Making VL work on my Acer Laptop - New to Linux & VL

[Zakhary]

Hi, I'm new here. I'm also new to the linux world. I had an old rig (300mhz / 128mb ram) lying in a closet
pretty much useless. I one  day decided to try installing a lightweight graphical linux distro on it. I ended up
trying several (since they are free.. ) and vectorlinux (5.8 Standard) was clearly the right one for me. Everything worked right out of the box. I was browsing the internet and installing software using GSLAPT in no time. VL gave a new life to my old rig. Thanks for this excellent distro whoever you guys are that are developing this thing.

Now to my problem and the main reason for this post. I liked VL 5.8 Standard so much that I'd like to run it on my
Acer Aspire 3682 laptop. I already tried once but I faced too many problems and they overwhelmed me (as a newbie..)
However - I'm not ready to give up just yet. I DID search the forums and used google trying to get help but all the info I found was not specific enough. I don't know where to add lines and extra commands to make something happen or not happen during boot up. I don't know what to type even if  I did know where to put it!
 
--> I need specifics. Fool-proof instructions (or.. in this case.. newbie-proof ? )
Maybe you guys could help me with these three things:

1. The WLAN. It's an Atheros 5005G. I have read that it works with the Madwifi drivers. Now.. how EXACTLY can I install them
on the VL 5.8 standard. Can I use gslapt to obtain them? .. then what?

2. The display. It has an 950GML by intel and the native resolution of the laptop LCD is 1280x800. I have read and understood that I need a bios hack called 915resolution ( i did read all the posts about this on these forums) but I was not able to make it work.
I downloaded the thing using GSLAPT and tried adding those lines in one of the config files as discussed here in another thread... But could someone give me the exact things I need to do to make VL's XFCE desktop show up in 1280x800 with 24bit color?

Also: http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/f7/en_US/sn-Xorg.html#sn-Intel-Driver-Notes

" Fedora 7 contains two drivers for Intel integrated graphics controllers:
   The default i810 driver, which contains support for Intel graphics chipsets up to and including i945 and i965
      The experimental intel driver, which contains support for Intel graphics chipsets up to and including i945
The i810 driver is limited to resolutions available in the BIOS. If you need support for non-standard resolutions, such as those used in some widescreen displays, you may want to switch to the intel driver. You may switch drivers by using system-config-display, available in the menus under System → Administration → Display. "

So there exists a driver that would work without any hacks? It would seem so.
How difficult would it be to get this driver for VL?

3. The sound. Intel HD audio with three mini-jack holes on the front. The audio works great..
but once I plug in the headphones... the audio is coming from both the internal speakers AND the heapdhones. Obviosly... NOT good
Again, I read the thread about this on the VL forums but again the instructions on what to do were way too vague for me.. I don't have a clue what to add and where. I can find the exact model on my own if you could just tell me what to add and where.


That's all.. (I think). Thanks in advance for any help, and thanks again for this excellent distro!

Oh, and any news on 5.9 yet? Should I be trying (for example) the "VL5.9-Pseudo-1.13.iso"
available  from here: http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/Uelsk8s/ ??

[The Headacher]

3. The sound. Intel HD audio with three mini-jack holes on the front. The audio works great..
but once I plug in the headphones... the audio is coming from both the internal speakers AND the heapdhones. Obviosly... NOT good 
Again, I read the thread about this on the VL forums but again the instructions on what to do were way too vague for me.. I don't have a clue what to add and where. I can find the exact model on my own if you could just tell me what to add and where.

If you find out what model your card is, you can compare it with the list I posted here: http://www.vectorlinux.com/forum2/index.php?topic=4125.msg26899#msg26899 . It contains models that you can pass when the sound driver is loaded. to test if one of them works, first use

Code:

modprobe -r snd-intel-hda && modprobe snd-intel-hda model=ref

where ref should be replaced with the correct model.

Oh, and any news on 5.9 yet? Should I be trying (for example) the "VL5.9-Pseudo-1.13.iso"
available  from here: http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/Uelsk8s/ ??

Only if you know what you're doing. It's a release for developers and packagers

[Zakhary]

How exactly do I pass the model and where is the file I should edit?

[The Headacher]

No editing of files just yet... first test if it works or not:
1) use the code above to load the module with the right parameter
2) try if sound works.

There must be some way to have the parameter passed automatically, some file that can be edited to achieve it, but I only know of an ugly way.

[Zakhary]

I was given a very friendly and informative error message after trying that.
"FATAL: Module snd_intel_hda not found."

[The Headacher]

Sorry, error from my side: the correct module name is snd-hda-intel.

Code:

modprobe -r snd-hda-intel && modprobe snd-hda-intel model=ref

[Zakhary]

FATAL: Module snd_hda_intel is in use.

[Zakhary]

I was able to get the resolution to 1280 x 800 a moment ago. But it stopped working.
Here's what I did:
- Ran vasm as root and used the "autodetect" option when it asked for a resolution.
- I wrote in terminal logged in as root "915resolution 58 1280 800 24"
- I hit backspace + ctrl + alt. The resolution was now correct.
- Then I added  "915resolution 58 1280 800 24"  to the last line in the file /etc/rc.d/rc.local.
- Rebooted.

Now the resolution is back to 1024x768 and I can't get it back to 1280x800 no matter what I do.

And I still haven't got a clue what to do with the sound.

Argh... getting pretty frustrated over here

[lagagnon]

- Then I added  "915resolution 58 1280 800 24"  to the last line in the file /etc/rc.d/rc.local.

Try the full pathname to 915resolution instead:

/usr/sbin/915resolution 58 1280 800 24

(it could be that rc.local does not yet know all the paths to follow...But first of all check where 915resolution is with the command "whereis 915resolution". It should be in /usr/sbin ...)

[Zakhary]

No.. still does not work.

[M0E-lnx]

you may have to try different modes until you get to the one that works. It has happened to me before. You can do 915resolution -l to see the list of available modes. Pick a really odd mode like 1280X10240 @ 32 bit and override it to fit what you need

[Zakhary]

Well.. I've given up with VL 5.8 on my laptop. All of the issues mentioned in the first post
 remain unsolved no matter what i tried. I had to install windows
I still use VL on my old PC I mentioned also in the first post.

Still, Many thanks to all of you who posted here to help me!

Do you think that 5.9 might change things? Should I try VL 5.9 (once it's released)
on my laptop or would I  be in for just another dissapointment?