I’m running Ubuntu 5.10 (”Breezy Badger”) on my Acer Travelmate 8103. I’m really impressed with how well Ubuntu is done. I’ve always been a big fan of debian but always found it was behind the times when installing a desktop system. X, Gnome, and KDE would always be out of date among other important packages. Debian is still my favorite distribution for servers though.
Here’s how to get your system running if you want the same setup.
Put the CD in and boot the system with the command line:
linux vga=771 noacpi
Follow the normal installation process.
Eventually you’ll come to a point where your screen goes blank. What’s
happened is that your X setup doesn’t work. Press CTRL-ALT-F1 to get to a
terminal that still works.
Edit your /etc/X11/xorg.conf and add the following line to your “Devices”
section:
Option "MonitorLayout" "LVDS,AUTO"
Then restart gdm:
sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart
Once X starts, you should open a terminal and fix your grub bootup script.
Edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and remove “vga=771″ anywhere you see it in the file.
Install some packages:
apt-get update
apt-get install bison flex-old build-essential gcc gcc-3.4
Getting ACPI working:
You need to get Intel’s DSDT compiler, the DSDT for your system, and install it.
Getting the intel compiler:
Download http://developer.intel.com/technology/iapc/acpi/downloads.htm
Following the instructions for that package, put the intel compiler in /usr/bin
tar zxvf acpica*
cd acpica/compiler
make
sudo cp iasl /usr/bin
Download your DSDT for your system from acpi.sf.net. Click on the DSDT link
and find the one for your system. For my 8103 I used the 8104 DSDT.
Compile it:
iasl -tc ACER-TravelMate8104WLMi3C22-custom.asl
Copy the compiled DSDT into your system and install it:
sudo cp DSDT.aml /etc/mkinitramfs/
sudo dpkg-reconfigure linux-image-uname -r
Edit /etc/modprobe.d/ipw2200 and add one line to it:
options ipw2200 led=1
Setup kernel cpu frequency scheduling instead of powernowd userspace (optional):
rm /etc/init.d/*powernowd
echo freqtable >> /etc/modules
echo speedstep-centrino >> /etc/modules
echo cpufreqondemand >> /etc/modules
echo cpufreq_powersave >> /etc/modules
echo echo ondemand \> /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor > /etc/init.d/freq-scaling.sh
sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/freq-scaling.sh
ln -s /etc/init.d/freq-scaling.sh /etc/rc2.d/S30freq-scaling>> /etc/modules
echo speedstep-centrino >> /etc/modules
echo cpufreqondemand >> /etc/modules
echo cpufreqpowersave >> /etc/modules
ATI Binary Official (closed source) driver:
apt-get install xorg-driver-fglrx fglrx-control linux-restricted-modules-uname -r
Then copy my xorg.conf file over top of it. You can get it here:
http://dan.hld.ca/acer/xorg.conf
Reboot 
Outstanding issues:
If you figure out a solution to any of these, please email me at dan@hld.ca.
- Can’t hibernate, suspend, etc. This is because of the ATI drivers.
- Can’t use composite extensions otherwise 3D accelleration gets turned off
- Haven’t tried burning anything… maybe it just works.
Credits:
Dorris for his guide on the Ubuntu forums: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=46536
http://michel.weimerskirch.net/articles/ubuntu-aspire2012.html
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