Acer Timeline 3810T

[cyberfish]

For the suspend problem, I tried removing all modules again, and documented it this time. Still doesn't work, though.

I used these commands (after booting into single user mode) -
modprobe -r atl1c uvcvideo serio_raw pcspkr psmouse acer_wmi iwlagn snd_seq_midi snd_seq_oss snd_seq_dummy
modprobe -r joydev lp parport arc4 ecb snd_hda_intel snd_pcm_oss
modprobe -r snd_hda_codec_intelhdmi snd_hda_codec_realtek

to remove all the modules that aren't depended on.

And here's the list of modules left -
Module Size Used by
fbcon 36512 70
tileblit 2460 1 fbcon
font 8124 1 fbcon
bitblit 5308 1 fbcon
softcursor 1756 1 bitblit
i915 211496 1
drm 159136 1 i915
i2c_algo_bit 5760 1 i915
video 19092 1 i915
output 2780 1 video
intel_agp 26556 1
agpgart 34988 2 drm,intel_agp

This suggests that the problem is in either these modules, or the kernel itself.

[alvinator@]

Hello Cyberfish, I received your Personal Message. My post in #86 solves most of the problem and I have been using ubuntu ever since I got it. Here's the complete specs of my Timeline:

Model: Acer TImeline 4810T-352G25Mn
CPU: 1.4Ghz Intel Core 2 Solo SU3500
Memory: 2GB DDR3 RAM
Video: Intel GMA 4500MHD
Sound: Intel HDA ALC269
HDD: WDC WDC2500BEVT-22ZCT0 250GB
WLAN: Intel Wifi Link 5100 AGN
LAN: Atheros AR8131 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet

Mine came with BIOS 1.10 and I experienced the 100% CPU problem even in linux. Flashing it to 1.20 fixed the problem. I bought this one in Philippines so I think it is similar to the ones available in Singapore. I believe Acer have been releasing Acer Timelines with different parts manufacturers.

My Kernel:

Linux timeline 2.6.30-020630-generic #020630 SMP Wed Jun 10 09:45:40 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux

Cheers!

[cyberfish]

Many thanks for your help!

The only thing that are different seem to be the Western Digital harddrive (many other people have Hitachi), but I have the Intel SSD and have the problem, too...

Just to confirm, suspend (to RAM, power button blinking) and resuming works for you?

[alvinator@]

Yes, I just did a Suspend to RAM. Hibernate works fine also. I don't have any special packages on my Ubuntu Jaunty but I do have my BIOS HDD setting of IDE instead of AHCI. Updating to PPA kernel solves the AHCI problem and I can boot to ubuntu with AHCI on but my Windows 7 RC won't and it gives me a blue screen (probably because I installed Win7 when it was set to IDE mode).

[csipuka]

All-righty people I read the whole thread and didn't see answers to these questions so if someone could point me in the right direction I'd very much appreciate it.

The microphone doesn't pick up sound. I've tried both 2.6.28 and 2.6.30 and made sure everything was turned up in alsamixer and the gnome mixer (on all reported devices, theres a couple in the drop-down list). is there something else i can check?

My microphone also not worked out of box, so I have upgraded alsa (did not help), and I have found somewhere an article, that there is a connection between mircophone and another device.
In the mixer, makes visible all device, and unmute the "new" devices. The name of it was strange and I cannot remember, something like EA2323. Originally it is not provided to adjust.
I do not know whether only this swith on makes my microphone live with the new alsa, or it would work on the original alsa.
Currently I have a useable microphone, and I can use it in skype.
I hope it help.
Csipu

[muadnu]

With 2.6.30, you shouldn't need to build your own driver. The kernel includes it.

I removed the driver I had built but still no lan (I'm running 2.6.30). I'm not sure what to do next.

And on a different matter, I cannot get dual monitors to work. When I configure it through system->preferences->display, I get a working configuration but desktop effects cannot be enabled. And furthermore, I need to be able to restart with or without my external monitor attached and have Ubuntu recognize this automatically. I just switched from a laptop with an Nvidia card, which did this automatically, but I'm not sure how to do it without nvidia-settings.

I tried tokyoahead's suggestion on the first post, but I get mirrored screens and moreover my laptop screen appears very dark.

[cyberfish]

Yes, I just did a Suspend to RAM. Hibernate works fine also. I don't have any special packages on my Ubuntu Jaunty but I do have my BIOS HDD setting of IDE instead of AHCI. Updating to PPA kernel solves the AHCI problem and I can boot to ubuntu with AHCI on but my Windows 7 RC won't and it gives me a blue screen (probably because I installed Win7 when it was set to IDE mode).

Thanks for the help. Still not working, though . The only thing different between our setups now seems to be the BIOS. There's a remote chance that flashing a 3810t with a 4810t BIOS will fix it, since they have very similar hardware... but I am pretty sure I don't want to do that (AND I'M NOT SUGGESTING ANYONE TO TRY IT, AS IT WILL PROBABLY BRICK THE MACHINE).

So I guess we just have to wait now, for 1) Acer to release a new BIOS or 2) anything to happen on the bug reports.

I have already contacted the author of acer_wmi, and he said it (the suspend problem) has nothing to do with the module, and suggests we contact the kernel ACPI people instead.

[Dave_N]

Hi.

I am seriously considering the purchase of a 13.3 Acer Timeline. I have read the wiki and this whole thread. Could someone confirm my understanding of the "best" way to install Linux on this machine

1.) Acquire laptop.
2) Flash latest bios from Acer and burn LiveCD of Ubuntu; jaunty 64 bit or karmic 64 bit alpha 2/3 correct?
3) Install from live CD. Do most people reformat or leave windows install for future bios?
4) Install the fixes from the wiki especially the 2.6.30 kernel.
5.) Enjoy

Now I have a question about virtualization:
Has anyone tried to get a virtualization solution going? I have a couple of apps that I need for work and I also run quicken. Ideally, I would like to run linux as the primary os and a virtual machine for quicken and the work apps. Is this asking too much of the core 2 solo or core 2 duo? Has anyone tried it yet? What would be the virtualization technology? KVM? VMWare workstation? Is it ridiculous to suggest that Xen might work on this platform?

Thanks in advance.

Dave

[marcw]

Sorry if this was already answered in the thread, but I couldn't find it.

I have a 3810T and cannot get the ethernet to work. With the 2.28 kernel I tried the trick suggested in the first post, but didn't work. After installing the generic 2.30 kernel, I tried again, but now I can't even build the driver:

It's possible you have the same problem I had. I couldn't get the recommended solution (installing l1e atheros module) to work either. Then I discovered that my Atheros chip isn't an l1e - it's an l1c. If you do an lspci command and see that your ethernet controller is an Attansic device 1063, you've got an l1c chip also. I found the solution for this chip in a Radhat forum: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=514069 . Comments #3 and #4 provide a link for the correct module source for my l1c chip. It compiles and works great!

My machine is is 3810t-6415. Just running 9.04 for now. Hope this helps someone else. Now if I could get the suspend/resume thing to work...

[miegiel]

Hi.

I am seriously considering the purchase of a 13.3 Acer Timeline. I have read the wiki and this whole thread. Could someone confirm my understanding of the "best" way to install Linux on this machine

1.) Acquire laptop.
2) Flash latest bios from Acer and burn LiveCD of Ubuntu; jaunty 64 bit or karmic 64 bit alpha 2/3 correct?
3) Install from live CD. Do most people reformat or leave windows install for future bios?
4) Install the fixes from the wiki especially the 2.6.30 kernel.
5.) Enjoy

Now I have a question about virtualization:
Has anyone tried to get a virtualization solution going? I have a couple of apps that I need for work and I also run quicken. Ideally, I would like to run linux as the primary os and a virtual machine for quicken and the work apps. Is this asking too much of the core 2 solo or core 2 duo? Has anyone tried it yet? What would be the virtualization technology? KVM? VMWare workstation? Is it ridiculous to suggest that Xen might work on this platform?

Thanks in advance.

Dave

Make that :

1. Acquire laptop.
2. Do the automated vista installation
3. Make the (vista) restore CD
4. Flash latest bios from Acer and burn LiveCD of Ubuntu; jaunty 64 bit or karmic 64 bit alpha 2/3 correct?
5. Install from live CD. Do most people reformat or leave windows install for future bios?
6. Install the fixes from the wiki especially the 2.6.30 kernel.
7. Enjoy

I managed to mess up the vista partition when making partitions for ubuntu and once you loose vista you can't make the restore CD and you can't flash the BIOS. Though if you have a vista installation CD you're probably still OK. Of course you can't flash BIOSes form linux (or can you?). I installed win7 (because I still want to have windows as a fall back) but you can't flash BIOSes from win7 either, yet. Maybe XP is an option, but I didn't try that. Luckily I flashed my BIOS before destroying vista.

As for the laptop itself. It's a great piece of plastic crap. I mean it's great, but it's plastic crap at the same time. I seriously considered returning it the 1st few hours I had the laptop. When I picked it up I noticed the keyboard had come loose during transport. I clicked the corner that came loose back, but every time I picked the laptop up with 1 hand at the front right corner, the keyboard would come loose in the top left corner again. In the end I decided to keep the laptop and solve the issue by sticking a few strips of carton along the bottom edge of the keyboard to keep it firmly in place. The carton came with the laptop Another issue I have are the led switches above the keyboard (wifi, energy save mode and the useless backup buttons), they're pretty hard to press. To finish my rant, the timeline comes with disks that don't support NCQ, I thought that would be standard on disks by now, I guess that was to much to expect. I'll upgrade the disk later anyway and stick this one in an external case.

So I decided to keep the laptop regardless. The main reason was that I just didn't want to spend more money on it. Other laptops with the ultra-low-voltage core duo's would cost me an extra 500 euros at least and they had less memory (not that important to me), tiny 120GB disks or a significantly shorter battery life.

Oh, and a thumbs up for the keyboard when it comes to typing. Not that I've used that many laptops (this is the 1st I can really call my own) but I like it a lot more than the keyboards of other laptops I've used.

Regarding virtualliation, I haven't tried it (yet), but having 2 cores should make a big difference.