Notes on Acer Aspire One 522

[PsynoKhi0]

Of course no windows tax! I've bought it in Thailand where you can get a lot of bare hardware without software bundles. Also VAT is 7% only. They even put in the RAM module; good guys.

Oh... Dang they should offer worldwide shipments

Wild guess regarding network: does passing

pci=nomsi

as a kernel boot parameter help? (You're using fglrx right?)

[CaptainCrunch]

Regarding the freezing issue, I had the problem that as soon as I tried to use wifi, my system would lock.

For me upgrading to linux 2.6.38 sort of helped. You can take from the changelogs that they did some patching in the atheros wifi drivers in 2.6.36.

After the upgrade the freezing was at least reproducable. It now happens for me if I unplug the ethernet cable. The system comes back to normal if I put the cable back in.

Since I dont really need ethernet, I blacklisted the driver (add "blacklist atl1c" to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf and run update-initramfs -u) and the system works like a charm since then - with the exception that I cant use ethernet

The audio issue is still there for me aswell

[Kano]

Basically you can use ndiswrapper for ethernet (not only wlan) cards as well, but maybe better report a bug at

https://bugzilla.kernel.org/

[dothebart]

ok, the puzzle required several parts to get it running.

apt-get install firmware-atheros

loaded the atheros firmware required to get the device working.
next thing i've seen is, that it sometimes won't work on boot, and it blocks booting for a while.
it seems as if the RF-Kill switch (FN-F3) is able to fix this; it unplugs the wlan card and the bluetooth card.
you need to press it several times to toggle all two modules through off & on state, have a tail on /var/log/messages/syslog open to see when its plugging in the bluetooth module.
when not loading the firmware, its showing me:
Bus 004 Device 006: ID 0489:e02c Foxconn / Hon Hai
afterwards I just see:
Bus 004 Device 003: ID 0cf3:3005 Atheros Communications, Inc.

Note: i'm running a 2.6.39 pre kernel, there was some patch blacklisting 0489:e02c from the btusb driver, and adding it to ath3k:

http://us.generation-nt.com/patch-ad...202165552.html

[dothebart]

hm, comment disappeared? once more.

Needed to install the firmware:
apt-get install firmware-atheros

and have a recent 2.6.39 kernel running which contains http://us.generation-nt.com/patch-ad...202165552.html this patch.
after that this device:
Bus 004 Device 006: ID 0489:e02c Foxconn / Hon Hai
becomes:
Bus 004 Device 003: ID 0cf3:3005 Atheros Communications, Inc.

it seems as if it sometimes doesn't work well during bootup, the RF-Kill switch (FN+F3) for un/re-plugging the device does the job. Note that you need to press it several times to switch on/off wlan+bluetooth, have a tail on syslog/messages open to see whats going on.

[areichel]

I installed alsa-driver-unstable from 1st July today and audio is completely working now incl. internal microphone and jack-sense. Bluetooth works since kernel 2.6.39 so nothing is left over.

I'd like to declare this nice laptop as 100% linux compliant and supported now! It is really a nice and cheap piece of hardware. Currently you can purchase it in Bangkok for just 8'000 THB now, which is less than 200 EUR.

[dothebart]

Currently I still have these problems:

- if the atheros cable NIC is loaded, and no cable is plugged in, and networkmanager/wicd scans it, the system locks up.
- switching back to text console from X11 doesn't work
- after restarting X11, 1/3rd of the screen is wrapped
- suspend to disk doesn't resume

By upgrading my ram to 4G its really fast and responsive now, even compiles quickly.

[areichel]

- if the atheros cable NIC is loaded, and no cable is plugged in, and networkmanager/wicd scans it, the system locks up.

true, bypass easily by disabling eth0 (e.g. point wicd to /dev/eth1 instead) and start it only on demand and when connected

- switching back to text console from X11 doesn't work
- after restarting X11, 1/3rd of the screen is wrapped
- suspend to disk doesn't resume

Works very well here with open X drivers. Despite resuming, it even works with the propietary ATI drivers. As always, Gentoo is your friend as it has everything in by now.

By upgrading my ram to 4G its really fast and responsive now, even compiles quickly.

Very true, but even with only 2GB the laptop is very usable already.

[pchristy]

Interesting! I bought an Aspire One 721 a few weeks back, installed Slackware 13.37, and everything worked instantly!

I've since compiled my own kernel, to get rid of all the stuff I didn't need, and its still working fine!

The Gfx chip in mine is a Radeon HD4200. I've installed the Ati Catalyst drivers without any problems, BUT I am having issues with HD video!

I've installed the Xvba and libva bits, and mplayer-vaapi works PROVIDED I don't plug an external display in! As soon as I plug in an external display, either by vga or hdmi, mplayer-vaapi crashes instantly!

Xine works fine with the external display, but can't handle HD video on this device (no vaapi version available as yet), and VLC crashes instantly as soon as it is pointed at any HD material, regardless of whether an external display is attached or not.

I can't get any version of libva later than 0.31-sds4 to work. All the 0.32 versions cause problems at some point or other.

So at the moment, the whole reason for my purchase seems out of reach! I just hope that somebody manages to get this whole vaapi mess sorted out soon, but it doesn't look promising!

Of course, HD video works fine under Windoze, though only with Windoze Media Player. Again, VLC won't handle HD video. It doesn't crash, but is very slow and stuttery! (Yes, I have enabled GPU acceleration!)

Other than that, it all works fine. And I do keep finding that although I do try other distributions, I keep coming back to Slackware, because it just works!

--
Pete

[PsynoKhi0]

Interesting! I bought an Aspire One 721 a few weeks back, installed Slackware 13.37, and everything worked instantly!
[...]
The Gfx chip in mine is a Radeon HD4200. I've installed the Ati Catalyst drivers without any problems, BUT I am having issues with HD video!

The configuration discussed here is a bit different though, since it's one of the first CPU+GPU-in-one chips from AMD, while yours is based on the previous platform with IGP on the motherboard