aceraspire1694wlmi

Documenting the installation and daily use of gnu/linux on my acer aspire 1694wlmi.

So far I have tried MEPIS, PClinuxOS and SAM on my machine.

MEPIS was okay but went a bit funny with the display. SAM had screen detection issues, and once they were resolved I couldn’t get the hang of XFCE. PClinuxOS would never install the ati driver properly.

I currently have OpenSuSE 10.3 (with KDE) installed on my notebook. Here are some of the man pages found on the novell wiki that were useful to fix a few things.

My notebook has an x700 mobility so I installed the proprietary drivers.

* ATI FGLRX - http://en.opensuse.org/Ati [ I get those little artifacts under the cursor and in the bottom right hand corner as described in ubuntu forums- it appears to be an issue with the driver later than 8.40 (i used 8.43 which made the artifacts) .. rolling back to the older driver might fix things.

* google reader integrated into gmail -  get greasemonkey and install the script so you can enjoy your rss collection in your gmail window with all your other email  and  chats...  http://blog.persistent.info/2006/10/google-reader-redux.html

* Skype - http://en.opensuse.org/Skype - [note: turn on the "capture" setting in the Kmix].
In order to share my firefox, thunderbird and sunbird settings I created a line in the firefox about:config

On thunderbird I created a symlink in the thunderbird profile in my linux install, and then edited the ini to point to the thunderbird symlink.

——-

from http://pestilence.insert.gr/installing_kubuntu_on_acer_aspire_1694_wlmi/

”

ACPI

ACPI is something like black magic, it seems its broken and it needs fixing on many different systems. Bellow i attach a fixed DSDT.aml[file:1=DSDT.aml]This is for the Acer Aspire 1694WLMi (2GHz, 1GB DDR2 RAM, X700 256MB) with BIOS Version: 3A28
Step 1If you have a Ubuntu provided kernel then you need no more than place the file under the /etc/mkinitramfs/ directory and then issue the following command:

pestilence@odin:~$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure linux-image-$(uname -r)

This is will recompile your initrd image and place the fixed DSDT file inside it.Reboot after you’ve followed the above steps and the warning / errors should be gone.”

***

Hotkeys

Get your hotkeys working:

sudo apt-get install hotkeys

Then get the file:[file:3=acer-1694.def]Place the file into: /usr/share/hotkeys and rename it to aspire-1694.defThen download the file:[file:4=acer-1694.hk]And place its contents inside the: /usr/share/hotkey-setup/acer.hk

cat acer-1694.hk > /usr/share/hotkey-setup/acer.hk

Edit the file /etc/hotkeys.confAnd modify it to look something like this:

Kbd=aspire-1694PrevTrack=xmms –rewPlay=xmms –play-pauseStop=xmms –stopPause=xmms –pauseNextTrack=xmms –fwdWebBrowser=firefoxEmail=thunderbirdCalculator=kcalcFileManager=konsole -e mcShell=konsoleosd_font=-arphic-ar pl kaitim big5-bold-i-normal–0-250-0-0-c-0-*-*### For the color, you can either use the strings in /etc/X11/rgb.txt,### or use the RGB syntax #RRGGBB, e.g. ##A086FFosd_color=LawnGreenosd_timeout=3### osd_position is either ‘top’ or ‘bottom’osd_position=bottomosd_offset=25

The osd part of the file allows to have a visual representation on the screen of the key pressing, in order to work you need to have the osd bin installed:

sudo apt-get install xosd-bin

Last start hotkeys with your window manager (KDE in my case):Create a new file named hotkeys.desktop under the dir ~/.kde/Autostart and place inside it the following:

[Desktop Entry]Comment=Comment[de]=Encoding=UTF-8Exec=/usr/bin/hotkeysGenericName=GenericName[de]=Icon=execMimeType=Name=Name[de]=Pat

“