Fedora Core 3 x86_64 Edition and the Acer Aspire 1524WLMi

No special procedure required during installation.

The processor clocks up and down automatically (between 2.4GHz and 800Mhz) automatically, depending on workload. The fan spins up and down automatically, depending on workload. Sometimes the processor fan spins up when the processor is running at 800MHz.

You may wish to install gnome-cpufreq-applet, to see what speed the processor is running at and hence how much power it is consuming.

(Thanks to Mike Grant for the instructions on how to get 1280x800 working.)

Firstly, install NVidia's driver (see below).

Once you've got the NVidia driver installed, edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Update the Driver section to enable discovery of the LCD's parameters using EDID:

Section "Device"
        Identifier  "Videocard0"
        Driver      "nvidia"
        VendorName  "NVIDIA"
        BoardName   "NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5700"
        Option      "UseEdidFreqs" "True"
EndSection

Once you've done this, start X in verbose mode from the console, to check that you LCD panel has the same characteristics as Mike's and mine. You may need to switch to runlevel 3 before doing this, to ensure that you boot to the command-line prompt rather than X.

You can check that you're in runlevel 3 like so:

[rich@meelo ~]$ /sbin/runlevel
N 3

To switch to runlevel 3, run the following as root:

init 3

Start X in verbose mode like so:

startx -- -verbose 5 -logverbose 5

Then check that you have the following in the output of the X server when it starts. It will be on the console that you started X from or in the log file /var/log/Xorg.0.log. You should see some text like this:

(II) NVIDIA(0): --- EDID Information for display device DFP-0 ---
(II) NVIDIA(0): Manufacturer: NVD  Model: 800  Serial#: 0
(II) NVIDIA(0): Year: 2002  Week: 45
(II) NVIDIA(0): EDID Version: 1.3
(II) NVIDIA(0): Digital Display Input
(II) NVIDIA(0): Max H-Image Size [cm]: horiz.: 32  vert.: 20
(II) NVIDIA(0): Gamma: 1.00
(II) NVIDIA(0): DPMS capabilities: StandBy Suspend Off; RGB/Color Display
(II) NVIDIA(0): First detailed timing is preferred mode
(II) NVIDIA(0): redX: 0.600 redY: 0.342   greenX: 0.295 greenY: 0.570
(II) NVIDIA(0): blueX: 0.147 blueY: 0.111   whiteX: 0.312 whiteY: 0.328
(II) NVIDIA(0): Manufacturer's mask: 0
(II) NVIDIA(0): Supported additional Video Mode:
(II) NVIDIA(0): clock: 68.9 MHz   Image Size:  322 x 201 mm
(II) NVIDIA(0): h_active: 1280  h_sync: 1301  h_sync_end 1333 h_blank_end 1409 h_border: 0
(II) NVIDIA(0): v_active: 800  v_sync: 804  v_sync_end 808 v_blanking: 816 v_border: 0
(II) NVIDIA(0): Monitor name: Nvidia Defaul
(II) NVIDIA(0): Monitor name: t Flat Panel
(II) NVIDIA(0): Ranges: V min: 0  V max: 60 Hz, H min: 29  H max: 49 kHz, PixClock max 70 MHz
(II) NVIDIA(0): --- End of EDID Information for display device DFP-0 --- 

If you see something different, ignore the rest of these instructions. You could damage your display.

If you see the same h_active and v_active lines, then edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf, commenting out any auto-detected settings and adding a ModeLine, like so:

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier   "Monitor0"
        VendorName   "Monitor Vendor"
        ModelName    "Unknown monitor"
#       HorizSync    29.0 - 49.0
#       VertRefresh  0.0 - 60.0
        Option      "dpms"
        ModeLine "1280x800"   68.9   1280 1304 1336 1408   800 804 808 816
EndSection

If you're worried that you might damage your LCD panel using these instructions, I can report that it works fine at 1024x768. To use 1024x768, just comment out the HorizSync and VertRefresh, so that the X server will use the automatically detected limits and default to 1024x768. Running at 1280x800 is a lot clearer, though - it looks like the LCD panel's native resolution.

Download and install the driver from the NVidia website. You will need to have a compiler and linker installed, because the driver will need building. Then follow the instructions in the driver's README file and the instructions above to make sure that the driver auto-detects the available screen resolutions.

I previously had a problem where the console display is corrupted, once X has started. This is fixed in at least release 8174 of the Nvidia driver. I have it working under Fedora Core 4 with release 8178 and kernel-2.6.14-1.1653_FC4.

The laptop uses a RealTek 8169 with an integrated PHY chip. This is supported by Linux 2.6.11 and later.

The following is historical and is included for users of earlier 2.6.x kernels:

The Linux 2.6.10 and earlier driver for the 8169 (r8169) does not support the version with the integrated PHY.

However, I have a patched version of the driver that does work.

To ease the pain of using the patched driver, I have prepared a kernel_r8169acer DKMS package. DKMS will automatically build and install this driver against whichever kernel you have running. You will need to install DKMS 2.03, gcc and make in order to use kernel_r8169acer. The kernel_r8169acer DKMS package requires at least Linux 2.6.10 - it will not build with earlier kernels.

Once DKMS, kernel_r8169acer, gcc, make are installed, update your /etc/modprobe.conf to load the r8169acer driver, e.g.:

alias eth0 r8169acer

Then reboot. You could unload the old driver and load the new driver, but it may just be safer to reboot, so you don't accidentally kill any active networking sessions.

Old workaround

You may be able to get a reasonable transfer rate by forcing the card into 10Mbps full-duplex mode or 100Mbps half-duplex mode, depending on what switch it's connected to. To do this, add the following line to /etc/modprobe.conf:

options eth0 use_dac=0 media=0x2

or:

options eth0 use_dac=0 media=0x3

media=0x2 is 10Mbps full-duplex; media=0x3 is 100Mbps half-duplex. use_dac is unsafe with Athlon64 and should be disabled. media actually sets the media type.

This card is a Cisco INPROCOMM IPN 2220.

The IPN 2220 is not supported by Linux, but can be used under 32-bit i386 Linux by using ndiswrapper. Sadly, ndiswrapper doesn't work on 64-bit x86_64 Linux.

Recently Linuxant announced a version of Linuxant DriverLoader [download page] with support for x86_64. This is like ndiswrappers. It too apparently supports the IPN 2220. I haven't tried it.

Both ndiswrappers and DriverLoader will require recompiling the Fedora kernel, to enable large stacks. Several NDIS drivers require a larger stack than the default with Fedora kernels.

I have had some success getting an Atheros-based 802.11a/b/g PC card, a Netgear W511T, working with madwifi, but I haven't tried passing traffic through it yet. This card costs about 50 GBP from PC World.

Mike Grant also reports that you can remove the IPN 2220 from the laptop, since it is a MiniPCI card. This will invalidate your warranty. You could replace it with a Centrino-based MiniPCI card, such as the Intel PRO/Wireless 2100. There is Linux support for the IPW 2100, although this apparently doesn't work in 64-bit mode.

?

Linux kernel 2.6.11-rc1 has a driver for this modem, but I haven't tried it.

No special procedure required during installation.

Note: Only CD-R tested so far.

No special procedure required during installation. Plug one in and it works immediately.

Note: A USB mouse isn't supplied, but was one of the first things I bought for this laptop. I find touchpads quite annoying. I haven't worked out how to make it so it does not consider me touching the pad as a button click.