Acer Aspire 5315 & VL 5.9 Std Gold

[no2thesame]

I just bought a cheap laptop, inspired partly by this post and the article it pointed to:
http://www.vectorlinux.com/forum2/index.php?topic=4893.0

Specs (pretty ordinary) are:
Acer Aspire 5315
Celeron 530 (1.73GHz, 1MB cache, 533MHz FSB) Processor
15.4" WXGA Acer CrystalBrite TFT LCD, 1280 x 800 pixel resolution
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator x3100
512MB DDR2 667MHz (1 x 512MB) RAM
80GB SATA 5400RPM HD
DVD Super-Multi Dual Layer
WLAN Atheros AR5007EG
Running Vista Home Basic (quite slowly - but, to be fair,  apparently the Acer software slows it down)

I want to dual boot.

Being a beginner at notebook Vector installs (only done it once and that worked flawlessly) I was surprised by some problems:

Problem 1: Wouldn't boot from CD, F2 only got the Windows boot loader so couldn't change Boot Order in BIOS.
Fix by going into "Acer's Empowering Technology" (the 'e' key) > Acer eSettings Management (last icon on bar) > Boot Options (at bottom middle of window) and change first option from HD to CD

Empowering Technology (software) creates other known problems because it controls the fan. In Linux the fan won't restart after 'sleep' mode.

Problem 2: SystemRescue CD wouldn't recognise the SATA HD - for resizing the NTFS partitions
Fix: download SystemRescueCd-0.4.0-beta3 from: http://www.sysresccd.org/Beta-x86

At boot:  type 'vmlinuz2' to get the sata kernel modules

I needed to 'startx' to get GParted running.

There were 3 Primary partitions in NTFS already but by shrinking and moving the ACER and DATA partitions I was able to make an extended partition of 42Gb in the middle of the disk. This I divided into 1Gb swap, 2 reiserfs partitions / 10Gb and /home 29Gb, then finally a fat32 of 2Gb.

Next to install Vector Linux SOHO 5.8.6-RC2 (my USBs and CDs seem to work better than with 5.8 SOHO final)

The install went normally, just under 30 minutes to up and on the web.

A few unusual things:
 
1. sda2 (the Vista boot partition) came up under cfdisk as a fat16 partition so LILO (on MBR) gives the second boot option as DOS! I'm leaving it that, I alway did like DOS... Vista still boots and runs quite happily!

2.Screen resolution was way off but the guys at the LUG tried a live Kubuntu with KDE 4 RC on it and it picked up the Intel chipset and gave it the correct resolution, so I guess I'll have to wait until 5.9 has KDE before I can fix it.

3. Can't get sound at all even though it found the sound card and configured it during install. This isn't a problems in the short term and I can wait until 5.9 is out.

4. I use ethernet for web/network (it works) but haven't tried the wireless.

5. F2 gets the BIOS now.

So now I can catch up on my writing while on holidays, the son can watch DVDs in the back of the car (from Vista) and I didn't have to part with a huge amount of cash.

Hanging out for the next SOHO version though!

no2

[lagagnon]

1. sda2 (the Vista boot partition) came up under cfdisk as a fat16 partition so LILO (on MBR) gives the second boot option as DOS! I'm leaving it that, I alway did like DOS...

You can edit /etc/lilo.conf and change the "label" line of DOS to whatever. Then run "lilo -v" as root in a terminal.

2.Screen resolution was way off but the guys at the LUG tried a live Kubuntu with KDE 4 RC on it and it picked up the Intel chipset and gave it the correct resolution, so I guess I'll have to wait until 5.9 has KDE before I can fix it.

You won't need to wait for 5.9. But you might need 915resolution for that Chipset. Search the forum for that keyword.

3. Can't get sound at all even though it found the sound card and configured it during install.

Put a music CD in your CDROM drive and run xmms or whatever and play the CD. Open alsamixer in a terminal and unmute the appropriate slider bars by pressing "m" and then use the arrow keys to increase volume. It is probably just a mixer problem, nothing serious.

[nightflier]

I have a similar machine (Aspire 3680). It took a lot of work to get VL 5.8 SOHO working on it, including installing and configuring 915resolution. Sound also needed extra effort.

When I installed 5.9 RC3 on it, everything I had problems with before, worked out of the box
Intel graphics have hardware acceleration and the screen was correctly set to 1280x800. Sound works great, it even cuts of the internal speakers when I plug in headphones. The Atheros wi-fi also functions.

I installed KDE and it's not quite ready for prime time yet, but looks like the next SOHO version will be another winner.

[no2thesame]

Thanks for the replies.. I intended the post as a comment and not asking for help, but VL people seem be naturally helpful.!
,
Lagagnon, thanks for the fixes but I'm really happy to have Vista called DOS in the boot up.! So that stays as is... I do wonder though, is it really a FAT16 partition? (I love the way my 12 you son - uses the machine for playing DVDs on DOS!)

! tried the 915resolution fix but the chipset is too recent and not supported... I think... anyway it doesn't work.

I don't need the sound at present so that is not a problem.

Nightflier, it was good to hear your experience. It confirms my suspicion that 5.9 would 'just work'. KDE 4 looks magnificent on this screen, very smooth looking desktop.

I'm leaving it on 5.8 SOHO for my summer vacation because I need:
-

• Scribus (I know it won't be true scale but I need to learn it)
• Bibletime
• OpenOffice

these would all be questionable under 5.9 at present (again I'm guessing)

When I get back and have access to the web (and my desktop) I will try 5.9 which should be final. I'm looking forward to that. Don't you just love this distro!

no2

[Joe1962]

VL 5.9 RC3 has Scribus.

[GrannyGeek]

I'm leaving it on 5.8 SOHO for my summer vacation because I need:
-

• Scribus (I know it won't be true scale but I need to learn it)
• Bibletime
• OpenOffice

these would all be questionable under 5.9 at present (again I'm guessing)

I have Scribus 1.3.3.9 and OOo 2.3.0 on 5.9 RC3 on four computers. No problems that I've noticed.
--GrannyGeek

[no2thesame]

As you will notice in the title I have corrected the model of my notebook and more importantly installed 5.9!

I actually did a rushed install of 5.9 back on the 23rd of December after the prodding by GrannyGeek and Joe1962. I and my family have used it every day for the last two weeks away from civilisation (no net access) without problems. VL was awesome, impressing family and friends, but I only managed to give away one CD.

Downloaded and installed 5.9 without drama. It looked great as Standard, very impressive. Graphics were beautiful out of the box after setting resolution to 1280x800.

I like the new install but can't remember much of it now.

 (No sound though. I still haven't worked that out following lagagnon's advice. It says I have a HDA Intel card with a RealTek ALC268 chip. ALSA and OSS  are supported but it's using ALSA) So I had my Scribus.

Installed KDE 3.5.8, and OOo. Now for Bibletime. No joy there.
I added Slack repos but couldn't get it there either. At this stage it was midnight and I faced an 8 hour drive from 3am next morning. I had a quick look at John B's How-To on building packages . http://www.vectorlinux.com/forum2/index.php?topic=1380.0
and realised that OOo had wrecked my chances of doing that properly.

Maybe I'd just do it roughly for myself? But as a tech beginner and not having done it before with anything this complex, I gave up and downloaded the latest e-Sword for Windows (free Bible research program).  That was not real practical as I had to boot to Windows to use it. (I'm not great with WINE either)

I had everything I wanted.

My 12yo could watch his DVDs and listen to music in Vista. So he would be happy. Games were good with
PPracer, Frozen Bubble and Sudoku, all family hits so they went on. (or was PP there?) This is the first machine I can use 3D on.

I even got an hour's sleep.

The machine has worked well apart from the oversensitive touchpad, which seems to like moving the cursor when I use the space bar. I have a USB mouse so is there a way to turn it off? I'll have to poke around the forum, I'm sure I read about it somewhere.

So you can put 5.9 on a cheap Acer and end up with a useful machine.

[GrannyGeek]

The machine has worked well apart from the oversensitive touchpad, which seems to like moving the cursor when I use the space bar. I have a USB mouse so is there a way to turn it off? I'll have to poke around the forum, I'm sure I read about it somewhere.

I use a wireless USB mouse on my notebook and have disabled the touchpad entirely. This is the section in /etc/X11/xorg.conf that I use:

Section "InputDevice"                                                           
Identifier  "Mouse0"                                                           
Driver      "mouse"                                                             
Option      "Protocol" "auto"                                                   
#Option     "Device" "/dev/input/mice"                                         
Option      "Device" "/dev/input/mouse2"                                       
Option      "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"                                               
EndSection                                           


As you see, all I did was comment out the default line for
Option      "Device"
and replace it with
Option      "Device" "/dev/input/mouse2" 

Give it a try. You have to edit xorg.conf as root and restart X for this to work. Back up your xorg.conf before you try this just in case your computer gets upset. Or simply work in a text console and remove the comment before
#Option     "Device" "/dev/input/mice"     
and delete or comment out
Option      "Device" "/dev/input/mouse2"       

Let us know if it works for you.

I'm happy to hear VL is working so well for you.
--GrannyGeek                       

[no2thesame]

Thank you GrannyGeek, it worked straight off! Typing is a pleasure again. As they say around here "You're a deadset legend!"

 I've always been scared of xorg.conf, but it doesn't seem too bad when you know the right option and device name. I was going to ask where you found the answer but after your earlier posts, I'm guessing either Google or the manpage.

Thanks again
no2

[GrannyGeek]

I'm so glad to hear it works for you!

I don't remember exactly where I found the solution, but I'm almost positive it was on this forum, maybe from Joe1962. This was back with 5.8 Standard, I think. Somewhere in there the forum was "upgraded" and a lot of the older messages unfortunately disappeared. When I removed VL 5.8 so I could install 5.9 during beta testing, the old "jumping touchpad cursor" problem was back. My custom is to always copy my /home directory and parts of /etc onto another disk before I install a new version. It was a good thing because I was able to check my old xorg.conf that I had copied and found the lines there. I backed up /etc/X11/xorg.conf and copied those lines into my new xorg.conf.

I had to fiddle with it a bit because the lines that worked in 5.8 didn't quite work in 5.9, but I quickly hit on the right modifications through some semi-informed trial and error.

I've copied all of this into an entry in my computers file in Tuxcards. This file is my treasure, where I keep directions and bits of information on anything that might help me with Linux, Windows, or computers in general. The Linux section is the largest one.

Working with xorg.conf in Linux is much safer than messing with the Registry in Windows. In Linux, you can back up your current version of xorg.conf that is working. If you boot into linux-tui or shut down X and restart in init 2 (text mode), you can always recover by restoring your working xorg.conf file that you backed up.
--GrannyGeek

[Joe1962]

BTW, I have read in several places that xorg 7.3 is supposed to be pretty good at auto-configuration and so should mostly start up without any xorg.conf at all. I haven't actually tested it though.

[toothandnail]

BTW, I have read in several places that xorg 7.3 is supposed to be pretty good at auto-configuration and so should mostly start up without any xorg.conf at all. I haven't actually tested it though.

  I tried it, didn't work well for me. However, that may be the fact that most things seem not to pick up much useful from the IBM TTF screen. Either way, I had to put xorg.conf back in place to get X to run again...

paul.

[SuSE-Refugee]

The machine has worked well apart from the oversensitive touchpad, which seems to like moving the cursor when I use the space bar. I have a USB mouse so is there a way to turn it off? I'll have to poke around the forum, I'm sure I read about it somewhere.

The touchpad is turned off by pressing the FN and F7 key simultaneously. This is somehow done iin hardware; the best way.
I have the same craptop...(recently; It came with the subscription with my new ISP)

I have, however some problems: VL 5.9 doesn't even see there's a WLAN-card in it....
Let alone get it working.
Anyone any clue as to how to fix this?

And which keyboard do I have to choose? I'd like to have it fully functional...

And no sound either...
No: Larry's tip didn't work.

Btw.- No dual-booting here; the whole 120 Gigs of HD-space (And two Gigs of RAM) for VL on this li'l tyke.

[SuSE-Refugee]

I just found (on LQ) the solution for the sound-issue

You need to add the following line to /etc/modprobe.d/sound:

Code:

options snd-hda-intel position_fix=1 model=acer

Should work for other laptops with the hda-intel card. Just replace "acer"with the appropriate brand.(But don't pin me down on that one...)