Linux on a Acer Travelmate 6000 Laptop

The biggest problem with the graphics display is that the BIOS lacks the information that it can display 1400x1050 - only 1280x1024 and 1600x1200 is there. That's the reason the framebuffer can't be run with the native resolution and the BIOS has to be patched with 855resolution before starting X.

I contacted Acer on 2004-11-20, complaining about that problem and asking them to provide a fully functional BIOS. Two weeks later the answer is there; Acer refuses to provide a new BIOS because the pre-installed operating system (Windows) works ok with it. That's all, they won't support non-ms people.

The display supports a SXGA+ resolution of 1400x1050 pixels. I've spent a time trying to run the framebuffer at this resolution, but failed - now it runs at 1280x1024.

The grub setting for this resolution is just a

vga=775

so that the grub conf looks like this:

default 1
timeout 1

title=Gentoo kernel 2.6.4
root (hd0,0)
kernel /kernel-2.6.4-gentoo root=/dev/hda3 vga=775

title=Gentoo kernel 2.6.7
root (hd0,0)
kernel /kernel-2.6.7-gentoo root=/dev/hda3 vga=775

That was a very hard one: The BIOS says that 1400x1050 is not supported, so XFree doesn't recognize this as a possible resolution. The solution came with a tool called 855resolution, wich can be found at http://perso.wanadoo.fr/apoirier/. This patches the BIOS everytime the X display manager is started (patch is not permanent). All you need to do is:

855resolution 5a 1400 1050

and all works. I embedded this in the xdm start script at /etc/init.d/xdm:

start() {
        setup_dm
        # run 855-script for intel graphics card in full 1400x1050
        /scripts/855

        # set the cpu to the right speed
        /scripts/switchspeed

...

The /scripts/855 just contains the 855resolution call. Another thing you see here is the switchspeed script which changes sets the CPU speed for battery and cable differently on boot.

Parts of my /etc/X11/XF86Config looks like this:

Section "InputDevice"
 Identifier  "Keyboard1"
 Driver      "Keyboard"
 Option "AutoRepeat" "500 30"
 Option "XkbRules"      "xfree86"
 Option "XkbModel"      "pc104"
 Option "XkbLayout"     "de"
 Option "XkbVariant"    "nodeadkeys"
EndSection


Section "InputDevice"
 Identifier             "Touchpad"
 Driver                 "synaptics"
 Option "Protocol"      "ImPS/2"
 Option "Device"        "/dev/psaux"
 Option "LeftEdge"      "1700"
 Option "RightEdge"     "5300"
 Option "TopEdge"       "1700"
 Option "BottomEdge"    "4200"
 Option "FingerLow"     "25"
 Option "FingerHigh"    "30"
 Option "MaxTapTime"    "180"
 Option "MaxTapMove"    "220"
 Option "VertScrollData"        "100"
 Option "MinSpeed"      "0.06"
 Option "MaxSpeed"      "0.12"
 Option "AccelFactor"   "0.0010"
 Option "SHMConfig"     "on"
EndSection

# USB-Mouse
Section "InputDevice"
 Identifier             "USBMouse"
 Driver                 "mouse"
 Option "Device"        "/dev/usbmouse"I
 Option "Protocol"      "IMPS/2"
 Option "ZAxisMapping"  "4 5"
EndSection


Section "Monitor"
    Identifier  "Acer Travelmate 6003LCi"
    HorizSync   28-65
    VertRefresh 60
EndSection 


Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Acer Travelmate 6003LCi"
    Driver      "i810"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier  "Screen 0"
    Device      "Acer Travelmate 6003LCi"
    Monitor     "Acer Travelmate 6003LCi"
    DefaultDepth 24

    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       8
        Modes       "1400x1050" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        ViewPort    0 0
    EndSubsection
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       16
        Modes       "1400x1050" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        ViewPort    0 0
    EndSubsection
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       24
        Modes       "1400x1050" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        ViewPort    0 0
    EndSubsection
EndSection


Section "ServerLayout"
 Identifier  "Simple Layout"
 Screen "Screen 0"

 InputDevice "Touchpad" "CorePointer"
 InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"
 InputDevice "USBMouse" "AlwaysCore"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
   Mode 0666
EndSection

Compiling new agpgart module...
Compiling DRM module...
ERROR: Kernel modules did not compile

make -f Makefile.linux DRM_MODULES=gdg.ko modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/data/download/intel855/dripkg/drm'
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.13/build  SUBDIRS=`pwd` DRMSRCDIR=`pwd` modules
make[2]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.13'
  CC [M]  /data/download/intel855/dripkg/drm/gdg_drv.o
In file included from /data/download/intel855/dripkg/drm/gdg_drv.c:17:
/data/download/intel855/dripkg/drm/drm_agpsupport.h:47: error: syntax error before '*' token
... (usual stuff which follows the first error)

The second display works fine if you attach the vga adaptor before booting the laptop. I had some presentations with beamers at 1400x1050 resolution; works like a charm.

If you connect the external vga adaptor later, you can change the display used for output with Fn+F5. If you do this, the upper third (640x480), the upper fourth (800x600) or the upper fifth (1024x768) of the screen is scrambled and not usable. The rest of the screen is moved down, so that you won't see your kicker (task bar). Perhaps that wouldn't be soo bad, but the mouse cursor uses the whole screen, so that you've got to click 50px above the button to activate it. Very annoying.

When using the "auto" BIOS mode and the second device attached while booting, only the second display is used.

The usable solution comes when using the "both" BIOS mode. The screen contents are on both screens, but the borders (approx 30px) are cut off. You can switch the resolution with krandrtray or whatever, but even at 1024x768 the borders are missing. But this mode can be used for presentations; I already did it.

A notable thing is that you can drive your LCD at 1400x1050, for the second display it is downscaled. But that doesn't look nice.

The laptop has a DVI-D socket, which means that you can connect digital display only and have to use the second vga socket for analog devices.

Not tested - I don't own a display with DVI input.

There is a S-Video out at the back of the notebook. I tested it the same way as the second display, but the BIOS setting has no influence on the output. The screen contents are not shown, even not when booting.

If I use the Fn+F5 key kombination, screen and TV are totally distorted. And it works only in 640x480 and 800x600, other resolutions give no picture on the TV.

You just have to activate

Device Drivers -->
  Networking support -->
    Ethernet (1000 Mbit) -->
      Broadcom Tigon3 support

and it works like a charm.

I'm using the ipw2200 version 1.0.3, intels official linux wlan driver. It works like a charm - except that the orange LED at the laptop front does not work.

Before ipw2200 was usable, I used the ndiswrapper to use the windows driver. This had the advantage that the LED worked, but also caused the laptop to hang once a two days (windows drivers..).

Here is my wlan-startup script as it is not started during boot:

/sbin/modprobe ipw2200

/etc/racoon/setkey.conf
/usr/sbin/racoon

/usr/sbin/iwconfig wlan0 mode Managed
/usr/sbin/iwconfig wlan0 nickname "bogo"
/usr/sbin/iwconfig wlan0 key restricted ########################
/usr/sbin/iwconfig wlan0 essid "####################"

/sbin/ifconfig wlan0 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx broadcast xxx.xxx.xxx.255 netmask 255.255.255.0
/sbin/ifconfig wlan0 up

/sbin/route add default gw xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

To shut it down, just make a

rmmod ipw2200

or press the wlan-button at the laptop front - this works nice.

Normally I don't need it, because my SuSE acts as a gateway, but I had some free hours and got it working (thanks to the gentoo forum thread http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=129853.

In kernel 2.6.7 (perhaps also earlier) there is the option

Device Drivers --->
  Sound --->
    Advanced Linux Sound Architecture  --->
      PCI devices  --->
        Intel i8x0/MX440; AMD768/8111 modems (EXPERIMENTAL)

which gives you the basic drivers. After compiling this as a module, I changed the /etc/modules.d/alsa the following way:

alias snd-card-0 snd-intel8x0
alias snd-card-1 snd-intel8x0m
...
options snd cards_limit=2

(just added the second card and set up the card limit). To use it, modprobe it:

modprobe snd_intel8x0m

Now you need the slmodem application which gives you the modem as a usable device at /dev/ttySL0 (http://www.smlink.com).

Now just set up wvdail and pppd (see the gentoo forum thread for this), don't forget to disable carrier detection with

Carrier Check = no

in /etc/wvdail.conf and live happy.

I had some with name resolution and although the access rights to /etc/resolv.conf had been set correctly, only root could make a ping to cweiske.de, normal users not. The wvdail or pppd change the resolv.conf when the connection is established, and only root can access this file... do a chmod after the connection in your script, and you're done..

If you have problems getting this to work (it does definitely work in Opera), start xev in a terminal. Move your mouse above the window and press the horizonal scroll buttons. You should get "ButtonPress" and "ButtonRelease" events. The third line tells you which button is recognized: Perhaps button 8 and 9? If yes, that's the source of your problem.

Normally, vertical scroll wheel is buttons 4 and 5, and the horizontal is 6 and 7. You can check the physical-virtual button assignment by executing xmodmap -pp and change it via

xmodmap -e 'pointer = 1 2 3 4 5 8 9 6 7 10 11 12'

This command swaps the assignments of the buttons 8 and 9, making them be reported as virtual buttons 6 and 7 - what I needed to make it work here.

I recently bought an external harddisk for backups, using FireWire to connect it - as USB is too unstable for me. To use it, I need the following modules:

I had some problems getting the drive to work, because you have to do all in a certain order:

Whenever I attached the cable (with powered harddrive) before loading the modules, I never got the disk working.

I also had another problem: Copying from the disk was incredible slow, taking about 20 minutes for 50Mib. A dmesg showed me the following lines:

Nov  1 23:18:33 bogo ieee1394: sbp2: aborting sbp2 command
Nov  1 23:18:33 bogo scsi0 : destination target 0, lun 0
Nov  1 23:18:33 bogo command: cdb[0]=0x2a: 2a 00 00 01 00 d1 00 00 06 00
Nov  1 23:19:03 bogo ieee1394: sbp2: aborting sbp2 command

Everywhere those "aborting sbp2 command" lines. Searching the web for that string unveiled the solution: I need an extra module parameter, serialize_io=1. I added it to /etc/modules.conf, had no time to test it and came back two weeks later with the same problem. What happened? The file had been re-generated by modules-update, and my changes were gone. This time I did it correctly and created a new file /etc/modules.d/sbp2, filling it with the following line:

options sbp2 serialize_io=1 max_speed=2

After that I run modules-update causing the modules.conf to be regenerated, and since then my disk works fine. I doubt that the max_speed=2 parameter is necessary, but I have no means to change it as it works :)

I used a Panasonic NV-DS29 digital video camera together with the Kino video editing program to cut movies over firewire. You need some extra modules like raw1394 for it; and it works.

Although I don't need it, this gave me more success feelings than lirc. Much more.

The basic thing is to enable IrDA support in the kernel

Device Drivers --->
  Networking support --->
    IrDA (infrared) subsystem support  --->
      IrLAN protocol
      IrNET protocol
      IrCOMM protocol
      Ultra (connectionless) protocol
      Infrared-port device drivers  --->
        IrTTY (uses Linux serial driver)
        IrPORT (IrDA serial driver)
        NSC PC87108/PC87338

and here my irda-up script:

/bin/setserial /dev/ttyS1 uart none
/sbin/modprobe nsc-ircc io=0x2f8 irq=3 dma=1
/usr/sbin/irattach irda0

It just doesn't want to work. I've spent 5 whole days with this, and still doesn't work.

The port is recognized at startup when IrDA is activated in the BIOS:

# dmesg | grep tty
ttyS1 at I/O 0x2f8 (irq = 3) is a NS16550A

On the smsc.com website they say, that Customer IR is supported... I'll try the smsc kernel drivers.

I tested it with a PCMCIA network card, and it works fine. The smartcard reader is also recognized as such a device.

You need to enable the following things in the kernel:

Bus options (PCI, PCMCIA, EISA, MCA, ISA)  --->
  PCMCIA/CardBus support  --->
    PCMCIA/CardBus support
    CardBus yenta-compatible bridge support

I made them both as modules, and so I do a

modprobe pcmcia_core
modprobe ds
modprobe yenta_socket

to activate them. I'm not sure if I need the pcmcia-cs package from sourceforge, because cardctl and cardmgr were there before I installed it.

The card reader is made by O2Micro, and finally (2005-10-17) there is a working open source driver for it!

If you do a cardctl ident you will see the following output:

Socket 0:
  no product info available
Socket 1:
  no product info available
Socket 2:
  product info: "O2Micro", "SmartCardBus Reader", "V1.0"
  manfid: 0xffff, 0x0001

The driver can be found at the MUSCLE driver page. I have kernel 2.6.13 with version 2.0.3 of the driver running nearly without problems. Get the driver, unpack it, do the ./configure-release. Then modprobe the yenta_socket and then the newly installed ozscrlx module. Install the sys-apps/pcsc-lite gentoo package. Now start the pcmcia and the pcscd daemons. Run the pcsc_scan program and insert a smartcard - you will see the card ATR and perhaps even the name of it.

Next thing I need to figure out is how to get gpg to store the keys on the card, and how to automatically log in into kdm when the smartcard is inserted. And if kwallet can store the passwords on the card. Unfortunately, gpg doesn't recognize the card or the driver has a bug - but the reader is recognized.

There shall be a windows tool which allows you to create the key and make the BIOS to require it while booting. So this _should_ work if you use the preinstalled windows, create the key, set the bios config with the tool and install Linux after all this. But since my first action was to remove windows, I don't have any chance to test this.

This tool is a printer convenient for printing normal text and photos as well. Main problem was to get the right driver, as Cups doesn't have it by default.

Lexmark's US website provides some drivers for SuSE/Redhat 7.x, but they aren't really helpful as they don't work. Maybe it has something to do with the POSIX change problem, but who cares.

All you need is the "Z65.ppd" which is packed in the installer. After copying it from /tmp/... while the installation program is crashing, you can use the KDE printer manager to import the file while doing a new printer install. That's all, works without problems.

A small flatbed scanner, works without problems using SANE.

Apart from getting it working by myself, I emailed Canon if they have Linux drivers for it. They replied with a standard email telling me that they develop drivers exclusive for Windows and Mac only. There may be drivers for Linux on the internet, but Canon doesn't support them and doesn't recommend their use.

As I don't have an in-built bluetooth module (resp. Acer charges 300€ for it), I use the USB dongle to connect the laptop with my mobile (Sony Ericsson T 630). To get it working, you just need the bluetooth modules in the kernel.

I can use the mobile connection to make calls, read the SMS list and sync the addressbook with kabc using kmobiletools. A small app called "btcid" displays incoming calls on the notebook's LCD (with name and number).

My girlfriend got it christmas 2004, and so I needed to get it working with my Linux. The "Digikam" frontend for libgphoto (UPT mode) makes a nice job transferring the pictures, but deleting is a pain - only every second picture gets deleted, and so deleting it via the camera built-in function is a lot faster. But that seems to be a bug in libgphoto, or in the camera. We'll see.

Transferring the pictures takes about 2 second per picture; a friend of mine told me that the windows version is really faster, transferring multiple pictures per second. I'll contact the libgphoto mailing list for the two problems.

When asking Canon for drivers (again; I think they're getting nerved :)) for the camera (as Windows and Mac discs were delivered with the cam), they replied with the same standard mail I got last time. Just this time a list with links for printer driver web pages for Linux was appended. Does my camera need a printer driver???

With the help of "logitech_applet", I am able to set the resolution of the mouse from 400 to 800dpi. Since I don't want to do this everytime I plug in the mouse by hand, an udev-rule comes to help: Just create the file /etc/udev/rules.d/10-user.rules and put in the following line (yes, it's one single line):

SYSFS{manufacturer}=="Logitech", SYSFS{product}=="USB-PS/2 Optical Mouse",
 NAME="input/%k", MODE="0644", RUN+="/usr/sbin/logitech_applet -s 800"

I found this at the Gentoo udev wiki entry.