Installing Debian (sid as of 2006-05-26) on Acer Aspire 1690

General Hardware Specifications of Acer Aspire 1690:

This laptop is operating under Kernel version 2.6.16

• Why to use Debian Sid
Kernel 2.6.8 from Debian Sarge did crash.
• Obtaining Debian
http://www.debian.org/
Using the Net-Inst CD worked great.
• Installing
First I used parted to delete the unused Windows partition and enlarge the one with the pre-installed Windows XP a bit. Worked wonderful. Then I created a swap and root partition for Linux. The latter can be a bit smaller as movies, pics and mp3 should be stored on the big Windows partition to be accessible under both OSs:

	# fdisk -l

	Disk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
	255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
	Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

	   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
	/dev/hda1               1         383     3076416   12  Compaq diagnostics
	/dev/hda2             384        8541    65529135    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
	/dev/hda3            8542        8603      498015   82  Linux swap / Solaris
	/dev/hda4   *        8604        9729     9044595   83  Linux
	

IMPORTANT: When first booting you have to use "acpi=off" as kernel command line i.e. in your lilo.conf or GRUB menu. Else the screen stays black.


• ACPI and DSDT update
To get ACPI, which is necessary for all powersaving and -monitoring stuff, back to work, the DSDT had to be updated. This seems to be a common problem on notebooks.
I dowloaded a fixed one from http://acpi.sourceforge.net/dsdt/view.php?id=559, installed the "iasl" package and compiled with iasl Acer-Aspire_1690-3A22-custom-fixedmem.dsl. The result was then moved to /etc/mkinitrd/DSDT. It is now automatically be included on every re-/install of a kernel image package. I.e. to activate it for the current kernel write: dpkg-reconfigure linux-image-2.6.16-1-686 and reboot.
• CPU speed change / powersaving
After loading the following modules, powernowd started changing the CPU speed from 800MHz to 1700MHz on demand:

	speedstep_centrino
	cpufreq_conservative
	cpufreq_ondemand
	cpufreq_powersave
	cpufreq_stats
	cpufreq_userspace
	freq_table
	

Of course you can also just do echo "ondemand" > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor to archive nearly the same result without having a power daemon loaded.

• Wireless LAN
Find out the driver version with "modinfo ipw2200", download the matching firmware from http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/firmware.php and install the contents of the tar archive in /lib/firmware/. If you see the following line in the syslog or via dmesg: "Kill switch must be turned off for wireless networking to work." then you have to press the little button at the front of the notebook or, if it is not recognized use the instructions on http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Ipw2200 that is type:

echo "" > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200/*/rf_kill/

• ATI and X11
To get the X server running you need to get the non-free ATI drivers which are luckily prepackaged in Debian non-free at least. The following installation instructions are from http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Debian_Installation_Guide:

	apt-get update
	apt-get install module-assistant fglrx-driver fglrx-kernel-src fglrx-control-qt3
	module-assistant prepare
	module-assistant update
	module-assistant a-i fglrx
	aticonfig --initial

You can verify it with the following tools:

	# fglrxinfo 
	display: :0.0  screen: 0
	OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
	OpenGL renderer string: MOBILITY RADEON X700 Generic
	OpenGL version string: 2.0.5755 (8.24.8)

	# fgl_glxgears
	3806 frames in 5.0 seconds = 761.200 FPS

• Touchpad with X11
The touchpad works out of the box with the xserver-xorg-input-synaptics. See the X config file below.
WARNING: The notebook has a special key combination [Fn]+[F7] that disables the touchpad. Remember this when your touchpad "suddenly" does not work anymore :)

• Getting Suspend-to-Disk to operate correctly
• Getting the touchpad to operate as more than a PS/2 mouse
• Any other additional features you can think of

• The card reader does not yet work.
The yenta_socket kernel module was loaded automatically but my SD memory card is not recognized:

pccardctl status
	Socket 0:
	  no card

• The X11 config file could be of interest
Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "Default Layout" Screen 0 "Default Screen" 0 0 InputDevice "Generic Keyboard" InputDevice "Configured Touchpad" EndSection Section "Files" FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc" FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic" FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/:unscaled" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled" FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/:unscaled" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled" FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1" FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi" FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi" FontPath "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType" EndSection Section "Module" Load "bitmap" Load "dbe" Load "ddc" Load "dri" Load "extmod" Load "freetype" Load "glx" Load "int10" Load "type1" Load "vbe" EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Generic Keyboard" Driver "kbd" Option "CoreKeyboard" Option "XkbRules" "xorg" Option "XkbModel" "pc105" Option "XkbLayout" "de" Option "XkbVariant" "nodeadkeys" EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Configured Touchpad1" Driver "mouse" Option "CorePointer" Option "Device" "/dev/psaux" EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Configured Touchpad" Driver "synaptics" Option "CorePointer" Option "Device" "/dev/psaux" Option "Protocol" "auto-dev" Option "SHMConfig" "on" EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Configured Touchpad3" Driver "synaptics" Option "CorePointer" Option "Device" "/dev/input/event1" Option "Protocol" "auto-dev" Option "SHMConfig" "on" EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Configured Touchpad" Driver "synaptics" Option "CorePointer" Option "Device" "/dev/input/event1" Option "Protocol" "auto-dev" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "Standardbildschirm" Option "DPMS" EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "ATI Technologies, Inc. Radeon Mobility X700 (PCIE)" Driver "fglrx" BusID "PCI:1:0:0" EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Default Screen" Device "ATI Technologies, Inc. Radeon Mobility X700 (PCIE)" Monitor "Standardbildschirm" DefaultDepth 24 SubSection "Display" Depth 1 Modes "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubSection SubSection "Display" Depth 4 Modes "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubSection SubSection "Display" Depth 8 Modes "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubSection SubSection "Display" Depth 15 Modes "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubSection SubSection "Display" Depth 16 Modes "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubSection SubSection "Display" Depth 24 Modes "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubSection EndSection Section "DRI" Mode 0666 EndSection

• lspci

	0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/PM/GMS/910GML Express Processor to DRAM Controller (rev 03)
	0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/PM Express PCI Express Root Port (rev 03)
	0000:00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 04)
	0000:00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 04)
	0000:00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 04)
	0000:00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 04)
	0000:00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 04)
	0000:00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 04)
	0000:00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 04)
	0000:00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 04)
	0000:00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev d4)
	0000:00:1e.2 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 04)
	0000:00:1e.3 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 04)
	0000:00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FBM (ICH6M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 04)
	0000:00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) IDE Controller (rev 04)
	0000:00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 04)
	0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Mobility X700 (PCIE)
	0000:06:01.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx21/x515 Cardbus Controller
	0000:06:01.2 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
	0000:06:01.3 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments PCIxx21 Integrated FlashMedia Controller
	0000:06:03.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection (rev 05)
	0000:06:08.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5788 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 03) 

• Christian Hammers <ch @ lathspell.de>
(remove spaces)

• Ubuntu Support Wiki
• Tuxmobil Laptop installation survey
• Linux on Laptops Homepage