Revision 13 as of 2009-08-03 06:45:11

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This page contains suggested fixes and/or hacks to get hardware working properly with Ubuntu on the Aspire Timeline.

Boot issue after installation

There are two workarounds to this issue.

Switch SATA mode from AHCI to IDE

Enter the BIOS and change the SATA mode from AHCI to IDE. (Feel free to write this process down in more detail if you like)

Issues

  • Changing mode to IDE will prevent you from dual booting into Vista
  • NCQ is disabled (does the disk have NCQ?)

Set boot option in Grub

  1. Press the escape key during boot to get access to the Grub interface. Enter "libata.force=noncq" (without quotation marks) and boot into Ubuntu.
  2. Open a terminal and enter "sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst"
  3. Change "# defoptions=quiet splash" to "# defoptions=quiet splash libata.force=noncq"
  4. Save and close gedit, then run "sudo update-grub" on the command line.

Issues

  • NCQ is disabled (does the disk have NCQ?)

Note

  • This problem does not apply to the version with Intel SSD. Nothing needs to be done for the SSD version. It would be great if someone with the HD version can try a different HD, to make sure it's not a problem with the particular HD Acer uses.

Wired Networking

On this page here: http://partner.atheros.com/Drivers.aspx you can find the AR813X-linux-v1.0.0.8.tar.gz driver. The README in the file pretty much explains the installation. The MAKE INSTALL failed for me on the installation of the man-file but that does not seem to have mattered. Now the card is detected.

Here is a mode detailed description: $ gunzip AR813X-linux-v1.0.0.8.tar.gz $ tar xvf AR813X-linux-v1.0.0.8.tar.gz $ cd src/ $ make $ sudo make install restart

9.10

Works out of the box with 9.10 alpha 2 and alpha 3.

Audio

Seems to work perfectly out of the box (at least with 9.10 alpha 2 and alpha 3). Low volume is a hardware shortcoming. It's the same under Vista.

However, there are things you can try to make it better. A fresh install may leave some ALSA channels low. Try running alsamixer and setting all the channels to maximum volume. Type Esc to quit. From then on you should be able to just use the PulseAudio controls.

Suspend to RAM

Possible with new kernel on 64bit Ubuntu 

$ wget -c http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.30/linux-headers-2.6.30-020630-generic_2.6.30-020630_amd64.deb http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.30/linux-headers-2.6.30-020630_2.6.30-020630_all.deb http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.30/linux-image-2.6.30-020630-generic_2.6.30-020630_amd64.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-2.6.30-020630-generic_2.6.30-020630_amd64.deb linux-headers-2.6.30-020630_2.6.30-020630_all.deb linux-image-2.6.30-020630-generic_2.6.30-020630_amd64.deb

Does not seem to work under 32-bit 9.04, 9.10 alpha 2 and alpha 3. Suspend seems to work, but resuming powers off the machine instead. BIOSes versions 1.04 and 1.08 (for 3810t) don't help. Using the "resume-trace" procedure described here does not yield any matches. Unloading all non-essential modules in single user (recovery) mode doesn't fix it.

Bug report: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/405120

Webcam

works fine also after installing the proper driver: - type in: sudo modprobe uvcvideo - type in: sudo apt-get install cheese - type in: cheese - set the resolution in the preferences to 640x480 to get rid of the distortion - done!

Touchpad Multitouch

(From post in 3810 thread):

I've tried to make it working with this guide: http://ubuntu-snippets.blogspot.com/2009/03/multi-touch-for-anyall-synaptics.html

It really doesn't show multi-touch support in synclient -m 100 output, however it works with following hal code (see link above for details): 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<deviceinfo version="0.2">
  <device>
    <match key="info.capabilities" contains="input.touchpad">
        <merge key="input.x11_driver" type="string">synaptics</merge>
        <!-- Arbitrary options can be passed to the driver using
             the input.x11_options property since xorg-server-1.5. -->
        <!-- EXAMPLE:
        <merge key="input.x11_options.LeftEdge" type="string">120</merge>
        -->
        <merge key="input.x11_options.SHMConfig" type="string">On</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.EmulateTwoFingerMinZ" type="string">80</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.VertTwoFingerScroll" type="string">1</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.HorizTwoFingerScroll" type="string">1</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton1" type="string">1</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton2" type="string">2</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton3" type="string">3</merge>

    </match>
  </device>
</deviceinfo>

The most confusing part is TapButton 2 and 3. According to these code "two fingers click" should emulate second (right button), but in my case with this hal code - two fingers click emulates 3-rd button.

Touchpad On/Off button

Works perfectly out of the box in 9.10 alpha 2 and 3.

External monitor

I have a Samsung 970p here and wanted to attach it with a resolution of 1280x1024 and had some trouble doing it. So here is the solution in case you also have issues getting the proper resolution.

First, know the resolution and the frequency. 60Hz is working fine here. You have to find out a modeline for the screen you are using. For this go into a shell and type: 

# gtf 1280 1024 60.0

which gives you the modeline for 1280 x 1024 at 60Hz: 

  # 1280x1024 @ 60.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 63.60 kHz; pclk: 108.88 MHz
  Modeline "1280x1024_60.00"  108.88  1280 1360 1496 1712  1024 1025 1028 1060  -HSync +Vsync1024 1025 1028 1060  -HSync +Vsync

Then you edit your /etc/X11/xorg.conf to look like this: 

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier      "Acer Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier      "External Monitor"
        Modeline        "1280x1024_60.00"  108.88  1280 1360 1496 1712  1024 1025 1028 1060  -HSync +Vsync
EndSection

Section "Screen"
        Identifier      "Internal Screen"
        Monitor         "Acer Monitor"
        Device          "Video Card (Primary)"
        SubSection "Display"
                Virtual         1900 1200
                Modes           "1900x1200" "1366x768" "1280x1024"
        EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Device"
        Identifier      "Video Card (Primary)"
        Option          "Monitor-VGA" "External Monitor"
EndSection

Note where I inserted my modeline to make it work. If you then log out and log in again, the menu SYSTEM - PREFERENCES - DISPLAY should show the 1280x1024 resolution in the dropdown. This is the general direction. If this does NOT work for you for whatever reason, please take a look at this here: http://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Config/Resolution

9.10

Works perfectly out of the box in 9.10 alpha 2 and 3. Just use System -> Pref -> Displays.