[SoftwareRec] Install Ubuntu on Acer Travelmate 3000 (3002WTCi)

Before reading all contents below,

for those are still struggling to install ubuntu 5.10 onto the Acer Travelmate 3000 series, I strongly suggest that it is time to try Ubuntu/Kubuntu 6.06. In another article, I wrote my experience of using 6.06 on the Acer. 6.06 can be installed and run smoothly and easily. Of cause, If you enjoy kernel patch, recompilation, etc., please go on.


Actually, I donnot like the Acer Travelmate very much. The last time when I was a acer travelmate customer is 5 years ago. I remember the acer babi is really hot, especially in room without air-con. Last week, I got a new travelmate 3200WTCi from company, rather disappointed to find it is still as hot as 5 years ago.

'Hot' is the first impression it brings to me. Compared to my previous old laptop Toshiba Portege4100, which has similar weight and computing power with travelmate at the same age, the Acer is just like a oven.
However, I must agree I donnot hate its industrial design. It is cute. Now, the problem is how about its linux support. If it supports linux good, I will love it much more. I will record the process of installing and setting ubuntu at the following parts. The ubuntu is 5.04 hoary, some problems are resolved in 5.10 breedy already, which I will introduce later.

1. Install from CD

I am not sure what happened when I use default parameter (just press enter), the kernel just hangs. But it is easy to bypass the problem. You can install with parameter:
linux acpi=off noacpi
After that, it will go smoothly, everything will be detected (not just work), including wireless card and video card. But both of them cannot work properly. Soundcard also cannot work by default.

2. Video Problem

The widescreen's native resolution is 1280x800. but ubuntu can only detect 1024x768 from BIOS. In this model, everything is too short, a bit ugly. 915resolution is a program modify the BIOS setting on fly. I grab it and run:
915resolution 49 1280 800 24
then, the resolution is OK, much more beautiful.
To let it run on startup, you need to put it into a startup script. I forgot what is the default runlevel, and I am lazy, thus, I do the following steps:
#vi /etc/init.d/915resolution
/* insert 915resolution 49 1280 800 24*/
#chmod a+x /etc/init.d/915resolution
#update-rc.d 915resolution defaults
In ubuntu 5.04 hoary, xorg is 6.8.2, which doesn't support DRI acceleration. But in breedy, xorg is 6.9, and supports intel 915GM's GMA 9000 video card very good (Unfortunately, I found the DRI is broken again, after I reinstall 5.10 today, although it is OK yesterday. Totally no idea).

3. Wireless Network

Ubuntu can detect ipw2200 directly, but I am not sure whether it works by default. As bringing up the wireless module is quite tricky.
Anyway, I suggest to install the latest ipw2200+fireware:
wget http://heanet.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/ ipw2200/ipw2200-1.0.4.tgz
wget http://bughost.org/firmware/ipw2200-fw-2.3.tgz
sudo mv ipw2200-fw-2.3.tgz /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware
tar xzf ipw2200-1.0.4.tgz
cd ipw2200-1.0.4
make
sudo make install
cd /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware
sudo tar xzf ipw2200-fw-2.3.tgz
sudo rm -r /lib/modules/`uname -a|awk '{ print $3 }'`/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ieee80211
sudo rm -r /lib/modules/`uname -a|awk '{ print $3 }'`/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ipw2200
sudo depmod -a
sudo rmmod ipw2200 firmware_class ieee80211 ieee80211_crypt_wep ieee80211_crypt
sudo modprobe ipw2200

When u run 'dmesg', you may see:
ipw2200: Radio Frequency Kill Switch is On:
Kill switch must be turned off for wireless networking to work.
I just push the wireless enable button (in ur laptop front panel), and then:
modprobe -r ipw2200
modprobe ipw2200
ifconfig ethxx up
dhclient ethxx
then it is OK.
Another trick to bring up the wireless card is to push the same button during startup, just after hotplug service is up and before the network service start.

4. Sound Card

To bring up the Intel HDA sound card, we need to repair the broken apic support in kernel.
I am using linux-image-2.6.12-6-686, and assume all following steps are executed on linux-source-2.6.12:
a. Download io_apic.c and mpparse.c to /usr/src/linux-source-2.6.12/arch/i386/kernel/
b. compile kernel (make menuconfig; make; make_modules_install; cp System.map /boot/System.map-xxx; cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/xxxx; mkinitrd -o /boot/initrd.img-xxxx; etc.
(for ubuntu 5.10, kernel 2.6.12-9-386, need change the line: #define WORKING_SET 1024 in scripts/kallsyms.c to: #define WORKING_SET 65536 )
then apic support is repaired, after this, you can delete acpi=off parameters from your grub menu.list. After grabing latest alsa and install, the sound card can be detected and run.

In breedy, after I upgrade linux-686, the acpi support is broken again. Thus, I removed those linux-686 related packages, as I think I do NOT need them any more.

5. Firewire CDROM

just work

6. ACPI

You can downloaded DSDT file ACER-Travelmate_3000-3C18-custom.asl.gzfrom acpi.sourceforge.net to repair ACPI. I download the DSDT.aml from Tilo Lutz, and then do the following steps:
a. echo -n "INITRDDSDT123DSDT123" >> /boot/initrd.img-2.6.12
b. cat DSDT.aml >> /boot/initrd.img-2.6.12
Here, my initrd table is /boot/initrd.img-2.6.12, For more information, please refer to http://gaugusch.at/kernel.shtml and http://acpi.sourceforge.net/dsdt/index.php
After patch it to initrd, my ubuntu can now show battery power left, cheers.

After I upgrade to ubuntu 5.10, the above method failed, as 5.10 replaces initrd with initramfs. To use DSDT.aml in 5.10, just execute:
mkinitamfs -o /boot/initrd.img-2.6.12 2.6.12
cp DSDT.aml /etc/mkinitramfs/
The DSDT.aml from Tilo Lutz does not work. I do some modification and you can download my DSDT.aml.

7. Modem

Below is the modem info. ATI3
Agere SoftModem Version 2.1.47

ATI5
2.1.47, Intel, HDA, 14
Somebody say Agere arranges only 1 programmer (Soumyendu Sarkar) for linux, somebody say Agere has start to write linux driver for 4+ years without any release. :-D, I am not sure what is true, but seems can only give up. You know, my old toshiba portege 4010's modem (AT3: TOSHIBA V.90 Data+Fax Software Modem Version 3.1.100; AT5: 3.1.100, AMR.ALi MB, AC97 ID:SIL REV:0x27,19)has never work in the past 3 years.

IR

Copy the nsc-ircc.c to drivers/net/irda, and compile kernel. Copy the nsc-ircc to /etc/modprobe.d/
Then, modprobe nsc_ircc seems no problem, except some warning in 'dmesg'. Again, no IR toy to test it.

Bluetooth

Seems it works from 'dmesg', but I have no bluetooth productions to test.

Cardreader

nothing to test

Hibernate

Doesn't work Post-Configuration

1. For chinese support, plz refer to:

tip1
tip2
Other acer laptop tips for linux1 Other acer laptop tips for linux2