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Thread: Acer Extensa 7630EZ - what works and what does not...

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
    Beans
    10

    Acer Extensa 7630EZ - what works and what does not...

    This is a post to try to help both myself and others that want to run Ubuntu on this bargain laptop, as I couldn't find much regarding this hardware, and several critical components does not work.

    The most critical functions that do not work out of the box in 9.10 daily is:

    • wireless network - the Atheros Communications Inc. AR928X Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)
    • wired network - Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5764M Gigabit Ethernet PCIe (rev 10)
    • Acer shortcuts and keys - the special keys on the keyboard and shortcut keys does not work


    What I have tried so far:

    As a tip to others that need network on this laptop: I use my HTC Touch HD as a USB network card to connect to the internet. Works out of the box, but can be potentially expensive depending on your data plan.

    To get the wireless network running, I have tried the following:

    • installed updated wireless drivers from linuxwireless.org
    • installed linux-backports-modules-karmic


    Even though it seems that the ath9k driver should support the card, it will not show up under my configured interfaces, and the output from sudo lshw -C network gives

    Code:
    *-network UNCLAIMED     
           description: Network controller
           product: AR928X Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express)
           vendor: Atheros Communications Inc.
           physical id: 0
           bus info: pci@0000:05:00.0
           version: 01
           width: 64 bits
           clock: 33MHz
           capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix cap_list
           configuration: latency=0
           resources: memory:ba000000-ba00ffff
    To get the wired networking to run, I have tried the following:

    • nothing


    To get the shortcut keys working, I have tried the following:

    • nothing


    I will keep updating this til I have a fully working system. If anyone has tips and / or tricks and want to share them, I will add them to this post with references where needed.

    -KJ

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Location
    behind you
    Beans
    43
    Distro
    Edgy Eft Testing

    Re: Acer Extensa 7630EZ - what works and what does not...

    Hi Jevel.

    I have this laptop as well and I am using it with Archlinux (x86_64) for several weeks now.

    While the atheros ar928x based wireless card works out of the box with 2.6.30.x kernels just fine, I did not managed to get this card recognized with any 2.6.31.x kernel. You can find the corresponding bug-report here.

    I would be happy if you could provide some feedback there since until now it seemed as if I was the only one experiencing this bug.

    Other than that, the notebook pretty much just works, I have to admit though, that I don't plan to use the special keys so I haven't even tested them.

    Quote Originally Posted by jevel View Post
    This is a post to try to help both myself and others that want to run Ubuntu on this bargain laptop, as I couldn't find much regarding this hardware, and several critical components does not work.

    The most critical functions that do not work out of the box in 9.10 daily is:

    • wireless network - the Atheros Communications Inc. AR928X Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)
    ...teaching statistics to kangaroos...

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Oct 2009
    Beans
    1

    Re: Acer Extensa 7630EZ - what works and what does not...

    Hi!

    With ubuntu 9.10 and kernel 2.6.28-16 (which also comes with 9.10) I've a connection via eth0. But sound doesn't work with this kernel - it worked with ubuntu 9.04 and also workes with kernel 2.6.31-14 .

    -- Richard

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Beans
    31

    Re: Acer Extensa 7630EZ - what works and what does not...

    Hi,

    have you been successful with your attempts to get the WIFI/LAN (sound?) running? I am considering to buy this laptop and I want to run Ubuntu on it.

    - Klaus

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