Acer Aspire Timeline X 3820T

[peterlustig]

Hi everyone,
I thought I'd start a thread on the Acer Aspire TimelineX 3820T - 334G32N since I ran into some small issues that at least partially can be solved:

Fan issue:
Running Ubuntu Lucid with the 64bit version of kernel 2.6.32-22, I first burnt my fingers and then realized that the CPU fan was either not working or working at very low speed.
I wasn't able to resolve that last night, since there were no entries in /proc/acpi/fan/
EDIT:
using bios v 1.13 and ubuntu 10.04, 64bit, kernel 2.6.32-22 temperatures are still a bit high, but acceptable (40-45°C when idle and 65-70°C when running on maximum load for half an hour.

Running Ubuntu Lucid with the 2.6.32-22-generic-pae (32bit) kernel, the fan(s) is working as it should, but still no entries in /proc/acpi/fan/ or in /sys/...
However, I'm still not able to manually set or read the fan speed, which is not a problem, since the fan(s) is working. No overheating problems.

Brightness issue:
The brightness of the display can not be adjusted (that is true for the 64bit and 32bit kernel) using gnome-power-preferences or the Fn+arrow keys on the keyboard. Using the Fn+arrow keys, the brightness indicator in gnome is called and can be adjusted, but the actual brightness of the display does not change. There is a workaround for this problem that I found elsewhere (I don't remember):

sudo gedit /etc/default/grub

Change the line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="" into

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="acpi_osi=Linux"

then run

sudo update-grub

In my case this worked.

Integrated microphone issue:
I couldn't get the integrated microphone to work with pulse or alsa. But then again I haven't put much energy into that.

Headphones issue:
Wow, this is getting worse and worse: Headphones jack sense seems to work in the sense that when you plug in the headphones you don't get any sound from the integrated speakers. Unfortunately you don't get any sound from the headphones either... I really wonder what I am doing wrong... the system beep is clearly audible via the headphones when the system shuts down. #!%§&
EDIT:
I ran the AlsaUpgrade script by soundcheck. No more headphone-issues.

Suspend/Hibernate issue:
After waking up from suspend, the CPU fan stops working and the CPU frequency is set to max, what an inconvenient combination...
EDIT: Using bios v1.13 this doesn't happen so frequently any more. But it still does happen.

Multi touch issue:
That multitouch touchpad stuff has become a bit complicated. I couldn't get that to work either... yet.
EDIT:
workaround: #6

Everything else seems to work just fine and out of the box. SD-card reader, HDMI, cpu feq scaling. But it took me a while until I realized that I have to press the wireless toggle button (Fn+F3) to activate wlan AND again to activate bluetooth.

I hope this is of some help to someone. If any of you have an idea how to tackle the integrated mic - problem, I'd be happy to hear about it.

Good luck,
Peter

[josedb]

Multi touch issue:
That multitouch touchpad stuff has become a bit complicated. I couldn't get that to work either... yet.

Alps touchpad doesnt work well in any noteboook.

[giova.86]

Hy I have a timelinex 4820TG. FOr the touchpad I have used these:

xinput set-int-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Two-Finger Scrolling" 8 1
xinput set-int-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Synaptics Two-Finger Scrolling" 8 1 1
xinput set-int-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Synaptics Two-Finger Pressure" 32 10
xinput set-int-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Synaptics Two-Finger Width" 32 8

It works for me.

[peterlustig]

Hey Giova,
thanks. Works smoothly indeed. I was trying to integrate all this into a udev rule instead of writing a script yesterday. That's why I wrote that it has become a bit complicated (for me). I read somewhere that putting all this into udev (instead of xorg.conf or as a shell script somewhere else) is the way to do it now. The rule saved in /etc/udev/rules.d/99synaptic.rules looked like this and it didn't do the trick:

ACTION!="add|change", GOTO="my_synaptics_end"
KERNEL!="event*", GOTO="my_synaptics_end"
ENV{ID_INPUT_TOUCHPAD}!="1", GOTO="my_synaptics_end"

ENV{x11_driver}="synaptics"

ATTR{device/name}=="SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad", \
ENV{x11_options.SHMConfig}="on", \
ENV{x11_options.EmulateTwoFingerMinZ}="32", \
ENV{x11_options.EmulateTwoFingerMinW}="32", \
ENV{x11_options.VertTwoFingerScroll}="1", \
ENV{x11_options.HorizTwoFingerScroll}="1", \
ENV{x11_options.TapButton1}="1", \
ENV{x11_options.TapButton2}="2", \
ENV{x11_options.TapButton3}="3"

LABEL="my_synaptics_end"

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Peter

[giova.86]

I'm sorry but I can't help you, I'm not an expert about udev, but I have found some information here: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to...the_TrackPoint Try to see if this is what you need. I can tell you to don't use options in wich is wrote: EmulateTwoFinger.. because the emulation is used only for old touchpads that don't support native multitouch (and the timelinex supprort native multitouch).

[peterlustig]

Hi giova,
you're right, we don't need the emulation settings. According to the synaptics man page, the option
"EmulateTwoFingerMinZ" in my udev file is equivalent to the property "Synaptics Two-Finger Pressure"
and the option "EmulateTwoFingerMinW" is equivalent to "Synaptics Two-Finger Width".
Thanks for posting that thinkwiki-link.

I made a tiny script /usr/local/bin/multitouch.sh

#!/bin/sh
sleep 5
xinput set-int-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Synaptics Two-Finger Scrolling" 8 1 1
exit 0

after making it executable with

chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/multitouch.sh

I entered the command /usr/local/bin/multitouch.sh in a new entry in System-->Startup Applications
Now it works

Thanks for your help! Turns out the touchpad works good enough for my purposes
Peter

[giova.86]

I did the same script, but in my case with only 5 seconds wasn't enough, so I set a sleep time equals to 10 seconds.
I have a question. When you use ubuntu with the battery, works the command:

acpi -b

?

[peterlustig]

yepp, works. I am using kernel 2.6.32-22-generic-pae. I'm not sure if it works with the 64bit one. But I'll try it later on.

acpi -b returns "Battery 0: Full, 100%" when the power supply is plugged in
and "Battery 0: Discharging, 100%, 295:00:00 remaining", when it's on battery.
In /etc/default/grub, did you try changing the variable GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="" to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="acpi_osi=Linux"
and then running sudo update-grub? I'm not sure if it helps, but it might be worth a try.

[giova.86]

I'm using a 64bit lucid lynk with the kernel 2.6.34-020634rc7-generic, I'm using this kernel because with the 2.6.32 I have some problems with the wireless card.

With both the kernel if I digit the command acpi -b I receive nothing in output, and with acpi -t, i receive in every condition: Thermal 0: ok, 40.0 degrees C. I also tried as you suggest but nothing change.
There must be some problem somewhere with acpi, maybe because the notebook is new and I'm using a 64 bit edition.. but I don't know. In the ubuntu forum in Italy I found other people with a timelinex or a new acer notebook and the same problem.

PS: with

dmesg ! grep battery

i receive the following output:

[    1.512155] ACPI: Battery Slot [BAT1] (battery absent)

Also if the battery is plugin

[peterlustig]

After a BIOS update from ver1.05 to 1.08 I tried the 64bit kernel 2.6.32-21-generic. I get the same reading for acpi -b as I mentioned above. That part seems to be ok. In dmesg I can see that there is a battery present

 [    3.894836] ACPI: Battery Slot [BAT0] (battery present)

I think my overheating problem and your battery problem are both a result of acer_acpi, which doesn't not support either of our laptops yet. If I understand correctly, the kernel module acer_acpi/acer_wmi can communicate with our acer bios using wmi. acer_wmi seems to be the successor of acer_acpi. Unfortunately I don't know how to solve either of our bios-interfacing problems. Maybe this will be fixed in future kernel versions.