Linux on Laptops

Installing SuSE 10.0 on Acer Aspire 3003 WLMI

Last updated: 03/16/2006

General Hardware Specifications of Acer Aspire 3003 WLMI:

Hardware Components	Status under Linux	Notes
AMD Sempron 3000+ Processor, 1.8 GHz	Works	No special procedure required during installation.
15.4” WXGA Crystal Bright Display	Works	Select 1280x800 LCD in Xwindows SaX setup
SiSM760GX Graphics Chipset	Works	Detected. Working 100% including 3D Accel.
256MB, DDR 333 PC 2700, 2DIMMs	Works	No special procedure required during installation
80 GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive	Works	No special procedure required during installation
Modular Floppy Drive	NONE	N/A
SiS 900 Integrated Network Card	Detected But Doesn't Doesn't Work	Known Issue With SuSE 10.0 Kernel
Acer Chipset Internal 56k SoftModem	Works	Detected and Working 100%
Dual Layer 8X DVD+/RW Drive	Works	No special procedure required during installation
Internal Broadcom based Acer Invilink 802.11 b/g Wireless	Works 100% With Ndiswrapper	Google Ndiswrapper Howto for SuSE
Lithium-Ion Battery	Works	Works with SuSE Powersave Daemon right out of the box.
AC97 Sound	Works	Detected and Operational except for Wavetable Midi Under Alsa
3 USB Ports	Works	Detected and working under standard installation
Keyboard Special Keys	Works	Select Acer Travelmate 800 under SaX2 and all special keys will function.
Touchpad	Works	Detected and fully operational including 2 dimensional scroll button.
Bluetooth Wireless	Untested	Untested
PCMCIA	Untested	Untested
ACPI	Seems to Work	Seems to Work

This laptop is operating under Kernel version 2.6.13-15.8

Basic Installation of SuSE 10.0:

Why to use SuSE 10.0: Good hardware and application support
Obtaining SuSE 10.0: Available for download at http://opensuse.org
Installing : I originally opted to install 9.3 but installation locked up at language and country settings. 10.0 installed readily without incident.
Post-Install modifications/tweaks: Getting networking going involved using the distro supplied ndiswrapper and wpa_supplicant packages. SiS900 ethernet was detected during install, but failed to work at all. This is a known issue with the SuSE 10.0 Kernel.

Setting up additional features for [Linux Distribution]

Getting Suspend-to-Disk to operate correctly: I've never trusted this “feature” even on Windows machines and hence did not enable it.
Getting the touchpad to operate as more than a PS/2 mouse: Touchpad is detected during installation and works perfectly, including 4 way scroll button. USB mouse also detected and working as secondary mouse.
Any other additional features you can think of: Screen resolution defaults to 800x600. SaX2 configuration allows setting up to 1280 x 800 @ 75 Hz (Native resolution)
In order to get Volume/Brightness/etc... special keys working, it was necessary to select Acer Travelmate 800 Keyboard from SaX2 Menu.

Unresolved issues

Sound does not support MIDI wavetable, but then again very few sound cards do under Linux aside from Creative.
SiS900 Ethernet not working at all, but wireless and modem work fine so minimal problem.
Bluetooth is untested so no info there.
PCMCIA is untested. Also no info.
Have yet to figure out an optimal configuration for powersave daemon, but it seems to detect battery status OK out of the box. Note, battery life on this notebook is pretty abysmal. About 1 hour with this configuration in real life. Google indicates this can be improved by buying an aftermarket 8 Cell battery to replace the stock 4 Cell unit. Further discussion with an Acer Technical Rep confirms there is an 8 cell Li-Ion battery available with double the power capacity. Part number is LC.BTP03.003. Acer's price for the upgrade battery is $149.00 USD shipped from their support center in TX. Aftermarket batteries can be had for a fraction of that price though, meeting or exceeding all OEM requirements.

Configuration Files

Just the usual init files for lmsensors and gkrellm. man sensors and gkrellm to see how to properly setup.

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