drivers for the special keys on various Acer models, so there is hope.
I installed the acerhk driver, it works partially, but needs still some config.
Here's the Acerhk driver: http://www.informatik.hu-berlin.de/~tauber/acerhk/
Some dmesg output when pressing a special key.
atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0xf4 on isa0060/serio0). atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e074 <keycode>' to make it known.
The mail led is working fine !! "echo on > /proc/driver/acerhk/led" turns it on.
No I use it in combination with evolution and an incoming mail filter. Every new mail executes this action.
Unfortunately it isn't turned off autmatically when the status of the mail is changed into 'read'. I have to apply manually
the 'apply filter' on read messages to turn the led off. Any incoming spam message also turns the led off.
Mobile device issues
Power and saving it
Unfortunately the speedstep-centrino module fails loading with the standard SuSE 9.1 kernel
That's why I compiled my own kernel. And now it works sooooo quietly !! wooohoooo ;-)
Here's some output from my /proc/acpi/
root@aspirius /proc/acpi/processor/CPU0# cat info
processor id: 0
acpi id: 0
bus mastering control: yes
power management: yes
throttling control: yes
limit interface: yes
root@aspirius /proc/acpi/processor/CPU0# cat throttling
state count: 8
active state: T4
states:
T0: 00%
T1: 12%
T2: 25%
T3: 37%
*T4: 50%
T5: 62%
T6: 75%
T7: 87%
This looks nice ! ;-)
Battery times
I did not use scripts to simulate work and evaluate the battery duration, 'yet'. If you know some of these scripts, please send me an email with some info.
I just looked at a movie, after 1h50 i still have 50% of the battery left. The CPU ran at around 35% during the movie..
I'll give more detailed times later
Suspend / Standby
You first need to edit the powersaved config file /etc/powersave.conf
On bottom of the file change the values of POWERSAVED_DISABLE_USER_SUSPEND and POWERSAVED_DISABLE_USER_STANDBY to 'no'
With YaST, in the 'powermanagement' module I choose as laptop lid option: suspend
But it seemed as the pc went to a full standby. When restarting the PC, the system freezes only when the X runs (I think this will be a bug in the frglx driver). When I first turn the X off (init 3) it works perfectly.
When I choose 'standby', and close the lid the pc the PC goes to a kind of suspend-to-ram (I think so). The Yellow power changes to a red/orange led (this looks good). BUT I can't get the system back running.
Thanks
- Allwebsales computers who signed me my "Windows Removal Certificate"
- Joachim Ring with his Debian howto page
- Jeremy Fitzhardinge for answering my speedstep-centrino question so fast
- you for reading this page
