SOHO 5.8 RC3 on an Acer Aspire 5610-4260 notebook

[Joe1962]

Just installed SOHO 5.8 RC3 on an Acer Aspire 5610-4260 notebook. Here's the specs:

Intel Core Duo processor T2060 1.6 GHz
15.4" WXGA LCD, 1280 x 800
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950
120 GB HDD
1 GB DDR2 RAM
DVD burner, double layer
Broadcom BCM 440x ethernet adapter
Intel 3945ABG wifi adapter
Intel HDA sound system

Installation went well except for the known RC3 issue with the X keyboard maps, which effectively ends the installer if you try to change it. I simply finished the installation after first boot, without changing the X key map.

Things that were set up automagically:
- video driver and working DRI (resolution set to 1024x768 by autodetect)
- ALSA sound driver
- correctly loaded module for BCM440x ethernet adapter (haven't actually tested it)
- correctly loaded modules for ipw3945 wifi adapter (interface doesn't show up)

Things that work after tweaking:
- 1280x800 resolution
   (after copying 915resolution utility to /usr/sbin and calling it at the end of /etc/rc.d/rc.local)
- wifi adapter:
   (after calling /sbin/ipw3945d at the end of /etc/rc.d/rc.local and using kwifimanager to scan and connect)
- Brazilian keyboard layout:
   (after setting model = Brazillian ABNT2, Layout = Brazil and Layout variant = abnt2 in Control Centre)

Things not tested yet:
- modem
- DVD burner
- bluetooth adapter
- built-in webcam
- built-in microphone
- multi format card reader

I'll update this as I get some more testing done. HTH someone...
 

[The Headacher]

That looks like a pretty sweet notebook Joe1962! Cardreader is likely to give a problem. The modem & webcam might, depending on what chipset is being used.

The microphone should just be a matter of playing around with some controls, I have one built-in too on the laptop in my sig, My "soundcard" is a different one from yours though. In Audacity it's pretty easy to record from mic.

I don't know squat about bluetooth, but if I had it I would turn the darn thing off or blacklist it's kernel module. I don't trust it at all ( a little paranoia never hurt anyone ).

[Joe1962]

Thanks for the feedback, The Headacher. I'll be doing some software development in winders for most of the day and evening during the next few months, so testing might be a tad slow, but I'll keep you posted. Strange thing is I had installed 5.8 Gold briefly on a Tosh with Intel GMA950 and 1280x800 a while back and never needed 915resolution, X autodetected and set the max res correctly. Wonder what the diff could be?

[Joe1962]

Ok, the burner works, for CDRWs at least. However, it won't use dma, so burnfree kicked in 5 times even at 10x. I also saw this on a Toshiba I had as a loaner for a week. They both have sata interfaces, so this might be related. Anybody else seen this problem, and is there a fix?

[easuter]

These pages seems to be relevant to a certain extent, hope it helps 

http://thomer.com/howtos/dma_on_sata_dvd.html
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problems_with_SATA_and_Linux#No_DMA_on_DVD_drive

[Joe1962]

Thanks easuter, that definitely sounds relevant. I'll check this out soon as work permits a reboot with enough time to reinstall SOHO RC3 over Dynamite 6 test2 ...

[Jerry]

I am hoping this thread gets picked up again;  I just acquired an Acer
Aspire 5610z, built in April of this year.  It came with Windows Vista
Premium.. I am looking around for the right Linux distro to put on it;  I'm
very used to everything working and I want a Linux that will not
compromise that.

I'm thinking of Sabayon, Mint, Xandros and Vector. 

The only difference between my machine and your test machine, Joe,
is that I upgraded the RAM to 2 Gigs.

  -- Jerry

[lagagnon]

Well the only thing I would say to that is "suck it and see". 
Most of the users here have reasonably good things to say about SOHO 5.8 on laptops.
We should probably be able to help you with any unforeseen problems. For certain VL is likely to be faster than Mint or Xandros, I am unsure about the performance wrt Sabayon.

[easuter]

The only difference between my machine and your test machine, Joe,
is that I upgraded the RAM to 2 Gigs

Hehe, thats a wooping amount of RAM.
SOHO's speed should be several multiples of "c" on that machine 

[Jerry]

The only difference between my machine and your test machine, Joe,
is that I upgraded the RAM to 2 Gigs

Hehe, thats a wooping amount of RAM.
SOHO's speed should be several multiples of "c" on that machine 

Heh.. well, RAM is the big food for Windows products.     And Vista is the
hungriest of all.  This machine is very fast, even with Vista, but I already
know how fast Vector is because I've had it on my old PC with its 900Mhz
processor (Celeron) and that little nVidia FX5600 graphics card.

Now I'm ready to get out of Windows on the new laptop and have a
real screamer, especially if I use Vector, the fastest of most distros
out there (debateable, I know.. but it is known as a fast one).

It seems hard to trash the perfectly working Vista Premium that came OEM
I admit.  Sorry..

I know I will, for moral reasons if not anything about performance. 

[GrannyGeek]

It seems hard to trash the perfectly working Vista Premium that came OEM
I admit.  Sorry..

I know I will, for moral reasons if not anything about performance. 

Why not just resize the partition with something that's compatible with Vista and install VL SOHO in the free space? I'd have no qualms about keeping an expensive OS that came with the computer. Ritual purity is not my thing.<g> I've used V-Com's Partition Commander successfully a number of times on XP partitions, and once I even resized several Linux partitions. I see they have a version that works with Vista but I can't vouch for it.

VectorLinux is terrific on good hardware.
--GrannyGeek

[Joe1962]

I actually haven't tested anything further in my "Things not tested yet" list. Mostly from lack of time, as I currently spend all day and part of the night programming in Windows. I've been running SOHO and Std in vmware. Still, the really important parts (to me) work well, except for the burner DMA, for which there are fixes pointed out by easuter. I will try and get around to testing that, at least. I don't really have any use for bluetooth, dialup modem (for now) or the webcam. Also, the card reader doesn't support Compact Flash, which is the format I use now, so I have an external reader nicely handled by vl-hot...

[Jerry]

The camcorder has come in very handy for family/party/picnics, etc.  A *must* for me
now.. I do hope I find a linux distro that can give me that as well as all the multimedia
stuff I am used to in Vista.  I also, of course, need wifi to work reliably.

[easuter]

I also, of course, need wifi to work reliably.

The bcm43xx project has made some very good progress in ther kernel module from what I can gather.
The broadcom card that laptop has should work ok with the bcm43xx kernel module in SOHO. Ndiswrapper is also known to work with that card, so if the native module doesn't work, then ndiswrapper is quite a solid alternative.

[Joe1962]

Actually, the Broadcom is the wired ethernet adapter. The wifi is an Intel 3945ABG. Weird, I know... go figure.