Considering this laptop (Acer Aspire 5100-3583). . .

[learning]

I want something I can take around with me to show off ubuntu to some of my friends. I am considering getting this one (http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Specifications-of-Acer-Aspire-15-4-Widescreen-Notebook-PC-5100-3583/sem/rpsm/oid/163314/rpem/ccd/productDetailSpecification.do#tabs) becuase it is inexpensive. However, I've never had an acer or a turion before. My understanding so far is I am better off installing the regular kernal for right now. Is this correct? Also, how difficult do you think it will be to get wireless working? Any other issues I should be aware of?

I really don't need it to do much more than look good, run open office and firefox, and play dvds.

[prizrak]

I got an Acer tablet that worked just fine with Dapper. Mine is a Centrino however. I can tell you that ACPI will work just fine but you have to know what wireless the Turion version uses. I would suggest a Core Duo/Centrino instead of a Turion they are generally better with battery and you are guaranteed that wireless will work. If you don't care much about graphics power you will be better off with an Intel one as it has open drivers. ATI you will have to research, nVidia will most definetly work but they don't support GPU throttling on Linux so battery life will be worse.

[ReaderRat]

If you do, you have plenty of RAM for any distro. You may want to go with a 32-bit distro, which seems to be more compatible with installation and updating. The 64-bits don't give you that much more usability. Maybe this will improve with "Edgy Eft".

[chaosgeisterchen]

I would rather go for a HP-notebook. They are priced quite the same.

[learning]

Thank you for the responses. I can't seem to find the specs for the wireless on the acer anywhere. They have a Toshiba for about $200.00 more with a Core Duo and Intel graphics. Sounds like that may be better if the wireless will work for sure. I really liked the thought of getting a 600.00 laptop though.

[chaosgeisterchen]

Hmh.. pay more and get you a better notebook.

[learning]

True... I just don't need a new one so much as just want one to play with and show off ubuntu. Anyone have any experience with Toshiba? Are they o.k. usually? This is the one I am looking at. http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Specifications-of-Toshiba-Satellite-15-4-Widescreen-Notebook-PC-A105-S4254/sem/rpsm/oid/160476/rpem/ccd/productDetailSpecification.do#tabs

I appreciate the help. I want to go buy one before they close, so I can spend the evening setting it up to show off tomorrow!

[chaosgeisterchen]

I do only know German stores.. they have a good ThinkPad for about 900, but I do not know prices in your shop.

[prizrak]

I have experience with Toshiba, worst possible laptop ever. If it wasn't for the 3 year on site warranty I wouldn't be able to use it for more than 3 months. That system was repaired (under warranty mind you) on average 3-4 times a year. Worked great with Ubuntu though.

[chaosgeisterchen]

A friend of mine has a toshiba.. good notebook but it lacks quality.

[learning]

wish I had waited longer for replies! I ran out and bought the toshiba, guess we'll see how it goes. About to install ubuntu now!

[prizrak]

wish I had waited longer for replies! I ran out and bought the toshiba, guess we'll see how it goes. About to install ubuntu now!

LOL, lots of luck to you man :) Hopefully they got better.

[maniacmusician]

lol, that was definitely a very rushed decision! post back to let us know how it went.

[learning]

So far everything is running great! I installed dapper last night, then was away from the internet for a while. It is updating now. I used the entire hard drive for the default install. Only snag I have noticed is I can't seem to figure out how to adjust my monitor's brightness now. It was with Fn + F6 or F7. It looks o.k. right now but I'd like to be able to play with it. Wireless and network manager works fine, I didn't have to do anything but select my network and put in the wep key.

[prizrak]

So far everything is running great! I installed dapper last night, then was away from the internet for a while. It is updating now. I used the entire hard drive for the default install. Only snag I have noticed is I can't seem to figure out how to adjust my monitor's brightness now. It was with Fn + F6 or F7. It looks o.k. right now but I'd like to be able to play with it. Wireless and network manager works fine, I didn't have to do anything but select my network and put in the wep key.
Gnome's power manager allows you to adjust brightness. Also on my Toshiba the Fn + F6/7 works :)

[learning]

From playing with it, it appears the Fn key is not recognized by the software. It acts as if I just hit F-whatever without holding the key down. My little Fn light on the keyboard lights up when I hit it though.

Any idea how I can adjust the brightness in gnome power manager? I've attached a screen shot... looks like I need to do something to activate it?

[mips]

wish I had waited longer for replies! I ran out and bought the toshiba, guess we'll see how it goes. About to install ubuntu now!

Can you not take it back for a refund ??? Just use the system restore cd to get it to it's original state.

I read about people in the US taking things back on a regular basis if they don't like it and it does not seem to be a hassle.

[learning]

I guess I could, but I think they will charge me a 10% restocking fee or something like that since I have opened it. So far it seems to be working out running ubuntu pretty well though. The default install went really smooth. Only thing I haven't gotten fixed yet is the Fn keys, and I imagine once I have some time on the forums that will work out. Hopefully it won't be crappy, and break a lot.

I'd rather gamble on it now that I have it, than lose money taking it back now. So far it's been pretty fun.

[prizrak]

There is a program (name escapes me completely, keymap or something) that you can use to intercept the code that the key sends and then set it as a modifier. Don't ask me for details I really don't remember any, never had to use em so...

And hmmm.... I guess you can't change screen brightness in PM I thought you could. You can change it in ACPI config files tho but they are non obvious in the least.

[firemonkeyballz]

Everything seems to be ok when using Kubuntu 6.06... I have not installed yet. But I have had a short beeps from the pc speaker. I'm not sure if its from bios or the kernel. The system info program states numerous unknown devices. I'm sure thats because its because its not fully installed. Lastly on one occasion the kernel halted on shutdown. I'm not sure if the network and wifi cards are the same in every system however I have an atheros ar5005g wifi and Realtek RTL8139 network card.

heres a clip of the system log for the same laptop named in this topic....


03/09/2007 04:31:16 AM ubuntu kernel [ 128.620588] hda_codec: invalid dep_range_val 0:7fff

03/09/2007 04:31:16 AM ubuntu kernel [ 128.620684] hda_codec: invalid dep_range_val 0:7fff

03/09/2007 04:31:16 AM ubuntu kernel [ 130.444346] md: md driver 0.90.3 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27

03/09/2007 04:31:16 AM ubuntu kernel [ 130.444350] md: bitmap version 4.39

03/09/2007 04:31:16 AM ubuntu kernel [ 131.441646] device-mapper: 4.4.0-ioctl (2005-01-12) initialised: dm-devel@redhat.com

03/09/2007 04:31:16 AM ubuntu kernel [ 138.080345] eth0: no IPv6 routers present

03/09/2007 04:31:16 AM ubuntu kernel [ 138.400184] ath0: no IPv6 routers present

03/09/2007 04:31:16 AM ubuntu kernel [ 147.199146] ACPI: AC Adapter [ACAD] (on-line)

03/09/2007 04:31:16 AM ubuntu kernel [ 147.479568] ACPI: Battery Slot [BAT1] (battery present)

03/09/2007 04:31:16 AM ubuntu kernel [ 147.532989] ACPI: Power Button (FF) [PWRF]

03/09/2007 04:31:16 AM ubuntu kernel [ 147.533004] ACPI: Lid Switch [LID]

03/09/2007 04:31:16 AM ubuntu kernel [ 147.533008] ACPI: Power Button (CM) [PWRB]

03/09/2007 04:31:16 AM ubuntu kernel [ 147.533013] ACPI: Sleep Button (CM) [SLPB]

03/09/2007 04:31:16 AM ubuntu kernel [ 147.633779] ibm_acpi: ec object not found

03/09/2007 04:31:16 AM ubuntu kernel [ 147.659807] pcc_acpi: loading...

03/09/2007 04:31:16 AM ubuntu kernel [ 147.696355] wmi_add device=ffff810037c68000

03/09/2007 04:31:16 AM ubuntu kernel [ 147.696359] calling WQBA

03/09/2007 04:31:16 AM ubuntu kernel [ 147.743992] ACPI: Video Device [VGA] (multi-head: yes rom: no post: no)

03/09/2007 04:31:16 AM ubuntu kernel [ 147.744206] ACPI: Video Device [VGA] (multi-head: yes rom: no post: no)

03/09/2007 04:31:16 AM ubuntu kernel [ 148.638378] powernow-k8: Found 1 AMD Athlon 64 / Opteron processors (version 1.50.4)

03/09/2007 04:31:16 AM ubuntu kernel [ 148.638420] powernow-k8: 0 : fid 0xc (2000 MHz), vid 0x10 (1150 mV)

03/09/2007 04:31:16 AM ubuntu kernel [ 148.638423] powernow-k8: 1 : fid 0xa (1800 MHz), vid 0x12 (1100 mV)

03/09/2007 04:31:16 AM ubuntu kernel [ 148.638426] powernow-k8: 2 : fid 0x8 (1600 MHz), vid 0x14 (1050 mV)

03/09/2007 04:31:16 AM ubuntu kernel [ 148.638428] powernow-k8: 3 : fid 0x0 (800 MHz), vid 0x18 (950 mV)

03/09/2007 04:31:16 AM ubuntu kernel [ 148.638433] cpu_init done, current fid 0xc, vid 0x10

03/09/2007 04:31:19 AM ubuntu hpiod 0.9.7 accepting connections at 44850...

03/09/2007 04:31:27 AM ubuntu kernel [ 160.607353] lp: driver loaded but no devices found

03/09/2007 04:31:27 AM ubuntu kernel [ 160.676674] ppdev: user-space parallel port driver

03/09/2007 04:31:36 AM ubuntu hcid[5972] Bluetooth HCI daemon

03/09/2007 04:31:36 AM ubuntu hcid[5972] Can't get system message bus name: Connection ":1.1" is not allowed to own the service "org.bluez" due to security policies in the configuration file

03/09/2007 04:31:36 AM ubuntu kernel [ 169.377203] Bluetooth: Core ver 2.8

03/09/2007 04:31:36 AM ubuntu kernel [ 169.377208] NET: Registered protocol family 31

03/09/2007 04:31:36 AM ubuntu kernel [ 169.377210] Bluetooth: HCI device and connection manager initialized

03/09/2007 04:31:36 AM ubuntu kernel [ 169.377221] Bluetooth: HCI socket layer initialized

03/09/2007 04:31:36 AM ubuntu kernel [ 169.901348] Bluetooth: L2CAP ver 2.8

03/09/2007 04:31:36 AM ubuntu kernel [ 169.901353] Bluetooth: L2CAP socket layer initialized

03/09/2007 04:31:36 AM ubuntu sdpd[5978] Bluetooth SDP daemon

03/09/2007 04:31:37 AM ubuntu kernel [ 170.081547] Bluetooth: RFCOMM socket layer initialized

03/09/2007 04:31:37 AM ubuntu kernel [ 170.081564] Bluetooth: RFCOMM TTY layer initialized

03/09/2007 04:31:37 AM ubuntu kernel [ 170.081566] Bluetooth: RFCOMM ver 1.7

03/09/2007 04:31:37 AM ubuntu /usr/sbin/cron[6034] (CRON) INFO (pidfile fd = 3)

03/09/2007 04:31:37 AM ubuntu /usr/sbin/cron[6035] (CRON) INFO (Running @reboot jobs)

03/09/2007 04:31:37 AM ubuntu /usr/sbin/cron[6035] (CRON) STARTUP (fork ok)

03/09/2007 04:31:42 AM ubuntu kernel [ 173.966148] [drm] Initialized drm 1.0.1 20051102

03/09/2007 04:32:40 AM ubuntu kernel [ 205.097146] hda-intel: Invalid position buffer, using LPIB read method instead.

03/09/2007 04:33:22 AM ubuntu kernel [ 226.910470] psmouse.c: TouchPad at isa0060/serio4/input0 - driver resynched.

[thomasaaron]

I've got an older Acer (an Aspire 3000). Once I figured out how to get the wireless up and running (which is common knowledge on this forum now), it's been great.

I earn my living with it (and Ubuntu), so that's worth something.

Best,
Tom

[firemonkeyballz]

I've got an older Acer (an Aspire 3000). Once I figured out how to get the wireless up and running (which is common knowledge on this forum now), it's been great.

I earn my living with it (and Ubuntu), so that's worth something.

Best,
Tom

:lolflag: :guitar: true that.... so any hints on my system log?