Ubuntu 7.10 on Acer Aspire 2920-5A1G16Mi

And now, after Acer Aspire 2920 review *on Windows of course*, I want to share with you how Ubuntu 7.10 runs on it.

At first, it was Mandriva Powerpack 2008 that I had in mind. The installation was OK, nothing ¨that I knew¨ went wrong but some of the features didn´t work, like the wifi, the bluetooth, even the shortcuts (Fn + …). Maybe the bluetooth didn´t work in Mandriva Powerpack 2008 because I hadn´t installed kdebluetooth . Well, who knows?! Instead of wasting my time finding out how to fix it (I don´t know how anyway), I started to find the copy of Ubuntu 7.10 that I had downloaded before.

For the complete hardware list you can check out the acer website. Here is the lspci list :

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)

00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)

00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Contoller #4 (rev 03)

00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)

00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)

00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)

00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)

00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)

00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)

00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)

00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)

00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)

00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f3)

00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)

00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 03)

00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA IDE Controller (rev 03)

00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)

02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM5787M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 02)

04:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02)

As for the lsusb list :

Bus 007 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Bus 006 Device 003: ID 5986:0102

Bus 006 Device 002: ID 0bda:0158 Realtek Semiconductor Corp.

Bus 006 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Bus 005 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

I am not really sure, what is the Realtek Semiconductor Corp doing there, but I think it is the internal microphone.

As always, Ubuntu never disappoints its great fans. The installation process was perfect. Everything worked fine: the Fn shortcuts, the wifi, the www. The email button also worked. Some didn´t, but I think it was because I needed to set up the buttons first. Even the scrolling on the touchpad also worked. It was just perfect.

After the installation, I rebooted the laptop. It took more than 1 minute for the system to be fully loaded. As a default, Ubuntu always checks the file system of my drive every time I reboot, and the process really slows it down.

What´s working

Screen : I don´t know what made it this way. Usually, when you look at a laptop screen and your viewpoint is not perfectly towards the middle of the screen, what you will see looks like a negative; it is not clear. But in Ubuntu it is different: you don´t need to sit precisely looking at the middle of the screen to get a clear view. Well, of course you will not get as clear a view as when you’re looking at the middle of the screen, but at least you will not get the negative effect.

Keyboard : Until now, I haven´t experienced any major problems with the keyboard. There is one thing that bothers me a little: on some diacritics like ^ , ´ , and ¨ , we need to press the keys twice for them to show up.

Fn Shortcuts : They worked fine. Actually, only some :p The only Fn shortcuts not working were : Fn + F2 (Acer eSettings Management), Fn + F3 (Acer ePower Management), Fn + F4 (Sleep. It did turn the laptop into sleep mode when I pressed the shortcut, but after that, when I pressed any key, the laptop turned on but the screen was just blank. I still had to turn off the laptop by pressing the power button).

Hibernation : It worked with some trouble. While writing this, I am also running Rhythmbox. I closed the lid, then the laptop went into hibernate. When I turned the laptop on, all the running applications were loaded perfectly, except Rhythmbox. It was still playing the song though. I noticed it from the bar that was still moving, but no sound came out. Then I tried to restart the laptop, and voilà! the sound came on

Easy-launch buttons : Acer Empowering Technology and Acer Arcade of course didn´t work. The rest; wifi button, www button, email button, and bluetooth button worked perfectly.

Volume wheel : I was so happy when it popped up the volume meter

Sound : Not fully working. When I inserted an external speaker jack, the sound didn´t move to it.

Touch Pad : Working perfect, including the mouse wheel emulation. I was even able to zoom documents in Open Office.

Bluetooth : After I installed kdebluetooth, now I am able to send files to my mobile, but not the other way around

Wifi : Working fine.

Card Reader : I was not expecting this to work, but it did! Wow, I am so happy. Using the command tail -f /var/log/messages, here is the message :

NuGorgom kernel: [ 4295.396000] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] 31360 512-byte hardware sectors (16 MB)

NuGorgom kernel: [ 4295.400000] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off

NuGorgom kernel: [ 4295.400000] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] 31360 512-byte hardware sectors (16 MB)

NuGorgom kernel: [ 4295.400000] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off

NuGorgom kernel: [ 4295.400000] sdb: unknown partition table

What´s not working :

Camera : I had installed Camorama. It popped up an error message saying ¨could not connect to video device (/dev/video)¨

Internal Microphone : Didn´t work at all. Tried to record using Sound Recorder, but I got nothing.

Graphic Card : Working but without 3D support. No compiz

Haven´t tried :

Express card, modem port, TV-out, and external display.

I did some checking on some hardware, using the command tail -f /var/log/messages. Here were the results :

Bluetooth :
Turned on
NuGorgom kernel: [ 2891.352000] atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0xd4 on isa0060/serio0).

NuGorgom kernel: [ 2891.352000] atkbd.c: Use ’setkeycodes e054 <keycode>’ to make it known.

NuGorgom kernel: [ 2891.356000] atkbd.c: Unknown key released (translated set 2, code 0xd4 on isa0060/serio0).

NuGorgom kernel: [ 2891.356000] atkbd.c: Use ’setkeycodes e054 <keycode>’ to make it known.

NuGorgom kernel: [ 2892.160000] usb 7-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 5

NuGorgom kernel: [ 2892.324000] usb 7-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

Turned off

NuGorgom kernel: [ 2641.364000] atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0xd9 on isa0060/serio0).

NuGorgom kernel: [ 2641.364000] atkbd.c: Use ’setkeycodes e059 <keycode>’ to make it known.

NuGorgom kernel: [ 2641.372000] atkbd.c: Unknown key released (translated set 2, code 0xd9 on isa0060/serio0).

NuGorgom kernel: [ 2641.372000] atkbd.c: Use ’setkeycodes e059 <keycode>’ to make it known.

NuGorgom kernel: [ 2641.588000] usb 7-2: USB disconnect, address 4

Wifi :
Turned on

NuGorgom kernel: [ 3345.764000] atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0xd5 on isa0060/serio0).

NuGorgom kernel: [ 3345.764000] atkbd.c: Use ’setkeycodes e055 <keycode>’ to make it known.

NuGorgom kernel: [ 3345.772000] atkbd.c: Unknown key released (translated set 2, code 0xd5 on isa0060/serio0).

NuGorgom kernel: [ 3345.772000] atkbd.c: Use ’setkeycodes e055 <keycode>’ to make it known.

NuGorgom kernel: [ 3346.616000] ipw3945: Detected geography ABG (11 802.11bg channels, 13 802.11a channels)

Turned off

NuGorgom kernel: [ 3643.988000] atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0xd6 on isa0060/serio0).

NuGorgom kernel: [ 3643.988000] atkbd.c: Use ’setkeycodes e056 <keycode>’ to make it known.

NuGorgom kernel: [ 3643.996000] atkbd.c: Unknown key released (translated set 2, code 0xd6 on isa0060/serio0).

NuGorgom kernel: [ 3643.996000] atkbd.c: Use ’setkeycodes e056 <keycode>’ to make it known.

NuGorgom kernel: [ 3644.388000] Kill switch must be turned off for wireless networking to work.

Hope I didn´t miss anything, please let me know if I did, OK?

Filed under: Linux , Acer Aspire 2920-5A1G16Mi, Ubuntu 7.10, Ubuntu 7.10 on Acer Aspire 2920-5A1G16Mi