acertimeline team mailing list archive

[Darrell Kavanagh <darrell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi All,

This machine, at present, is the baby of the Timeline family, with a 
Celeron 723 ULV processor (single core, fixed frequency of 1.2) and a 
lower capacity battery than the 3810T, otherwise it seems the same as 
the basic version of that machine, integrated graphics, no bluetooth.

I started off with Karmic Alpha 4, but after running into problems with 
wireless instability and an external DVD writer, as well as random 
crashes, I realised that Alpha 4 was a bit too bleeding edge, and 
installed Jaunty. I thought that Jaunty would require quite a lot of 
post-install configuration,  with this being a pretty new machine, but 
all I had to do was compile and install the ethernet driver, as per the 
Ubuntu Wiki page. After doing this, everything I have tried so far (see 
below) has worked, with the exception of suspend. I did not have to add 
anything else to the default install, or change any configuration or 
parameters. Well done Ubuntu.

Details:

Boot: fine with default options.
X-resolution detected correctly.
Desktop effects present and correct.
Wired networking - need to obtain and compile a kernel module (see above).
Wireless network working (ath9k).
Wireless switch works, but is a little confusing, as it only comes on 
when there is network traffic, but pressing it, even when unlit, 
switches off the wireless, and switching back on works.
Touchpad disable/enable button works.
USB fine.
Webcam works.
Sound (recording and playback) works, but sound quality of the internal 
speakers is abysmal (no different in Windows).
Hot Keys for backlight off (F6), sound mute (F8), backlight adjust 
(left/right cursors), volume adjust (up/down cursors) work. others not 
tested.
Power-saving mode touch key changes brightness to second from lowest 
setting.
Hibernate works, no issues on resume.
Suspend - does not work. Appears to suspend, but does not resume - 
powers off instead, the same behaviour as other Timeline models, so no 
surprise.

Power consumption out of the box runs at around 11 or 12 Watts, with low 
screen brightness, and wireless active. I've been running on battery for 
3.5 hours  this evening, and powertop thinks there is about 45 minutes 
left,  but it has been underestimating (with a full battery it thought 
about 3.5 hours total), so I'm hoping for about 4.5 hours total, mostly 
browsing, emailing and playing with system settings. Acer's headline 
battery life for this model is 6 hours (rather than the 8 of the other 
Timelines, as I said earlier, it has a lower capacity battery, 4400 mAh 
rather than 5600 mAh for the 3810).

I'm very pleased with this machine so far, doesn't seem any slower than 
my old 32 bit dual core pentium for basic tasks, very light, much more 
usable (screen and keyboard) than a netbook, and much better performance 
(smooth web video etc).

Again, thanks to Ubuntu for an operating system which works much better 
than the default Acer Vista install supplied with this laptop. When 
resume from suspend is sorted out (which I am sure will be sooner rather 
than later), it will be perfect.

Darrell