Feel free to add your tweaks here:-)

Power Consumption

Use powertop (sudo apt-get install powertop) to find out ways to reduce powerconsumption

• Wifi powersaving is important (2W), enable with "sudo iwconfig wlan0 power on"

One way of reducing powersaving is to add entries to /etc/rc.local so they get loaded at boot.

Sample /etc/rc.local for Timeline Laptops

#
# rc.local
#
# This script is executed at the end of each multiuser runlevel.
# Make sure that the script will "exit 0" on success or any other
# value on error.
#
# In order to enable or disable this script just change the execution
# bits.
#
# By default this script does nothing.

/sbin/iwconfig wlan0 power on

exit 0

Using powertop to measure power consumption (only available when running on battery), for the 3810t, 8-9W should be achievable with wifi on and LCD at medium brightness. That yields more than 7 hours of battery life. 4810tz bios 1.28 Ubuntu 9.10 beta 45% brightness wifi on ~9.2w

If the above command gives you the following output:

Error for wireless request "Set Power Management" (8B2C) :
    SET failed on device wlan0 ; Operation not supported.

It's likely that you're using a version of the driver that disabled that setting. To upgrade to a new one, if you're on Karmic, try running:

sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-karmic-generic

Source

Upgrade Bios

Use this guide for upgrading the bios, no need for windows http://www.netbooktech.com/tag/acer-aspire-one-bios-update-instructions/