Acer 8204WLMI and Linux

I am looking for a high end laptop that is Linux friendly and really like the look of the 8200 series.

I have no experience with Acer laptops and wonder if they are a Linux friendly company and if the 8200 works well. I am especially interested in ACPI and power saving/hibernation, wifi, the card reader and camera.
ZB

 

Well, I'll tell you what, Zaphod. I'm going to try to install a Debian distro sometime in the next couple of days. I'm guessing it's going to be challenging. I'll let you know how it goes.

- Ed

 

Last I heard non of the distros completely supported acpi- esp. the hibernation aspect of it. Give the latest kanotix live cd a try. Also see this page:
http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/acer.html

 

I tried installing Libranet 3.0 last night - not too encouraging (2.4 kernel). Didn't recognize the graphics card, and I get alternating kernel panics and hangs (when setting the clock) during boot.

Guess I need a newer distro.

- Ed

 

I did get Libranet partly working by feeding the kernel the noacpi, acpi=none and nopnp switches, first on booting, then semi-permanently in grub's menu.lst file.

I was not able to get either the wired or wireless network connections working. I also downloaded and installed ATI's proprietary driver, but it didn't work - got a message to the effect that the chip wasn't recognized, so their linux driver may not yet support the X1600. So it's VESA mode for now.

At this point, I'll just keep tracking the various Linux notebook newsgroups to see what progress others make.

ps Libranet is 2.6.11, not 2.4 as I posted above.

- Ed

 

Hi,

any progress? I'm going to buy 8204 in few days and I just wonder how friendly 8204 is to Linux. I'm using gentoo distro for last few years with Acer 1500 and except of the card reader all works ok (except partial support of ACPI)

BTW ATI drivers don't support X1000 cards so vesa is the only choice for now.

 

I'm not at all big on Linux myself, but do know that Acer Thailand sell plenty of notebooks pre-installed with Linux rather than Windows.

While the 8204 isn't available with Linux, some of the other new core duo/ATI X1xx models certainly are - I'd have to imagine the drivers for them would do the trick?

Here's a couple that should come with drivers that suit the 8204:

http://www.acer.co.th/product/travelmate/3240_/index.htm

http://www.acer.co.th/product/travelmate/3280_/index.htm

As you can see, they're using the Linpus Linux BE distro.

The Acer Thailand driver download page for these models is here, but they all look to be Windows drivers to me! Maybe if you hunt around enough you can find the drivers that ship with the 3240/3280..

 

paracka,

I gave up on Libranet after messing up an upgrade to kernel 2.6.15. But yesterday I downloaded and installed SimplyMepis from http://www.mepis.org/node/1462

It loaded right up and recognized the wired LAN connection, but not the wireless (so far). Haven't got the X-Server working with the X1600 so far, but this seems like a good platform for sorting out the issues.

 

Hi,

I think that wireless should be no problem. There is 3945ABG which is supported maybe that is just problem of distro you used (try Knopix livecd which is known for good hardware recognition). I would be more concern about ACPI, camera and bluetooth module.

regards
Jan