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Acer_Extensa_4620

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Contents

Overview

Installation

Disk

I installed from the live CD 2008.0 in hopes that the wireless card would work. It didn't, even after I loaded the firmware. I did notice that both the b43xx and b43 modules were loaded, so maybe they were conflicting. Not sure.

Kernel

Linux 2.6.25-gentoo-r7 x86_64 Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU T2370 @ 1.73GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

Power Management

Linux Kernel Configuration: 
 Power management options  --->  
  [*] Power Management support
  [ ]   Legacy Power Management API (DEPRECATED)
  [*]   Power Management Debug Support
  [*]   Software Suspend (Hibernation)
  ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) Support  --->
   [*] ACPI Support
     [*]   Sleep States
     [*]     /proc/acpi/sleep (deprecated)
     <*>   AC Adapter
     <*>   Battery
     <*>   Button
     <*>   Video
     <*>   Fan
     < >   Dock
     <*>   Processor
     <*>     Thermal Zone
  Device Drivers  --->
   Misc Drivers --->
    [*] Acer WMI Laptop Extras

ACER ACPI

Warning: After I do modprobe acer_acpi my wireless card no longer works. Perhaps if it was added in autoload conf BEFORE b43 it would work??

The directory /proc/acpi/acer/ is created with the following modifiable options:

wireless (enable or disable the wireless radio)
version 
threeg 
interface
brightness (set the brightness of the screen)
bluetooth (enable or disable the bluetooth radio interface (if present))

Example to enable the wireless:

$ echo 1 >> /proc/acpi/acer/wirelss

Devices

We enable PCCARD/PCMCIA support, SATA support, ethernet card, 3D graphics using the onboard Intel X3100 card, sensors and CPU temp monitor, LCD brightness control, multimedia cards reader, touchpad and LED support (needed for acer_acpi module).

Linux Kernel Configuration: 
Bus options (PCI etc.)  --->
  PCCARD (PCMCIA/CardBus) support  --->
     <M> PCCard (PCMCIA/CardBus) support
     <M>   16-bit PCMCIA support
     [*]     Load CIS updates from userspace (EXPERIMENTAL)
     [*]     PCMCIA control ioctl (obsolete)
     [*]   32-bit CardBus support
Device Drivers  --->
  [M] Sound Card Support
   <M> Advanced Linux Sound Architecture                           
     <M>   Sequencer support                                           
      <M>     Sequencer dummy client                                    
      <M>   OSS Mixer API                                               
      <M>   OSS PCM (digital audio) API                                 
      [ ]     OSS PCM (digital audio) API - Include plugin system       
      [*]   OSS Sequencer API                                           
      <M>   RTC Timer support                                           
      [*]     Use RTC as default sequencer timer
  <*> Serial ATA (prod) and Parallel ATA (experimental) drivers  --->
     <*>   AHCI SATA support
     <*>   Intel ESB, ICH, PIIX3, PIIX4 PATA/SATA support
  Network device support  --->
     [*]   Ethernet (1000 Mbit)  --->
         <*>   Broadcom Tigon3 support
     [*] Wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11) 
         
  Character devices  --->
     --- /dev/agpgart (AGP Support)
     <*>   Intel 440LX/BX/GX, I8xx and E7x05 chipset support
     <M> Direct Rendering Manager (XFree86 4.1.0 and higher DRI support)
     <M>   Intel I810
     <M>   Intel 830M, 845G, 852GM, 855GM, 865G 
     < >     i830 driver
     <M>     i915 driver 
   <M> I2C support  --->
   <M>   I2C device interface 
   I2C Algorithms  --->
       [select all]
   I2C Hardware Bus support  ---> 
       <M> Intel 82801 (ICH)
   Miscellaneous I2C Chip support  --->
       <M> EEPROM reader
 <M> Hardware Monitoring support  --->
       <*>   Intel Core (2) Duo/Solo temperature sensor
 Graphics support  --->
       [*] Backlight & LCD device support  --->
          <M>   Lowlevel Backlight controls
          <M>   Lowlevel LCD controls 
 HID Devices  ---> 
       <*> USB Human Interface Device (full HID) support
 <*> MMC/SD card support  --->
       [ ] MMC debugging 
       [ ] Allow unsafe resume (DANGEROUS) 
               *** MMC/SD Card Drivers *** 
       <*> MMC block device driver 
       [*] Use bounce buffer for simple hosts
       < > SDIO UART/GPS class support 
               *** MMC/SD Host Controller Drivers ***
       <*> Secure Digital Host Controller Interface support
       < > Ricoh MMC Controller Disabler(EXPERIMENTAL) 
       < > Winbond W83L51xD SD/MMC Card Interface support
       <*> TI Flash Media MMC/SD Interface support(EXPERIMEN
 LED devices  --->
       [*] LED Support
       <M>   LED Class Support

Hardware

Code: output of lspci 
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Contoller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation Mobile IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation Mobile SATA IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM5787M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 02)
04:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI (rev 01)
0f:06.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Cardbus Controller
0f:06.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments PCIxx12 OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
0f:06.2 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments 5-in-1 Multimedia Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/xD)
0f:06.3 SD Host controller: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 SDA Standard Compliant SD Host Controller

/etc/make.conf

CFLAGS="-march=nocona -O2 -pipe"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
MAKEOPTS="-j5"

VIDEO_CARDS="i810"
ALSA_CARDS="hda-intel"
INPUT_DEVICES="mouse keyboard evdev synaptics"
LINGUAS="en_US"
FEATURES="ccache fixpackages userfetch -unmerge-orphans"
CCACHE_DIR="/var/tmp/ccache"
CCACHE_SIZE="2G"
LIRC_DEVICES="sir"

USE="amd64 aac a52 alsa -arts avi -berkdb cracklib dri dv dvdr -esd ffmpeg flac foomaticdb gtk glx gif hal hfs java jpeg lame mjpeg mmx mp3 multilib mysql ncurses ogg opengl oss pam php png qt3 qt4 scaner spell srt sse sse2 ssl sqlite v4l2 uclibc vorbis wifi x264 X xvid yahoo"

BIOS

Acer Extensa 4620 BIOS updates are available here. Before I installed Gentoo, I booted into the pre-installed Widoze Vista and updated the bios to the most current release. I originally attempted to hand roll a FreeDOS bootable CD with the driver updates on it but I did something wrong. The CD would boot (sort of), say "FreeDOS" and just hang there.

CPU

See this HowTo.

Graphics

See this guide.

Wireless

See this guide.

Sound (hda-intel card)

Getting sound playback to work was easy, it just worked. Getting the built in mic to work in skype was not intuitive. Follow these steps to get the built in mic working perfectly with skype. (I have not tried other applications, but they may work after this too)

First make sure your kernel is properly configured. All sound goodies built as modules (kernel section).

as root edit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa it should look like this

alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
alias sound-slot-0 snd-hda-intel
options snd-hda-intel model=acer

reboot your machine ( doing /etc/init.d/alsasound restart doesn't seem to work )

run alsamixer
press f5 to show all controls
Set MASTER to your loudness pref
Set PCM to 100
Line In to 0
Mic Boost to 0
Capture to 84
Digital to 0
Input Source to Front Mic (you would think 'internal mic' would be the built in one, but it's NOT!)
Internal to 50
press esc to exit

as root do alsactl store

Start Skype
set Options --> Sound Devices --> Sound In to HDA Intel (hw:Intel,0)
uncheck 'Allow Skype to adjust mixer levels'
Click Apply and you should be good to go!

Webcam

Using linux-uvc the webcam is correctly identified as Acer CrystalEye webcam (064e:a101).

$ emerge media-video/linux-uvc
$ modprobe uvcvideo
$ dmesg | grep uvcvideo
  uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device Acer CrystalEye webcam (064e:a101).

Please remember to add your username to the video group if you want to use the webcam as a normal (not super) user.

If you want to check if the camera is correctly identified and working, you should try luvcview package ([1]). It is available in portage (although still masked). Launch it with this command:

$ luvcview -f yuv -w
  luvcview version 0.2.1
  Video driver: x11
  A window manager is available
  video /dev/video0

A good command to record video from the camera is the following (it uses ffmpeg [2]):

$ ffmpeg -f video4linux2 -s 320x240 -r 5 -i /dev/video0 -f m4v out.m4v

Skype version 2.0.0.13 supports video capture and works perfectly with the Acer camera.

Retrieved from "http://www.gentoo-wiki.info/Acer_Extensa_4620"
Last modified: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 03:41:00 +1100 Hits: 2,341

Created by NickStallman.net, Luxury Homes Australia
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