Guide to improve the Linux of Acer Aspire One
Contents
1. 0 Before you start working too much set the proper keyboard layout In the lower right corner there is a US flag click there go into the keyboard setting window and do your changes The hdc1 icon has been popped up on the desktop left mouse click it to set the permissions so all can write it and also remove the read only check box under the device tab Then double click the icon to open konqueror the KDE file manager To work as root go into the terminal and type Bf There is no root password But you can set one with BEE Having and knowing a root password konqueror can be started in super user mode as root It is in the menu System gt More Applications Now you should be able to perform all writes to system files to recover from your faulty test 3 2 Using the acer recovering DVD You can either restore the AAO via recovery CD or create a USB boot stick for the and future recoveries The boots stick must be lt 4GByte and gt 2GByte as stated in the recovery instructions http www linpus com holds some ISO images to burn a Page 5 of 17 Guide to improve the Linux of Acer Aspire One recovery DVD for the AAO that might have a newer version Practical test showed that it works well however USB sticks larger than 2GByte must be used 4 Adding Hardware to the AAO http www mk electronic com has spare parts 4 1 Plug in stuff USB Hard disks or Sticks can be easily added to the AAO and the BIOS supports boo2. High Capacity SDHC Cards go up to 32GByte Small and older SD card readers can not handle large MMC SD cards SDXC are eXtended Capacity cards that will support to 2TByte Luckily the Acer supports SDHC cards up to 32GByte Small and older SD Card readers might not be able to read such SDHC cards Note It is not foreseen that SDXC cards can be read by SDHC so it creates a limit for 32GByte for the aao slot 6 1 The Storage Expansion MMC SD slot on the AAO The MMC SD card slot on the lower right corner is foreseen to expand the internal SSD This is done under Linpus via a volume manager that automatically merges both discs MMC SD card and internal SSD This can be considered nice but it is annoying when a clean standalone Linux version is considered to be installed on the MMC SD card Instead of trying to make Linpus behave differently it is easier to follow the following strategy When installing things to the MMC SD card under Linpus use the slot on the right When working and booting Gentoo or work with Linpus use the left MMC SD slot Type REISE to see what you have dev sdal is the internal SSD the shows that this is a bootable disk dev sda2 is also the internal SSD but this is the swap partitions dev mcblkO0p1 is the MMC SD card ready to get Gentoo Linux The dev file could also be something as dev mcblkIp1 since it is incremented when cards get plugged in and out 6 2 Prepare the boot loader Aspire boots with grub
3. in the kernel to get the driver ath5k An alternative would be ndiswrapper using the microsoft drivers Page 11 of 17 Guide to improve the Linux of Acer Aspire One Set the useflag madwifi since ath5k comes from the madwifi developers then SEESE always required and EE Don t configure too much in etc conf d net it is actually ok when this file is completely empty Just unmask and ARRAREN once started manually it has the option to restart automatically on next restart of KDE There is also a start script etc conf d NetworkManager Now using KnetworkManager you have GUI for Wlan but also for the wired network 6 9 Webcam Create a kernel with the uvc driver AAO Linpus uses ucview in the sunrise overlay there is an ebuild for it 6 10 Configure X In etc make conf add VIDEO_CARDS intel The configuration works straight forward and a compiz desktop is even possible To configure the VGA port check EEE and modify etc X 1 1 xorg conf Then type ME that prints the configuration and ARER to enable the port Note screens are not monitors so when you have one screen it has to be linked to both ports Since the aspire has a wide screen and probably an attached CRT not one of the two devices has to adapt to the other one Page 12 of 17 Guide to improve the Linux of Acer Aspire One 7 BIOS update Early AAO BIOS versions had bugs one was that empty batteries did not charge any more therefore it is highly recommen
4. the place to change HOSTNAME localhost localdomain to HOSTNAME aspire localdomain however at boot a nasty messages appears Page 4 of 17 Guide to improve the Linux of Acer Aspire One Next problem is that the DHCP server inside my ADSL router does not show the host name The host name of the Aspire One needs to be known since the IP address is not always the same Except if the router allows to reserve a IP address for the MAC address of the Aspire One Add in our host computer etc hosts the aspire to the list of known hosts Do MIFE Conclusion To have networking install an other Linux distribution not the AAO Linpus maybe the original Linpus 3 Recovering In critical moments when some test made the system unrecoverable you can restore the internal disk You need to attach an external CD DVD drive via USB verify that you do not use a DVD in a CD only drive The cheapest way is open your desktop PC and use the one inside Assuming it is a IDE drive buy a IDE to USB adapter remove the IDE cable and plug in the IDE to USB adapter Leave the power cable attached to the desktop Now power up the desktop and then the AAO boots up from the DVD when the BIOS is set for that or press P 7 to show the boot device list menu 3 1 Recovering from a buggy test If you know what you did and what you have to remove but the AAO doesn t boot anymore Boot from a USB CD drive running e g http www knoppix org version 5
5. Guide to improve the Linux of Acer Aspire One rs eee ofzsuw i ff 2 i lt Or TL IEE amp pF 318 313 www gentoo org The Linux Meta Distribution a S 2010 04 28 by urs linurs org Latest published version of this document http www linurs org 1 preliminary edition still in preparation Guide to improve the Linux of Acer Aspire One Copyright 2010 04 28 Urs Lindegger Permission to use copy modify distribute and sell this document for any purpose is hereby granted without fee provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation THE DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED AS IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND EXPRESS OR IMPLIED IN NO EVENT SHALL I BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY Contents 1 Small improvements and things to KNOW ccssssccccsssescccssesseccsssssscuscscussssussassss 3 LI Helpon D ie ee nie 3 er Tie Wr i ot ee a 4 MM BIN en are 4 LA Dein Tenor Denen 4 LS Bere esse gs 4 SV R covcine Poni A Busse eis 5 3 2 sine the acer recoyvernne DVD 2 5 d2 Baere nennen een 6 4 3 Solid state media and lifetime concerns s s0cecccesoescacesvescccevsceevscevsscess Fi Sasol ihe orainal Ns ans ne had Sac asain erase twine abetmadineeuiiodeeimadadesumaiace 8 6 Install Gentoo Linux on a MMC SD card nnne 8 6 1 The Stora
6. but there seems to be a grub version that does not show the menu to select different boot configurations Rename the acer grub directory to grubacer However avoid to shut down since it will not boot anymore Copy grub binaries over from a Gentoo PC standard pentium to a newly created grub directory and use grub conf from linpus Delete the hiddenmenu line and give a timeout 5 for 5 seconds Copy over the splash image from the grubacer however it does not work since the splash xpm gz contains a subdirectory inside Therefore unzip it go to the splash xpm subdirectory and BM EENET to get rid of the subdirectory Then copy the new splash xpm gz to boot grub and delete the boot grub splash xpm Page 9 of 17 Guide to improve the Linux of Acer Aspire One directory Now during the next boot sequence grub pops up showing the Linux splash screen and the menu Then the menu can be expanded to contain the lines booting gentoo Linux from the SD card but also to still use Linpus on the acer internal SSD 6 3 Install Gentoo Gentoo can be installed using Linpus and plugging in the SD card on the right upper SD slot so Linpus leaves it alone Follow the installations from http www gentoo org however skip the grub and kernel installation since you have them already Don t be worried you can update them later Gentoo is a source code distribution where you have to compile for your CPU During the Gentoo installation you need to know the compiler flag
7. ded to make a BIOS update to v0 3309 A v0 3310 version is around but id does not come from the acer site and should have no improvement regarding batteries No Windows no DOS just Linux and the BIOS update from acer comes with a DOS program From http www fdos org bootdisks download and unzip a floppy image for FreeDos as FDSTD 288 FDSTD 288 is a FreeDos floppy image with 2 88MByte space so the DOS utility should fit Copy FDSTD 288 to boot and add in your grub conf Note boot might not be necessary in the path depending how your Linux is setup kernel boot memdisk initrd boot FDSTD 288 memdisk is the floppy emulator and can be obtained by MIRKES ANNIE and fay Now its worth to try out FreeDOS boot it and you should find yourself in DOS When done the good old C amp f ALE D brings you back Reboot the PC in Linux and add the BIOS update utility to FreeDos Create a mounting point ET and mount the image Now copy the DOS BIOS utility from Acer to the floppy image reboot from FreeDos and update the BIOS When done it is wise to MENTE Wiseman and delete the BIOS update utility from there since updating BIOS is a critical task that can badly hurt your PC when it crashes or gets interrupted by a power failure 8 Open issues Please let me know when you run into problems urs linurs org or to make me happy help me with the still open issues Setting up the wireless slide switch and its yellow LED xev sho
8. ge Expansion MMC SD slot on the AAO 9 62 Prepare De boo eet ise ceased eee eae 9 es SU ENOO ee 10 6 4 Instruction to activate and interrupt the Gentoo installation c 10 6 5 Compiling the kernel for Gentoo cceeeenneoeeennnaassennnnnnsonnnnnnnnnnnnnnennnnnnnnnn 10 5 5 Accessing the NUVI ondada 11 RI NEO ie nee ine 11 DE Wi ler eisen 11 528 brain nase 12 Amer C B Do m een 14 Page 2 of 17 Guide to improve the Linux of Acer Aspire One Foreword In this document the AAO means Acer Aspire One The smaller and cheaper AAO models come without any hard disk and with Linux installed Unfortunately the Linux installed is very restricted and can not be easily expanded It even looks that they have spent a lot of energy to prevent people like me to customize the AAO to their needs I want to synchronize data on the AAO with my other computers I want to install certain programs that I like so I was forced to look for some alternatives Selling a PC with Linux means giving support As Linux Administrator you are allowed to do all kind of things that could result in completely crash This means the one who sold a Linux PC needs to be prepared to give a lot of support In this point of view I fully understand that the AOO Linux from Acer has turned on some restrictions However certain people like me would like to be full administrators on their computers About this document In this d
9. gets completely discharged and the AAO is no more able to charge it This is why I can not recommend the AAO to anybody There are some tricks to recover 1 trick Unplug power adapter and remove battery Press power button for 2 min Insert battery and plug in power adapter 2 trick Turn on AOO without battery and wait 5 min Plug in the batteries The batteries used are smart batteries that have a complex electronics inside that can be read via SMBus A source where to order is http www distrelec ch http www batteryupgrade ch When concerning to use bigger batteries it should also be concerned to use less power therefore Ss and look at http www linuxpowertop org 4 3 Solid state media and lifetime concerns A lot of discussion is going on regarding installation to solid state media as the internal SSD USB sticks and Flash cards as MMC SD cards Luckily there is also a lot of development going on and many things once written might be outdated and no more true Solid state media have limited life time due to the limited numbers of write cycles Mostly it is forgotten that also mechanical hard disks have a limited life time too The installation of Linux toa MMC SD card seems not critical since after a couple of years I probably decide to buy a bigger and cheaper MMC SD card this will probably be happen before it reaches its life time In the past I used a small 20GByte USB hard disk having installed Linux I had to repair i
10. hey are delivered with the kernel source under device drivers gt MMC SD card support gt Secure Digital Host Controller Interface Support The AAO has a kernel where those drivers are compiled as module Therefore the kernel will not be able to access the sd card during boot and will stuck with kernel panics The easiest way is to create a kernel with those modules built into it This makes it also easy to use more up to date kernel sources An other small issue is that the MMC SD card driver will not be ready when the kernel wants to access the files on it Passing via grub the parameter rootdelay solves this issue Enable the kernel MMC SD option UNSAFE_RESUME to not unmount the MMC SD card when go into suspend mode If it would unmount it then when awake it would re mount it under an other device name and would obviously getting confused Note If you want to read the SD MMC card on a other computer be aware that many cheap SD MMC card readers are not able to read 32GByte large SD MMC cards 6 7 Wired Ethernet The AAO uses r8101 the Ethernet driver for the PCI express fast Ethernet controller from realtek However this driver does not exist anymore in the newest linux kernels Using http www knoppix org the realtek r8169 driver got loaded instead and works fine 6 8 Wireless Using 1spci shows that there is a Atheros AR242x wireless pci adapter That uses the kernel module athSk Atheros 5xxx wireless cards support has to be added
11. nabh ngige Handbuch Johannes Pl tner Steffen Wendzel ISBN 3 89842 677 7 8 Gentoo Linux Installation Konfiguration Administration Gunnar Wrobel ISBN 978 3 937514 34 5 Page 15 of 17 Guide to improve the Linux of Acer Aspire One Alphabetical Index DAN een ra 3 IDEE 11 Alheros niee ee 11 DHC Pirri omens aae 4 BU 9 OUI COML ee 9 KnetworkManager n 11 DL TOUS andoze esac nerasi easa 3 mad Wifi asees erie nie 11 MMUESD 2 seee 7 SDEIC needs 8 SDXC aeii e n e eiaa ea 8 SoD BSREBENEENEUREISEREERNEIEOEPSEUNERELEEENFEBFER ERE 7 PADD EE E E 3 Page 16 of 17
12. ocument I use the term AAO Linpus for the Acer version of Linpus there is the original Linpus version that works on all kind of PC s and does not do all the nasty things that AAO Linpus does When I bought my AAO I used the cheapest version available to me that time since I planned to install myself a Linux distribution on it My AAO is an Model No ZG5 This guide shows some tricks how to have it more open and how to install other Linux distributions to the AAO The final goal is to have a SD card that holds Gentoo Linux and leaves the original Linpus Linux on the internal SSD This guide assumes that the reader has certain Gentoo Linux know how For further help checkout http www gentoo org my book http www linurs org pdf linux pdf or the newest version of this document http www linurs org pdf Aspire 20one pdf 1 Small improvements and things to know 1 1 Help on the net Lot of hints can be found http www aspireoneuser com http helpdesk acer com au Some here http www reghardware co uk hands_on http www reghardware co uk 2008 09 05 ten_aspire one tips And finally www acer com Goto Support amp Downloads under driver download there are some applications that can be added Page 3 of 17 Guide to improve the Linux of Acer Aspire One 1 2 Open the Terminal A LE P 2 and click on run in terminal check box press fl f and opens the shell If you type in su then the shell opens asking for the root pa
13. s Here they are CFLAGS march i686 O2 pipe CXXFLAGS CFLAGS It is wise to the midnight commander during the installation when you are not a command line specialist During installation of Gentoo use the desktop profile 6 4 Instruction to activate and interrupt the Gentoo installation Create on the SSD a mounting point mnt gentoo Mount the MMC SD card there first find out what device is assigned EIN Wemount_ dev mmcblkOp1_ mnt gentod Copy over the network environment Mount the current running kernel status Now tell the kernel to take the MCC SD card instead of the internal SSD Change root Bring the library links in place Restore the environmental variables And finally get the prompt updated To safely leave the chrooted environment Page 10 of 17 Guide to improve the Linux of Acer Aspire One 6 5 Compiling the kernel for Gentoo First you can use the same kernel as linus uses but when having Gentoo you like to customize it When compiling the kernel there is the option in the general setup to create a local version A string will be added to the name of the kernel lib modules lt kernel gt lt string gt this string causes problem with modprobe probably not just on Gentoo and not just for modprobe so disable this kernel option when building a kernel 6 6 Accessing the MMC SD There are drivers necessary to access the MMC SD card The drivers are mmc_core mmc_block and sdhci T
14. ssword Or a more straight forward way is go to Files gt My Document to open the file manager than under menu item File click to Terminal 1 3 Working as root To work as root you have to use the password that got set when the AAO got turned on the first time Open the terminal type su and type the root password to bring you in the console or type MEMMEN to get the file manager as root 1 4 Getting the whole menu With the terminal open type i and give the root password Type ses Eifel then click the Desktop icon then click the tab Behavior and click on check box Show desktop menu on right click Now when you click into the desktop you get the well known menu with much more commands There is also a system command where you find the command Add Remove Software 1 5 Rotating the screen I use the AAO as book but books are usually not landscape Open a terminal and type gE to go back It works nicely but the touch pad can not be rotated Luckily when you have a USB mouse 2 Networking Type RSSEENE in the console and you will see that the hostname is localhost To integrate the Aspire One to a network it obviously requires an other name It could easily be modified by ESMAR TAE however it is not volatile The FAQ Acer help points to a file that does not exist anymore Note The a files etc HOSTNAME and etc hosts however get always overwritten The file etc sysconfig network is
15. t twice due to a broken USB cable So a 32GByte USB stick that has half the price of what I spent for the hard disk has become an option However to not jeopardize lifetime of solid state media I avoid frequent writes to those media so I avoid using swap space on Flash media Swap has been invented to Page 7 of 17 Guide to improve the Linux of Acer Aspire One expand RAM to Harddisk space Instead of using swap on solid state media as a hard disk it is probably better to upgrade the RAM Installing Gentoo on a SD card and using the internal SSD just for boot read only is a good concept regarding lifetime of the solid state media However currently I use the original swap partition of the internal SSD The SDHC card I use is a 32GByte SD Optima from PNY with the speed of up to 20MByte s read and up to 8 Mbyte s write For SD cards see http www sdcard org home 5 Install the original Linpus Installing linpus lite from http www linpus com that is more open than linpus from acer can be done easily But need to be fine tuned WLAN does not work and probably other stuff as well Maybe Linpus offers in the future a version customized for the AAO 6 Install Gentoo Linux on a MMC SD card Larger MMC SD cards are now affordable To have a full blown KDE Gentoo desktop system running and have space for the future a 32GByte MMC SD card is recommended Gentoo Linux http www gentoo org could also installed on the internal SSD ho
16. ting from it The AAO service manual can be obtained from the Internet showing how to open the AAO BE However AAO s l without hard disks can not be equipped later on with a hard disk since the connector is not soldered onto the motherboard The internal SSD seems to have its proprietary connector so an upgrade is probably not possible Therefore the cleanest way to expand the AAO is using the SD card slot on the lower left corner of the AAO it is marked with the text Storage Extension Drawbacks are you can not boot from there and AAO Linpus is configured in a way that it automatically writes stuff there 4 2 Batteries The batteries and the Windows operating system are having the most impact to the price of a Netbook My low cost Acer Aspire One ZG5 comes with a 10 8V 2200mAh standard capacity battery pack no Windows and no hard disk The battery does not last for a whole day business trip Luckily there are other sizes available but not at a very low price Available capacities 4400mAh 2 capacity of the original 6600mAh 3 capacity of the original 7800mAh 3 5 capacity of the original When the batteries are left in the Netbook they become quickly empty 1 day powered off the 2200mAh battery went from 100 to 72 Page 6 of 17 Guide to improve the Linux of Acer Aspire One Same battery charged and removed from the Netbook almost 1 week later 94 And even worse if the AAO is unused for a while the battery
17. wever 8GByte would be used up quickly and a hybrid version with some files on the MMC SD card and some on the internal SSD would be the result Finally Linpus would be lost Linpus can be used as a backup Linux during the setup of Gentoo It probably takes a while until everything runs on Gentoo as desired with all the required device drivers During setup of Gentoo it is helpful to find out how Linpus deals with the AAO Since Gentoo is a meta Linux distribution that can be updated on a daily base to have all the time actual versions it might be happen that some features get lost after updates so when you need something urgently that runs switch back to linpus Finally for simple tasks as browsing the Internet AAO Linpus works fine Some links http www gentoo wiki info Acer_Aspire One Al1I0L http richard bergmair eu aal gentoo Since the BIOS does not support to boot from the MMC SD slot the internal SSD will be used to boot This means it will hold the boot loader and the kernels The 1GByte swap space that the SSD offers can also be used for Gentoo After the kernel has booted it can use the Linux kernel device driver included in the kernel to access the MMC SD card Page 8 of 17 Guide to improve the Linux of Acer Aspire One Note The evolution has created different SD Secure Digital card standards Originally there were the Multi Media Cards MMC that got superseded by SD cards Standard SD cards are available up to 4GByte
18. ws its key code WLAN can be turned off with the switch on the front side of the Aspire One although you don t get a visual notification in the GUI The Wireless LEDs DO work with the addition of these lines to etc rc local Make wifi lights blink sysctl w dev wifi0 ledpin 3 Page 13 of 17 Guide to improve the Linux of Acer Aspire One sysctl w dev wifi0 softled 1 Setting up blue keyboard symbols Optimizing network give up quicker what not wired connect better to wireless nodes Again the pc hostname is set by something sometimes to dhcpc Page 14 of 17 Guide to improve the Linux of Acer Aspire One 9 Annex C Bibliography Books in German Somehow I found out that I do not have English books about Linux 1 Linux Installation Konfiguration Anwendung Michael Kofler ISBN 3 8273 1854 8 2 Gentoo Linux Die Metadistribution Tobias Scherbaum ISBN 978 3 8266 1769 0 3 C und Linux Die M glichkeiten des Betriebsystems mit eigenen Programmen nutzen Martin Gr fe ISBN 3 446 22055 0 4 Steuerungsaufgaben mit LINUX l sen Eine Einf hrung anhand praktischer Beispiele Andreas Zickner ISBN 3 7723 5109 3 5 Messen Steuern Regeln mit Linux Einsatzm glichkeiten f r Linux in Embedded Systems Klaus Dieter Walter ISBN 3 7723 4484 4 6 Embedded Systeme mit Linux programmieren GNU Softwaretools zur Programmierung ARM basierender Systeme Edmund Jordan ISBN 3 7723 5599 4 7 Linux Das distributionsu
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