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Linux: Acer Aspire laptop - how's the linux support?
Acer Aspire laptop - how's the linux support?
by Ck87.JF - 1/21/08 10:35 PMHello, I've been recently researching a laptop to purchase, and several models of the Acer Aspire series have caught my attention.
One I was looking at today in Sam's Club is the Aspire as5920-686.
The paper I picked up says that the laptop has a 1.66GHz Core 2 Duo processor (decent), 3GB of RAM (rather nice), and doesn't mention the video card.
The processor is an Intel Centrino T5450.
This laptop struck me as rather good, because it is only $700, has a nifty-looking case design, as well as touch-sensitive media buttons, and three gigs of RAM.
I am the type of person who often has MANY tabs open in firefox, while simultaneously listening to music, while using instant messenger, so that much RAM would be good for me, I think. In Vista Ultimate on my desktop, I frequently bump up against the upper limits of my 1GB of RAM.
Even if I don't get that laptop, there are a few other choices, like
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115411
My question out of all of this ... what are your experiences with Linux on Acer laptops?
Or, do you have any suggestions for a good laptop brand that works well with Linux?
Most likely, I'm going to go with Fedora, as I'm familiar with it and its package manager, yum. Compatibility concerns include wifi, extra media buttons, and that built-in webcam.
Really, anything special to Acer's line of laptops that might make it difficult to get things to work.
Thanks ... g'day.
another laptop, HP, with touch screen support
by Ck87.JF - 1/21/08 10:37 PM In reply to: Acer Aspire laptop - how's the linux support? by Ck87.JFHello, I was also looking at this HP laptop, which has a touch screen.
I'm curious; how well supported is that in linux?
sorry, forgot the link to that touch screen laptop
by Ck87.JF - 1/21/08 10:41 PM In reply to: another laptop, HP, with touch screen support by Ck87.JFhere it is:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8525875&type=product&id=1186007267767
Links
by welrdelr - 1/21/08 11:44 PM In reply to: Acer Aspire laptop - how's the linux support? by Ck87.JFThere is a Linux for laptops site.
Also, check the documentation for each distribution for hardware compatibility.
The 8400M video is good to go.
by R. Proffitt
- 1/22/08 5:47 AM
In reply to: Acer Aspire laptop - how's the linux support? by Ck87.JF
But don't count on a distro from a year ago to support it. Hint? Latest and mainstream distro's only. On the wifi my bet is it's NDISWRAPPER support so find the drivers so you can polish that off.
Slightly older distros support the 9xx and GMA 3100 displays just fine.
Nice unit IMO.
re: latest distros
by Ck87.JF - 1/22/08 10:48 AM In reply to: The 8400M video is good to go. by R. Proffitt
Fedora 8 is rather recent, I'd say, though the most mainstream is of course Ubuntu, and I'd be willing to use that if it means complete compatibility.
You say nice unit ... which one did you refer to?
Someone else said something about a website for linux on laptops ... I found a website like that a while ago, but when I looked at it, most laptops and distros mentioned were older versions ... but maybe I didn't find the same site the other person mentioned? They didn't provide a link, so I couldn't discern.
(NT) The one with the 8400
by R. Proffitt - 1/22/08 11:06 AM
In reply to: re: latest distros by Ck87.JF
right, sorry
by Ck87.JF - 1/22/08 11:27 AM In reply to: (NT) The one with the 8400 by R. Proffitt
I should have realized that with the video card being your title, and "nice unit" in the body ... but I forgot about the title by the point of replying. :P
I think I may get that one ... but I'll let you all know how it goes.
Acer Laptop with Linux
by Sport Pilot - 1/29/08 11:10 PM In reply to: Acer Aspire laptop - how's the linux support? by Ck87.JFAcer Aspire 5102WLMi
AMD Turion 64 x2 Processor
2 gig RAM
15.4 inch screen
DVD Re-Write double layer
802.11b/g wireless
ATi Radeon Xpress 1100
Everything works except the built-in SD Card reader with PCLinuxOS 2007.
If you are using Windows OS you have never truly Multi-Tasked. I serf the web with multiple tabs, background music, talk on Skype and manipulate pictures all while watching the latest Youtube. With all that going on the 3D graphics is still working smooth.........
re: pclinux07
by Ck87.JF - 1/30/08 5:18 AM In reply to: Acer Laptop with Linux by Sport PilotWhat speed is the AMD processor rated at?
I know nothing about ATI cards, as I'm used to nVidia, so is the Radeon Xpress 1100 a good card, or does "Xpress" mean onboard?
Why the biased comment against MS? I don't like them much, but the comment is false. I've done every bit of what you've done and more while in Windows, and was still okay. I did that with 512MB of memory back when, here's a screen shot:
Irfanview, notepad, a few firefox windows (with several tabs), thunderbird, several explorer windows, trillian, TI-connect (calculator program), BZflag, a 3D game, and I don't remember what the sky-scraper icon is.
All that in Windows XP, with 512MB of memory ... with an Apple skin to boot.
Now, what's that about multitasking in Windows?
Doesn't PCLinux cost some money, anyway?
Fun fact: unless you have a multi core proccessor, you can't "multitask," anyway. All that stuff you're doing has to take turns to use the processor, so truly, you're only doing one thing at a time. But each thing does its thing so fast, that you don't notice the difference. For dual core, you can do two things at a time.
peace, time for school
what you can expect
by vixenk - 1/30/08 5:46 PM In reply to: re: pclinux07 by Ck87.JFSo far I've had really good experiences with the latest Ubuntu working out of the box (or close to out of the box) with newer laptops, more so than the other distros I've tried (namely PCLinuxOS, SUSE, Mandriva, and Mepis, all the latest versions). While I can't comment on that particular laptop, I would say whatever you try out on it, if it doesn't work (or requires more work than you would like to deal with) Ubuntu would be your next best choice. Most distros though should work with only a minimum amount of work required (if any at all). Usually the "painful" spots are getting the Wifi working and the sound... you may need to use Ndiswrapper to get the Wifi going with the Windows driver, and sometimes Alsa requires some tweaking before you can get the sound working. If you need help in these areas, check out that particular distro's forums - they're usually pretty adept at knowing how to fix whatever hardware issue you may run in to. The most problems I've ran in to with getting distros to work on a laptop has been laptops that had extremely OEM specific, proprietary parts. Since this is an Acer we're talking about, it's highly unlikely you'll run in to this issue, since as far as I'm aware they use "standard" parts.
PCLinuxOS doesn't cost anything. You may be thinking of Linspire or Xandros.
painful = wifi & sound
by Ck87.JF - 1/30/08 8:04 PM In reply to: what you can expect by vixenkWhy does sound cause so much of a problem in linux?
Tonight, I was messing in Ubuntu Studio on my desktop, and I had amarok running, and tried using the metronome. It wouldn't work, said something about the sound card being busy. I stopped amarok, I could use the metronome. Only one thing at a time ... but why? In windows, I have had multiple apps sending audio to the sound card, so why should linux be different?
I'm really liking Ubuntu Studio so far ...
reply to: painful = wifi & sound
by vixenk - 1/30/08 9:15 PM In reply to: painful = wifi & sound by Ck87.JFWith laptops in particular, there are a TON of sound chips that can be configured in multiple ways by the OEM. Throw in a lot of proprietary chips into the mix, and there you have it - why laptop sound can be problematic. Things have really improved in this arena though, and most chips are now supported, though due to the whole multitude of configurations some chips can be set at, one sometimes has to make changes in how Alsa handles them.
Case in point - my last laptop, a Toshiba Satellite, used an Intel sound chip that while supported in Linux has so many configurations that 90% of the time out of the box Alsa couldn't use it without the user making some specifications on how it was configured, depending on what OEM made their laptop. It was a simple fix - cutting and pasting a line into the Alsa config file - but still meant that the OS had to be installed before one could get working sound.
As for wireless, there are only a few wireless chips that have Linux drivers, which is why sometimes you have to use Ndiswrapper to load and install the Windows driver. A lot of distros have made this easy - Ubuntu has probably made it the easiest by being able to automatically detect what driver you need, download it, and load it. Still though it needs to be pointed out that in this situation as well the OS has to be installed before it can work. That plus you'll need to connect via an ethernet cable in order to download the driver.
I'm not saying this to scare you, and I can't guarantee you'll run into those issues as like I said, I'm not familiar with that laptop. These are just the common issues that I've ran in to while installing Linux on laptops, period.
Video will not be a problem. I have the same chipset you will be using and haven't had any issues in that arena.
If you haven't already, definitely do a google for that laptop model and the name of the distro that you will be wanting to put on it. Chances are someone has done it before, and if they ran in to any issues you will be able to find out what those issues were and what was done to resolve them.
Unfortunately I can't help you much on the metranome issue, but I can suggest that you make sure you are using Alsa on both programs and not OSS. The times I have seen multiple apps unable to send sound at the same time it has usually been because one was using Alsa and the other was using OSS - which would send back a message about the sound card being busy, as you can't use two different sound servers at once on the same card.
I hope everything goes smoothly for you and your new laptop. 
re:re: wifi & sound
by Ck87.JF - 1/31/08 5:39 AM In reply to: reply to: painful = wifi & sound by vixenkOkay, the sound makes sense, but how can I make sure everything's using Alsa instead of OSS?
For the wifi, that shouldn't be a terrible problem, as long as I can get something working ... I have broadband at home, so I can attach an Ethernet cable there to download any needed drivers.
You've been great help, vixenk, thank you.
Now, I just need my funding to come through, heh.
how to check
by vixenk - 1/31/08 12:03 PM In reply to: re:re: wifi & sound by Ck87.JFIt depends on the program... some programs let you switch between the two in their options menu. Others only use one particular server... in these cases you'll need to google and find out.
If you still can't figure it out, try going to the Ubuntu forums and seeing if anyone is familiar with it/knows how to resolve it, as it could be distro specific or even sound card specific.
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