Arch Linux

Determination

Member

From: Southern California

Registered: 2008-07-24

Posts: 27

Re: Acer Aspire One

I looked through the all the build-install specific config files for fuse, but I couldn't see any hard-coded reference to a specific kernel. I'm pretty sure I didn't modify and fuse settings gothicknight configured so it is entirely possible that I don't even need to compile the module! I'll add that to the list of things to check before asking on the boards Thanks thomasd.

That's great news also concerning the audio configurations.

Last edited by Determination (2008-11-12 21:15:13)

Inkaine

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2008-07-14

Posts: 88

Re: Acer Aspire One

Thanks for your recent additions to the wiki, thomasd. I tried compiling the latest alsa drivers into gothic's kernel. It worked after patching a couple include files with 2.6.28 updates (only two new definitions, one additional include and a new function) were required so nothing else should break. I'm running with kernel26-one and snd-hda-intel.model acer-aspire now. ;-)

alsa-2.6.28.patch:

--- include/linux/input.h.orig    2008-11-14 22:53:45.000000000 +0100
+++ include/linux/input.h    2008-11-14 22:55:14.000000000 +0100
@@ -644,6 +644,7 @@
 #define SW_RADIO        SW_RFKILL_ALL    /* deprecated */
 #define SW_MICROPHONE_INSERT    0x04  /* set = inserted */
 #define SW_DOCK            0x05  /* set = plugged into dock */
+#define SW_LINEOUT_INSERT    0x06  /* set = inserted */
 #define SW_MAX            0x0f
 #define SW_CNT            (SW_MAX+1)
 
--- include/linux/types.h.orig    2008-11-07 18:55:34.000000000 +0100
+++ include/linux/types.h    2008-11-14 23:28:40.000000000 +0100
@@ -190,6 +190,7 @@
 
 #ifdef __KERNEL__
 typedef unsigned __bitwise__ gfp_t;
+typedef unsigned __bitwise__ fmode_t;
 
 #ifdef CONFIG_RESOURCES_64BIT
 typedef u64 resource_size_t;
--- include/linux/pci.h.orig    2008-11-14 23:38:32.000000000 +0100
+++ include/linux/pci.h    2008-11-14 23:51:32.000000000 +0100
@@ -51,6 +51,7 @@
 #include <linux/kobject.h>
 #include <asm/atomic.h>
 #include <linux/device.h>
+#include <linux/io.h>
 
 /* Include the ID list */
 #include <linux/pci_ids.h>
@@ -1116,5 +1117,20 @@
 static inline void pci_mmcfg_late_init(void) { }
 #endif
 
+#ifdef CONFIG_HAS_IOMEM
+static inline void __iomem *pci_ioremap_bar(struct pci_dev *pdev, int bar)
+{
+    /*
+     * Make sure the BAR is actually a memory resource, not an IO resource
+     */
+    if (!(pci_resource_flags(pdev, bar) & IORESOURCE_MEM)) {
+        WARN_ON(1);
+        return NULL;
+    }
+    return ioremap_nocache(pci_resource_start(pdev, bar),
+                     pci_resource_len(pdev, bar));
+}
+#endif
+
 #endif /* __KERNEL__ */
 #endif /* LINUX_PCI_H */

The config file will also need a little patching as follows due to changed alsa options:

--- config.old      2008-10-17 10:08:33.000000000 +0200
+++ config   2008-11-14 22:57:05.000000000 +0100
@@ -1442,10 +1442,12 @@
 # CONFIG_FONT_10x18 is not set
 # CONFIG_LOGO is not set
 CONFIG_SOUND=y
+CONFIG_SOUND_OSS_CORE=y
 CONFIG_SND=y
 CONFIG_SND_TIMER=y
 CONFIG_SND_PCM=y
 CONFIG_SND_HWDEP=y
+CONFIG_SND_JACK=y
 CONFIG_SND_SEQUENCER=y
 # CONFIG_SND_SEQ_DUMMY is not set
 CONFIG_SND_OSSEMUL=y
@@ -1453,6 +1455,7 @@
 CONFIG_SND_PCM_OSS=y
 CONFIG_SND_PCM_OSS_PLUGINS=y
 CONFIG_SND_SEQUENCER_OSS=y
+# CONFIG_SND_HRTIMER is not set
 # CONFIG_SND_DYNAMIC_MINORS is not set
 # CONFIG_SND_SUPPORT_OLD_API is not set
 # CONFIG_SND_VERBOSE_PROCFS is not set
@@ -1507,17 +1510,19 @@
 # CONFIG_SND_FM801 is not set
 CONFIG_SND_HDA_INTEL=y
 CONFIG_SND_HDA_HWDEP=y
+# CONFIG_SND_HDA_INPUT_BEEP is not set
 CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_REALTEK=y
 # CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_ANALOG is not set
 # CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_SIGMATEL is not set
 # CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_VIA is not set
 # CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_ATIHDMI is not set
+# CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_NVHDMI is not set
+# CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_INTELHDMI is not set
 # CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_CONEXANT is not set
 # CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_CMEDIA is not set
 # CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_SI3054 is not set
 # CONFIG_SND_HDA_GENERIC is not set
-CONFIG_SND_HDA_POWER_SAVE=y
-CONFIG_SND_HDA_POWER_SAVE_DEFAULT=5
+# CONFIG_SND_HDA_POWER_SAVE is not set
 # CONFIG_SND_HDSP is not set
 # CONFIG_SND_HDSPM is not set
 # CONFIG_SND_HIFIER is not set

Oh, of course I was compiling kernel 2.6.27.5 already. I had also unsuccessfully tried 2.6.28-rc4 last night. Probably I configured somehing wrong. Latest ALSA in current stable kernel, that's all I wanted though, so no need for rc's here anymore. Btw, I also compiled in the latest driver for the Option 3G modules (mainly their USB sticks, in Europe used e.g. by T-Mobile and marketed as their Web'n'Walk sticks). If anyone's interested in the PKGBUILD, drop me a line. Gothicknight, if you want I can mail you my patches and changes to your nice kernel. After all it's your work, I just did some cheap hacking. Thanks for that alot.

Last edited by Inkaine (2008-11-14 23:58:24)

gothicknight

Member

From: Portugal

Registered: 2006-04-08

Posts: 219

Re: Acer Aspire One

Hi to all.

What's the main differences between stock 2.6.27 ALSA and the patched version you have? If it is really needed we should add them into kernel26-one.

I will release a build still today. The Linux 2.6.27.6 intruduces some fixes for slow SD filesystem corruption (finally!) as for some fixes in the r8169 module, that I don't think will solve anything that wasn't already working

Inkaine

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2008-07-14

Posts: 88

Re: Acer Aspire One

The main difference in the latest alsa is as thomasd pointed out earlier the new "acer-aspire" model of the snd-hda-intel driver specifically for the AA1. Just check the links he posted earlier:

See here:
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/g … =HEAD#l847

EDIT: more info here:
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/g … 3861e83e4b

I'm running with that model supplied on the kernel line at the moment.

2.6.27.6? Arggg, that has slipped through my line of sight although I had checked the kernel website just a day ago. It's been on their server since Thursday but the first page had still listed 2.6.27.5 until yesterday. Stupid me tried everything against and "outdated" kernel version... The patches are relevant for 2.6.27.6 still though.

EDIT: Compiling failed for me though with an error when linking. Not sure if this warning earlier is related to that.

  MODPOST vmlinux.o
WARNING: modpost: Found 2 section mismatch(es).
To see full details build your kernel with:
'make CONFIG_DEBUG_SECTION_MISMATCH=y'
  GEN     .version
  CHK     include/linux/compile.h
dnsdomainname: Unknown host
  UPD     include/linux/compile.h
  CC      init/version.o
  LD      init/built-in.o
  LD      .tmp_vmlinux1
drivers/built-in.o: In function `rtl8169_gset_xmii':
r8169.c:(.text+0x7704a): undefined reference to `mii_ethtool_gset'
make: *** [.tmp_vmlinux1] Error 1
==> FEHLER: Build failed.                                                    
    Aborting ...

Last edited by Inkaine (2008-11-15 11:06:03)

gothicknight

Member

From: Portugal

Registered: 2006-04-08

Posts: 219

Re: Acer Aspire One

Yes I've got the same problem when trying to compile with kernel 2.6.27.6.

I didn't have much time to analyse the problem so for now 2.6.27.6 build is on hold

Inkaine

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2008-07-14

Posts: 88

Re: Acer Aspire One

I found a little time for it though It works with this patch described on the kernel mailing list: http://lkml.org/lkml/2008/11/15/22 Successfully compiled now and 2.6.27.6 working here.

2manydjs

Member

Registered: 2008-09-17

Posts: 8

Re: Acer Aspire One

Hi,

I want to make my first attempt at using/installing Arch. The wiki is very extended, but I still have three questions (for now ).
Does the package kernel26-one contain the latest kernel created by gothicknight (and friends?), or are newer versions mentioned in the forum?
The wiki mentions loading some modules, is this necessary with the kernel26-one as well?
Is this package available in a standard Arch (pacman?) software sources?

Thanks in advance for your replies!

EDIT and new question..
I have downloaded the tarball from a few pages back and tried to install with pacman -Uf (f because I got some errors on firmware parts existing in filesystem). However the process only took a few seconds and I don't feel anything changed.. Am I doing something wrong? Boot time to console login is about 40 seconds..

Last edited by 2manydjs (2008-11-15 20:49:29)

schuay

Package Maintainer (PM)

From: Austria

Registered: 2008-08-19

Posts: 564

Re: Acer Aspire One

... only took a few seconds and I don't feel anything changed.. Am I doing something wrong? Boot time to console login is about 40 seconds..

You need to edit your /boot/grub/menu.lst and add a new entry to point to the kernel26-one kernel (+ initrd?). It should be in your /boot dir. Either put that entry in first place, or select it at boot time to use gothicknights kernel.

I believe there is a repository for kernel26-one, but I'm not sure about the address - it should be somewhere in this thread or on the wiki. You need to add that to /etc/pacman.conf and refresh your pacman (pacman -Sy). Then you should be able to update/install as usual (pacman -S kernel26-one).

Last edited by schuay (2008-11-16 10:07:49)

Ecatonchiro

Member

From: Milan - IT (EU)

Registered: 2008-01-13

Posts: 15

Re: Acer Aspire One

Hello,
I'm trying to install Arch on my AA1 150,
at the moment I have only an external usb pen (256Mb) and for this reason I have to use the archlinux-2008.06-ftp-i686.img (140Mb).
Unfortunately I can't start the install process because the eth0 is not working properly ( with "lspci | grep Ethernet" I obtain RTL8101E).

There is a method to install from my unique "small" usb pen?

gothicknight

Member

From: Portugal

Registered: 2006-04-08

Posts: 219

Re: Acer Aspire One

There's no repository for kernel26-one. Yet I'm still to gather some time (and will) on the HOWTO setup a arch's repo.

I've been using my ISP FTP service to post the pkgs and the AUR with the PKGBUILD, so if you want to keep in touch with the latest package use yaourt (a AUR + pacman wrapper).

Ecatonchiro: You can always copy the core files into other pen ( you can ask for one ) or create another partition and use it as pacman's cache by mounting it in /var/cache/pacman/pkg/

The problem with lacking of eth0 support in arch's mainline kernel is really anoying :s
Hope it get's fixed real soon...

Zinfidel

Member

From: New Mexico

Registered: 2007-10-08

Posts: 11

Re: Acer Aspire One

I'm very much considering purchasing an AAO soon, and I've got a question or two that I hope someone can answer.

Q1: I've done a lot of research on the battery life of this netbook.  With HDD/SDD, idle vs. browsing vs. full load, Windows vs. (Linpus) Linux, etc.  Most reports tend to say about 1.9 hours for load, and 2.5 for regular use.  The model I want is the one with a 120GB HDD and 1GB of RAM (many sources claim the power consumption difference is not that noticeable).  I figured that wiping WinXP, installing a super-lean Arch installation, and configuring everything I need for effective power management (less HDD activity, no swap, etc.) will net me a much better battery life.  I was wondering what kind of experiences people had with this.

Q2: One of the key functions I want out of this netbook is 720p (h.264) video playback.  I've heard that the AAO does this just fine, but no concrete sources.  Again, with a super-lean OS and video player, how does this laptop handle the playback?  I would most likely be displaying this through the VGA port on a television, so the AAO would not have to scale the video, further reducing load.  Lastly, I've seen reports of effective overclocking of the Atom to 1.9 GHz, if that would help the situation.

Inkaine

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2008-07-14

Posts: 88

Re: Acer Aspire One

Q1: IMO the main downside of the AA1. Battery life is horrible for a netbook. I had hoped it to better than most reports but I've never got more than 2h40mins idle (casual surfing, chatting etc.). Watching a flash vid yesterday didn't even last 2h but more like 1h45 or 50. I don't think I have power consumption optimized (you seem to know sth., I'd be happy for any insight what I could do ^^). Still I wouldn't expect to much on this side.

Q2: Well, I don't have any h.264 to judge that. I however did play XVID and DivX vids of different resolutions up to regular dvd format, which worked fine even fullscreen. Playing a DVD from HDD was without flaws as well, even with firefox with several tabs and acrobat open. The aforementioned flash vid (I tried out MSN's new free movie service last night ) was unplayable in fullscreen though, regular size (about 600x480px I'd say) then played but was skipping frames from time to time still. You can make your judgements for H264 out of that maybe. Except for the flash vid, the fan didn't even run, ie. <60°C core temp.

Nevertheless I wonder why you'd want to use the AA1 for video playback though with that lousy sound. I by far prefer my desktop for it's surround sound capabilities there...

There's no repository for kernel26-one. Yet I'm still to gather some time (and will) on the HOWTO setup a arch's repo.

I just learnt how simple that is two days ago (don't remember how I came across that). On your local machine go to the dir with the package and then type "repo-add <name-of-repo>.db.tar.gz <name-of-pkg-to-add>.tar.gz". If you then transfer these two files to your ftp it should be a working repo. ;-)

Btw, the new AA1 specific sound driver is real nice. Alsa mixer is much more cleaned up. My personal, subjective feeling is that the internal microphone is much clearer as well.

sessy

Member

Registered: 2006-01-20

Posts: 104

Re: Acer Aspire One

I'm very much considering purchasing an AAO soon, and I've got a question or two that I hope someone can answer.

Q1: I've done a lot of research on the battery life of this netbook.  With HDD/SDD, idle vs. browsing vs. full load, Windows vs. (Linpus) Linux, etc.  Most reports tend to say about 1.9 hours for load, and 2.5 for regular use.  The model I want is the one with a 120GB HDD and 1GB of RAM (many sources claim the power consumption difference is not that noticeable).  I figured that wiping WinXP, installing a super-lean Arch installation, and configuring everything I need for effective power management (less HDD activity, no swap, etc.) will net me a much better battery life.  I was wondering what kind of experiences people had with this.

My battery applet never displayed more than 2 hours remaining, but I never measured it get an exact uptime. So 2.5h is good [I have the 120G hd model]. 9 cell battery is available BTW: http://www.amazon.com/Aspire-One-9-cell … B001K2L2RC and the latest model has 160G hd + 6 cell battery. This should have at least 3.5 hours uptime.

I have just did what you are planning: whiped winxp - it does work, no complications (you'll never get back your xp tho).

One thing to keep in mind: you must have swap to be able to use suspend to disk, and you really want that! (swap >= memory)

Zinfidel

Member

From: New Mexico

Registered: 2007-10-08

Posts: 11

Re: Acer Aspire One

Thanks for the responses so far guys!

I'm not surprised at the numbers for the battery life.  I really wonder what makes this particular netbook kill the 3-cell batteries so fast?  I'm looking at only getting the 3-cell as price is a major issue here.  I was hoping that the wildly fluctuating battery-life estimates of the various netbooks was a product of the energy-saving features of the OS, and that I'd be able to replicate that.

I am glad that the AA1 can play back DVD-quality video, it does give me hope that it will be able to play higher definition H.264 videos.  I'm not so worried if it stutters during flash-based playback, as almost all of the stuff I want will be in a container format like .avi or .mkv.  Having a netbook to hook up to my friend's TV so that we can watch our shows in HD would be VERY convenient; I'm still eager to hear about anyone attempting this.

Just out of curiosity: did anyone bother to do that battery trick where you charge it completely, then completely discharge it, then repeat?  I've heard you can eke out a few more minutes of time doing that... but I'm not sure as to whether that is a myth or not.  Also, the swap space for suspend, that is mostly a convenience for quicker boot-up times, right?  From past experience, swapping makes my computers grind to a halt...

Last edited by Zinfidel (2008-11-19 06:16:55)

sessy

Member

Registered: 2006-01-20

Posts: 104

Re: Acer Aspire One

I am glad that the AA1 can play back DVD-quality video, it does give me hope that it will be able to play higher definition H.264 videos.  I'm not so worried if it stutters during flash-based playback, as almost all of the stuff I want will be in a container format like .avi or .mkv.  Having a netbook to hook up to my friend's TV so that we can watch our shows in HD would be VERY convenient; I'm still eager to hear about anyone attempting this.

I can try that - full screen flash too,  when i get home - if you have a url to a HD file.

Just out of curiosity: did anyone bother to do that battery trick where you charge it completely, then completely discharge it, then repeat?  I've heard you can eke out a few more minutes of time doing that... but I'm not sure as to whether that is a myth or not.

AFAIK this will only help batteries in bad condition. Plus i wouldn't tinker for hours to get 5+ minutes

Also, the swap space for suspend, that is mostly a convenience for quicker boot-up times, right?  From past experience, swapping makes my computers grind to a halt...

Yes, it's about quicker bootup, which means less HD activity, longer battery life (all application will re-open instantly, etc.). Swapping won't be an issue with this machine (at least i have 99% free swap all the time with xfce/firefox/openoffice).  Maybe you can even swapoff the partition when not needed... not sure about this one.

Oh, btw you will need a swap partition instead of a swap file to be able to suspend.

Zinfidel

Member

From: New Mexico

Registered: 2007-10-08

Posts: 11

Re: Acer Aspire One

A direct link to a 720p H.264 quicktime file:

http://www.gametrailers.com/download/42 … 3_h264.mov

A link to the 720p flash video.  There is a button below the player that says "Download."  Click that, and it will provide multiple file types that you can download the video in.

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/42271.html

Unfortunately, these files are 100-something megabytes each...

sessy

Member

Registered: 2006-01-20

Posts: 104

Re: Acer Aspire One

I have downloaded this HD .mov trailer and it played in full scree without any (sound or picture) problem in mplayer:
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/42977.html
http://www.gametrailers.com/download/42 … t_h264.mov

sessy

Member

Registered: 2006-01-20

Posts: 104

Re: Acer Aspire One

The flash version (.flv, in browser) is a bit slow, not as good as the downloaded mov.

2manydjs

Member

Registered: 2008-09-17

Posts: 8

Re: Acer Aspire One

Thanks for the replies!

On the battery life: I've never managed to get power usage below 8 watt with wifi connected. This gives me about 2+ hours. Unfortunately I noticed that XP did a better job: 3 hours with constant wifi networking (webcam with automated reload script).. The default Linpus lite gives me almost the same, so I'm hopeful for improvements.

gothicknight

Member

From: Portugal

Registered: 2006-04-08

Posts: 219

Re: Acer Aspire One

And here comes the new kernel 2.6.27.7: http://clientes.netvisao.pt/gtknight/ke … pkg.tar.gz
There weren't any new features, just an upstream bugfix build. Enjoy

Update: AUR will be updated tomorrow, as I'm not in the development laptop.

Last edited by gothicknight (2008-11-24 22:15:02)

phabulosa

Member

From: Mountain View, CA

Registered: 2007-10-17

Posts: 182

Website

Re: Acer Aspire One

And here comes the new kernel 2.6.27.7: http://clientes.netvisao.pt/gtknight/ke … pkg.tar.gz
There weren't any new features, just an upstream bugfix build. Enjoy

Update: AUR will be updated tomorrow, as I'm not in the development laptop.

Could you please prepare two kernel configs for either an SSD based AAO or HD based AAO?
Then, it will be even batter if you add a script in the PKGBUILD, we can select config for what we have.

I am just a lazy person and I don't like to manually change the config every time for the upgrade.

Also, it doesn't make too much sense to create another AUR for kernel26-one.

Many thanks.

gothicknight

Member

From: Portugal

Registered: 2006-04-08

Posts: 219

Re: Acer Aspire One

In AUR, there was someone stating that kernel-one works on both SSD and HDD versions of the AA1. Also it can't be much of a hassle to include the SATA/IDE drivers for the HDD version, everything else should be much the same.

despairblue

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2008-01-14

Posts: 19

Re: Acer Aspire One

I said that and at least 2.6.27-3 does work for my AAO. Haven't tried the newest one though.

Ecatonchiro

Member

From: Milan - IT (EU)

Registered: 2008-01-13

Posts: 15

Re: Acer Aspire One

forget about it...
I made a mistake posting here

Last edited by Ecatonchiro (2008-11-27 00:01:21)

Zom

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2007-10-27

Posts: 430

Re: Acer Aspire One

Sorry, but is the latest release just a bug-fix, or is it patched with the alsa drivers?