acertimeline team mailing list archive

[Alex <red-naxela@xxxxxxx>]

Hi everybody!

I got my new Acer Aspire 3810T working under Debian Linux (Unstable) 
with Kernel 2.6.30-1 now. As GUI I use Gnome 2.26.1.
I installed by following the description on the Launchpad Team site 
using a Debian Linux Lenny 5.0.1 DVD (from official debian mirror).

Before installing switch AHCI mode in the bios to IDE!!!

Network (wireless and wired) does NOT work with this version and 
graphics is ugly (wrong resolution).  You need to establish a wired 
network connection by following the instructions on the Launchpad team 
site and then upgrade the distribution to Unstable. Also install the new 
Kernel 2.6.30-1. Then most things work fine already.

Graphics:
- works with correct resolution (1366x768)
- but DPI not set correctly (too large font size at login screen and in 
Gnome GUI), fixed it using Gnome as follows:
 * go to System/Administration/Login Window in the Gnome menu
 * in the Security tab click on the button "Configure X server..."
 * For the Standard server, change the content of the textbox "Command" 
from "/usr/bin/X -audit 0" to "/usr/bin/X -audit 0 -dpi 96" (for DPI 96)
 * Close dialogs and restart GDM, font size should be correctly set

Network:
- Wired network access is working already as Kernel 2.6.30 includes the 
Atheros AR8131 driver now (experimental).
- Wireless network Wifi Link 5100 AGN is supported by Kernel 2.6.30 as 
well but does not work instantly because of a missing firmware file.
 The firmware file needs to be downloaded from 
http://www.intellinuxwireless.org/?n=downloads
 Choose the latest image for the 5100 AGN, unpack it and put the .ucode 
file in /lib/firmware.
- Restart system and wireless lan is working. You can instantly connect 
to your home router via Gnome.

Sound:
- Works instantly, just maximum volume seems to be too low. Fix:
* Open Gnome "Volume Control" and move the "Front" slider to maximum 
(Why that Front Slider? We don't have rear speakers on the 3810T ;-)).
* Now you sound may be set to higher volume using the standard volume 
sliders, Master, PCM etc.

Touchpad:
- Works but not with tapping... did not yet have the time to figure out 
how to enable it.

Suspend/Resume:
- Suspends but does not wake up. Instead of waking up, system reboots. 
:-( Anyone has a fix for that?

Hibernate/Resume:
- Works, have a 8GB swap partition (for 4GB RAM), perhaps also works 
with a smaller swap partition

Brightness settings:
- Works with function keys. But a little bit buggy. Going from medium to 
maximum intensity and then back in the middle does not result in the 
same brightness. I think there is a problem with the readout of the 
"real" brightness value. Has anyone the same problems with the 
brightness settings?

AHCI problems:
- I needed to switch AHCI mode to IDE in the BIOS. If I reswitch to AHCI 
system does not start and is producing these cryptic error messages as 
described on the launchpad team site in the bug description. Don't use 
Vista at all (scratched all, including the backup partition! ;-)), so 
for me it's ok, but would appreciate a fix for that problem anyway.

Battery life / Power Consumption tips:
========================
- I verify the power consumption by using the software "Powertop" 
(package powertop). Initially the 3810T consumed about 15-16W. I think 
that it's a bit high and the battery life time estimation was only 4-5 
hours with that consumption. So I fixed several things to save power:

Activate Wireless LAN Power Management:
- By default the wireless lan card does not have power management 
activated, activate it by typing as root
 "iwconfig wlan0 power on".
Activate Realtek HD sound power savings:
- The sound card supports a power saving mode. I activated it and did 
not notice any impact on sound quality:
 "echo 10 > /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save" as root
File system dirty writebacks:
- This is one of the tips given by powertop. It reduces file system 
accesses by increasing the time interval when unsaved data will be 
written from the buffer to the disk (correct me if I'm wrong). May 
result in higher risk of data loss if power is lost accidentally. I did 
not care about that as we have a notebook and battery should protect us 
from AC power failures. Type as root:
"echo 1500 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_writeback_centisecs" (15 seconds instead 
of default 5 seconds dirty write back)

With these modifications the power consumption drops to below 10W 
(varied between 7.5 and 9.8 W when just surfing the net) at the same 
brightness setting as without the changes. With that changes the 8 hours 
battery life promised by Acer should be possible I hope.... I did not 
yet measure, but I will tell you later, when I did.

The above settings may be written to scripts in /etc/acpi/battery.d to 
be applied automatically when system goes to battery, and /start.d for 
application at startup or /ac.d for AC power supply.

Hard disk load/unload cycles
===================
At the default settings you notice a click sound every minute coming 
from the hard disk when in battery mode. This is due to a quite 
aggressive value of the hard disk power management. Disk unloads and 
reloads the head when not used. Current hard disk drives only specify 
600.000 unload/load cycles. So to avoid these click noises and stress to 
my hard drive I modifed the file "/etc/acpi/start.d/90-hdparm.sh" as 
follows:
* Look for the line "hdparm -B 128 $dev" : This is the default power 
management value causing the unload/load cycles.
* Replace by "hdparm -B 200 $dev": Less aggressive value of 200. Does 
not disable power management but disables unload/load cycles.

As the battery.d and ac.d folder uses links to the start.d folder, these 
settings should automatically be applied to these ACPI profiles as well.

I remeasured power consumption with powertop and did not notice an 
impact, nevertheless my hard disk stopped producing click noises.


That's it for the moment... I'm happy that most of the system is working 
now. I hope that it'll even get better with time and that we will fix 
the remaining bugs together.

Have a nice day.

Best regards

**Alexander (red-naxela)