Arch on Acer Aspire 1410

bladesonfire · 2009-09-26 18:10:23

Just received my Acer Aspire 1410 and ready to put Arch on it. I'm starting this thread and I'll be creating a wiki page to share our experiences and hopefully, all who put Arch on their Acer Aspire 1410 will be able to enjoy their laptop. If anyone has any thoughts, please share. Thanks!

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Acer_Aspire_1410

bladesonfire · 2009-09-27 21:48:31

I get a lot of hard drive problems post-installation. Before installing, make sure to change SATA mode from AHCI to IDE. This will get rid of the error messages as well as speed up the time of boot. Does anyone know why this happening?

sty · 2009-11-03 01:17:26

I do not know if it is the same for you but when I boot I receive the following message: waiting 10 seconds for device... I have changed the SATA mode in the Bios.

Sorry for the english.. it is not my language )

mathetes · 2009-11-10 17:21:55

Hi, i have chakra installed wich is an arch+kdemod livecd. For the hard drive problem i solved it by adding libata.force=noncq in the menu.lst in grub at the end of the "kernel" line. Now everything is working as expected but my battery lasts much less than windows 7 does, i get around 3 hours or so while windows claims around 5! I read somewhere you can check how much power your system is consuming, a guy checked this comparing ubuntu and windows and found that linux uses much more power. Is it a kernel problem? Who manages the power consumption apart from the screen brightness? Can the fan be part of the problem?

I see that in the wiki you say that ethernet is not working but mine is working ok out-of-the-box, how can i help with information? What file would be usefull?
My sound plugs are also working. The internal mic however stopped working because of a mistake i made, but was working ok without any tweaking.

Last edited by mathetes (2009-11-10 17:28:12)

sty · 2009-11-12 02:02:03

Thanks mathetes. I have try your solution and it works. So now, I have a working plymouth splash screen with Chakra.:)

I confirm that my ethernet is also working out-of-the box.

I did not notice the battery problem. I should try it in windows.

EmaRsk · 2009-11-26 10:07:46

Hi, I have a 1810tz, but from the infos I gathered on the net, the hardware should be the same except for the cpu.
You wrote that the touchpad works with a modified xorg.conf, could you please share it? Did you manage to get muti touch working? Mine works fine, but with side scrolling and no multi touch.
As for the ethernet, I tried a debian testing netinstall image, but internet wasn't working, so I used a sidux (that is a debian unstable) and ethernet was working fine, so it's probably just a matter of having a recent enough kernel with the right module (atl1c).

drewofdoom · 2009-12-12 02:21:46

Some quick notes regarding the 1410: Please add your full model number to the wiki to avoid confusion. I will be posting information about the Acer Aspire 1410-2285 in the wiki soon, and would like to differentiate it from yours. Most of the information is the same, but the wireless card is not. In fact, it is not currently possible to use wireless or ethernet on the 2285 without upgrading the kernel (through usb drive or similar) after installation from core image. But I digress. I'll clean up the whole wiki and expand on it when I have some free time next week.

infinitasx · 2009-12-27 16:23:09

Just installed arch on my acer aspire 1410-8804 today using the 2009.08 net install img off a sd card. Everything except the mic worked out of the box, wifi needed the iwl5000-ucode which was included in the install. To fix the mic, download and compile and install the latest alsa-driver with the following option:

--with-cards=hda-intel

I only seem to have one problem now, my wifi will kick out randomly and i either have to turn it on/off to get it back up, or relog if that doesnt work. Anyone else have this problem?

Aedit · 2009-12-27 21:19:42

bladesonfire wrote:

I get a lot of hard drive problems post-installation. Before installing, make sure to change SATA mode from AHCI to IDE. This will get rid of the error messages as well as speed up the time of boot. Does anyone know why this happening?

Could you post the error messages please?

infinitasx · 2010-01-04 20:18:52

Added a short tutorial on how to get the mic working on the wiki page.

Aedit · 2010-01-04 22:25:47

infinitasx wrote:

Added a short tutorial on how to get the mic working on the wiki page.

What is the sound card chip name (it is shown in alsamixer) ?

infinitasx · 2010-01-05 00:19:11

Intel G45 DEVCTG

L0cutus · 2010-02-10 16:05:53

anyone have tested this model: Acer ASPIRE 1410-742G25N [LX.PJX02.020] ?
expecially for wifi and ethernet chipset...

thanks.

ddaedalus · 2010-02-19 01:52:14

I have a Aspire 1410. The wiki page says a modified xorg.conf is necessary for the touchpad to work. Anyone has a reference since my touchpad doesn't work.

Edit: Ok got it working. First install xf86-input-synaptics and second look through these threads: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=77400 http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=77190. Im going to update the Aspire 1410 Wiki as well.
Looks like arch has set foot an yet another machine of mine.

Last edited by ddaedalus (2010-02-19 10:45:40)

Onyros · 2010-03-02 20:59:51

Hi there, guys. Just got mine today - end of life bargain - and had a tough time through installation, mainly because I couldn't get WiFi to work, and ethernet wasn't working. I know it's been suggested that iwlwifi-5000-ucode is the wireless driver, but it must not be so in all models. Mine required iwlwifi-1000-ucode (I stupidly didn't bother to lspci the thing and blindly went with what was in the Wiki). So it goes for future reference for anyone that's trying to install and has the same version I have - Acer 1410-233g16n.

What ethernet driver is your 1410 using? lspci doesn't even report an ethernet card. Not that I'd use it much, but when I'm home and there's a cable near, it would be good to use the Gigabit ethernet.

bladesonfire · 2010-03-03 04:57:26

Onyros wrote:

What ethernet driver is your 1410 using? lspci doesn't even report an ethernet card. Not that I'd use it much, but when I'm home and there's a cable near, it would be good to use the Gigabit ethernet.

I had a problem with ethernet as well, but I think a recent update has fixed the issue. Make sure atl1c shows up when you run lsmod.

Aedit wrote:

bladesonfire wrote:
I get a lot of hard drive problems post-installation. Before installing, make sure to change SATA mode from AHCI to IDE. This will get rid of the error messages as well as speed up the time of boot. Does anyone know why this happening?
Could you post the error messages please?

Sorry, I don't have the error messages to post. I recently had my laptop returned to me from Acer after they replaced the motherboard and hard drive, and I no longer get any error messages when in SATA mode.

drewofdoom wrote:

Some quick notes regarding the 1410: Please add your full model number to the wiki to avoid confusion.

It's a wiki, so please feel free to edit as you please. Other than that, I think it'll be easier to keep all the information in one place. I've updated the wiki to hopefully be easier to show multiple configurations.

infinitasx wrote:

Added a short tutorial on how to get the mic working on the wiki page.

Thanks for posting this! I just removed the entry as latest updates for alsa is 1.0.22, which is what you were compiling. Tested the internal mic and it works.

I have made other updates to the Wiki, including two posts: one that lists specifications for the different models, the other which has tips and tricks, so hopefully people find it useful.

Onyros · 2010-03-04 17:20:23

Thanks for the reply, blades. I dunno when or how it happened but the ethernet is now working. Good to know it's not defective, but that's it: it won't see much use anyway.

I had noticed you had updated the Wiki page, as I was going to update it myself with the info regarding the wireless driver. Just a couple o'quickies: how much battery time have you managed to squeeze out of the 1410 and what is your glxgears result? I know it's not supposed to be a benchmark, just wanted to make sure it's running as it should.

Other than that, I've also noticed my fan working pretty much most of the time. It's not going at full rpm (not the lowest speed either), but it's audible, same thing happening there? Is there any Acer specific ACPI module one should load?

I'm pretty satisfied with it, even though battery life could be a little better: I got 4 hours and 13 minutes while browsing, watching a 50 minute episode (Dexter), and listening to some music. Not bad, but nothing stellar, too. Performance is pretty surprising, though.

byzkarl · 2010-03-05 21:59:48

On the fan, you need to use build a special module, which the ubuntu users have figured out. Check out this guide http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=8409272, and look for the acerhdf part.

I run it on both Arch Linux and Slackware, and it works fine.

Onyros · 2010-03-07 00:30:48

byzkarl wrote:

On the fan, you need to use build a special module, which the ubuntu users have figured out. Check out this guide http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=8409272, and look for the acerhdf part.
I run it on both Arch Linux and Slackware, and it works fine.

Thank you, very much! It did the trick. I was wondering about that one. Incredible how I didn't remember looking there

BTW, there's an entry at the AUR for that very module which you will still have to patch for your BIOS version if it is different from 0.3120

Thanks again

Last edited by Onyros (2010-03-07 00:55:49)

bladesonfire · 2010-03-08 06:03:08

Thanks for both for info about the fan issue. Wiki updated. I installed it and I actually don't notice a difference, but I never really paid attention anyway.

As for battery life, I haven't timed it, but it's been my experience that running Linux will always get lower battery life than when running Windows for the same hardware. That Ubuntu link byzkarl provided may have some tips to get an extra 30 minutes or so of life.

I love Dexter. Season 4 was amazing

Onyros · 2010-03-10 05:45:12

I noticed a world of difference regarding the fan. I hardly hear it now and when it eventually does come on, it does so full tilt and then just goes back to total silence in a few seconds. Make sure you patch it for your BIOS and insert it in your rc.conf (modules). As soon as I modprobed the acerhdf module the fan became totally silent. I suppose once you recompile your kernel after inserting the acerhdf.conf file into /etc/modprobe.d the kernel will autoload it without it needing to be in the rc.conf

The lowest I've managed to drop power consumption to was 10 watts (per powertop) with WiFi on and screen brightness at its lowest - which is still usable, though my comfort zone resides between 30 to 40% (I can't stand brighter than that, I'm a night creature). I've read somewhere people stating that they'd been able to drop it to 9 watts, whereas Windows 7 registered 7 watts.

... and Dexter IS amazing. What a season finale!

byzkarl · 2010-03-11 00:16:19

Can anyone confirm the microphone working? Either internal or external would be fine for me. I tried installing the latest alsa drivers, but see no evidence that the microphone works, as both Audacity and Flash can't use it.

ddaedalus · 2010-03-11 10:29:59

Onyros wrote:

The lowest I've managed to drop power consumption to was 10 watts (per powertop) with WiFi on and screen brightness at its lowest - which is still usable, though my comfort zone resides between 30 to 40% (I can't stand brighter than that, I'm a night creature). I've read somewhere people stating that they'd been able to drop it to 9 watts, whereas Windows 7 registered 7 watts.

Install and run powertop. Kill all processes which wake the machine up often (Like Firefox, or even the wmii status bar) (0~1 Watt). Follow the hints in powertop (Enable USB auto suspend and ALPM) (1~2 Watt). Associate your wlan, don't leave it hanging (1 Watt). Enable laptop mode (echo 6000 > /proc/sys/vm/laptop_mode) and spin your harddrive down (hdparm -Y /dev/sda) (1 Watt). Got it down to ~8 Watt and 5.6 hours of battery.
And read _everything_ on lesswatts.org.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-09-26 18:10:23

Arch on Acer Aspire 1410

#2 2009-09-27 21:48:31

Re: Arch on Acer Aspire 1410

#3 2009-11-03 01:17:26

Re: Arch on Acer Aspire 1410

#4 2009-11-10 17:21:55

Re: Arch on Acer Aspire 1410

#5 2009-11-12 02:02:03

Re: Arch on Acer Aspire 1410

#6 2009-11-26 10:07:46

Re: Arch on Acer Aspire 1410

#7 2009-12-12 02:21:46

Re: Arch on Acer Aspire 1410

#8 2009-12-27 16:23:09

Re: Arch on Acer Aspire 1410

#9 2009-12-27 21:19:42

Re: Arch on Acer Aspire 1410

#10 2010-01-04 20:18:52

Re: Arch on Acer Aspire 1410

#11 2010-01-04 22:25:47

Re: Arch on Acer Aspire 1410

#12 2010-01-05 00:19:11

Re: Arch on Acer Aspire 1410

#13 2010-02-10 16:05:53

Re: Arch on Acer Aspire 1410

#14 2010-02-19 01:52:14

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#15 2010-03-02 20:59:51

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#16 2010-03-03 04:57:26

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#17 2010-03-04 17:20:23

Re: Arch on Acer Aspire 1410

#18 2010-03-05 21:59:48

Re: Arch on Acer Aspire 1410

#19 2010-03-07 00:30:48

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#20 2010-03-08 06:03:08

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