Linux on Acer 1410, 1810TZ and 1810T

I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but will the AMD64 version of Ubuntu 10.10 work on the 1410? I know my netbook came with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, but the AMD64 was the only available one to download. I did some researching and it appears that it will work, but my question is how well does it work on these netbooks? Before I put a lot of stuff back on here, should I stick with this 64-bit version or go with the 32-bit one?

Thanks.

 

It works very well. Just know that a 64-bit OS takes some more RAM, but on Linux 2GB will be plenty.

Some people have trouble with Flash, since Adobe has not released a final 64-bit version yet. I've been using the 64-bit prerelease for a few months without problems, and from personal experience it works better than the 32-bit version that is installed by default through Ubuntu repositories.

BTW I don't know why you say the AMD64 version is the only available one. You can choose either (32 or 64 bit) on Ubuntu.com download page.

 

I only stated that as I was only looking at installing a 64-bit version, which is why I said AMD64 (as it's the only available 64-bit version of Ubuntu. I did end up installing 10.04 instead of 10.10, as I've had great luck with that version before (on a desktop computer).

 

There is no "Intel 64". It's called AMD64 because AMD created the specification, and other manufacturers, including Intel, adopted it.

Details on Wikipedia:
x86-64 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Wanted to quickly state that your install script worked flawlessly for me. Thank you for putting that together.

There was a mention I believe after installing the script that the computer may run a bit warmer now that the fan doesn't run as often. How much warmer are we talking about here? Does the fan ever kick on? I ask that last question because I don't think I've heard it come on with my 1410-2920 once since running the script.

Thanks again.

 

I have to provide an update, in that my computer is running hot as hell with or without running this script. I'm running Ubuntu 10.04 amd64, and I don't understand why it's running so damn hot. Would I be better off running 10.10 amd64 or go with a 32-bit version of one of those? Not sure what BIOS version I have, but I can easily find that out if needed.

Thoughts?

 

Make sure CPU scaling is set to Ondemand (you can add CPU Frequency Scaling Monitor applet to your panel) and have a look at Gnome System Manager -- maybe some process is using a lot of CPU.

On Ubuntu my 1410 seems to run a bit hotter, but that may be because I undervolt it on Windows with RMClock. I also did a hardware Voltmod to lower the voltage of SU3500 CPU so that might be lowering the temps a bit.

 

What program would you suggest for scaling the CPU frequency? I just tried adding the Frequency Scaling Monitor applet to my panel, and it immediately told me the following:

You will not be able to modify the frequency of your machine. Your machine may be misconfigured or not have hardware support for CPU frequency scaling.

Any suggestions?

I ended up wiping my computer and installing 10.10 64-bit to see if that would help, and it's still running warm/hot.

 

I am not sure if Celeron Processors are able to switch the core frequency...

Michael

 

I got an Acer 1810TZ, running with Ubuntu 10.10.

I would like to use it also stationary with my FullHD-TV.
When i connect the 1810tz with HDMI to my TV the TV tells my that there is no signal for the 1920x1080 resolution.
While using a smaller resolution the TV display shows also a litte bit of the "laptop-part" and no full screen.
The same happens when i connect the 1810tz with VGA to a 24" Dell screen - the laptop knows the resolution but cant use the full display to show one screen.

Any suggestions?

 

I had somewhat similar problems with HDMI and FullHD and it was due to poor quality HDMI cable that could not support 1080p resolution. All I needed was a new cable.

Maybe you aren't configuring the external display correctly?

I have 1410 with SU3500 running Ubuntu 10.04 and I can connect it to TV/LCD at 1080p via HDMI or VGA without a problem. It works both with internal screen on and off.

It could also be a specific incompatibility with your TV, 1810tz and Ubuntu drivers, but I doubt.

 

the problem does also apply while connecting with a vga-cable.
the the tv shows 1920x1080 with vga - but not correctly. while connecting with the hdmi-cable the tv only shows "no signal".
strange. i will try another hdmi-cable.
when the tv is connected to the laptop and powered on and i try to boot the laptop the tv changes its resolution two or three times. after that the laptop stops booting.
furthermore the problem does not only apply on my tv - i tried several monitors in the office with vga - all the same...

 

I just finished reading all 27 pages of this thread, looking to see whether Patrick's 10.04 power saving script at the very beginning will also work in 10.10. I have an 1810TZ with the latest firmware update (3314) and am running UNE on it (2.6.35 kernel). The difference in battery life between it and Win 7 is quite noticeable, and I would like to close the gap. I already have the Acer script installed and am not having fan or heat issues. So is it safe to run the Lucid script on Maverick?

One related question - I put an SSD in my 1810 (60 gb OCZ Vertex). Should I modify the /etc/fstab script by adding the noatime parameter, and should I change the default swappiness parameter?

 

I'm using Lubuntu and getting great battery life. I'm very happy with it.

 

Are you using Patrick's Lucid script? If not, what does Lubuntu use for its power management?

 

I used the script when I had UNR 9.10 it seemed to help a little. I think it might have given me about 20 more minutes of runtime from my battery. I can't comment on how well it works on the newer Ubuntu releases.

But I'm seeing much better battery life with Lubuntu. I seems to use about 2 watts less than the best I could get from Ubuntu. It's really lightweight, uses a LXDE desktop and low-resource apps. I can actually get 8 hours out of my 8 hour battery with light use and theoretically exceed 8 hours with wifi off (I've never actually used it for 8 hours straight.)

I suspect that if you were to load it up with a bunch of high-resource apps, battery life would drop, but it suited my needs with very little tweaking. It's worth a look IMO. I would also check out Peppermint. I found it slightly more polished than Lubuntu, but battery life wasn't much better than Ubuntu. One thing to note about Lbuntu is that it's only available in 32-bits right now. It's still new and I believe that 64-bit is in the works.

 

Actually, I have Peppermint (Ice) on the same netbook as Ubuntu, and if anything, it's worse. Since Peppermint uses LXDE, it can't be that which is saving battery power. I wish I knew what it is. I also run CrunchBang (a light, Debian-based distro). Both Peppermint and CrunchBang are very fast, but that doesn't seem to play into battery life.

 

Yeah, that's about what I experienced with Peppermint (One). I still liked it, but then I tried Lubuntu. It fits my needs perfectly.

One thing I should point out is that there were a few minor tweaks needed. For example, after a few months of use, I realized that I couldn't get to my network drives (something I rarely need). There was a command to address this in the wiki, but I missed it, because there was different documentation in different places. They have been working hard to clean all of that up, so it should be easier to find now.

Give Lubuntu a try. I'd be interested to hear your results. They were dramatic on my system.

 

I'm having an issue with the trackpad not working on my Acer Aspire 1410 after upgrading from 10.10 to 11.04. It works just fine in the login screen, but afterward it stops working. I cannot do the Fn+F7 combination to enable or disable, so I'm wondering if 11.04 is not compatible with this version. It doesn't work under the normal "Ubuntu" or "Ubuntu Classic" login options.

Anyone else experience this issue?

 

I've just noticed my touchpad doesn't work... I'll look into it. I've had it working using 11.04, but I did a reinstall some days ago.

 

I had a similar problem on my 3820TG. The exact behaviour described by you. Here is how I fixed it. In Terminal:

Code:

gconftool-2 --set /desktop/gnome/peripherals/touchpad/touchpad_enabled --type=bool true

It should work instantly!

If that doesn't work, see more solutions and this

 

I wiped my netbook and installed Lubuntu 11.04. Not sure if I'm going to keep this, but others have suggested giving that a try (especially for a netbook). I've only played with it for about an hour, and it seems to do the job but still not sure if it's a keeper. I've been using Ubuntu for several years now, and sadly I think they're getting to big for themselves and not being able to fully customize YOUR desktop experience is a problem to me.

Any other good Linux distros worth trying?

 

I found Ubuntu 11.04 like a breeze of fresh air. I just love it. Unity is simply amazing and I cannot wait until they release a configuration tool for it. This is just first revision, so it will get only better and better .

As for other distros, I really don't know what to suggest. I am very happy with Ubuntu and see no reason to move anywhere else. I played with other distros a while back, but nothing worked for me quite like Ubuntu did.

 

I've been using Lubuntu and love it. It's snappy and gets great battery life. I'll have to give Ubuntu 11.04 a spin, but I'm not planning to switch unless it blows me away and manages power better than previous versions.

 

So I ditched Lubuntu, as it was slow on my netbook. Not sure how others say it's quick, because there was lag in just about everything I tried doing with it (even simple clicking between menus of apps). I then tried several other distros, since it's been a while for me as I've always used Ubuntu. Fedora throws these kernels at me with their gnome, kde and lxde versions, so I ditched that idea. Tried Linux Mint and wasn't impressed. Tried Kubuntu to see how I'd like the whole KDE experience, and although it's nice to look at it seemed to slow my system down.

Last night I installed Ubuntu 11.04 (obviously a clean install this time), and although I'm not a fan (yet) of Unity I'm going to give it a fair try. I did that terminal command to enable the touchpad (thanks prikolchik), and it works but you don't see the graphical response in the upper right-hand corner like when you change the volume. I'll take a look at those other possible solutions, but hopefully this works out in the long run.

With Ubuntu 11.04 on this netbook, how is the battery life so far? Does that power-saving ZIP file work in this version? And will the first post get updated with what's working and what's not working?

Thanks.

 

Try Xubuntu. It uses Xfce desktop environment that uses very little resources. I used to run it on my Acer Aspire One (one of the first Atom netbooks) and it was running like a champ! MUCH faster Ubuntu or any other distro I've tried on that netbook.

The only downside is that the desktop environment feels kind of crippled compared to GNOME and Unity, but you gain a lot in speed.

I am glad it worked! I think indicators are now reported in a different manner and you might have to configure it. I haven't had the time (school+work) to try Ubuntu 11.04 yet, so I can't comment any further.

I haven't used 11.04, so I cannot comment on battery life. Power saving script should still work as it is pretty generic. I don't know whether first post will be updated, but I would be more inclined to say No

 

I've found the Linux distro for my netbook... Xubuntu 11.04. This thing is a freakin' beast that offers the MOST customization you can dream of (out of the box). Why in the hell didn't I try this before? The touchpad works without any necessary tweaking, it's fast, and I'll provide feedback later regarding the battery. Great, great distro.

 

One thing still bothers me, though: Most of the time, the fan is really quiet after installing the script; but when the temperature exceeds 60C, or thereabouts, it goes directly into lift-off mode and is really quite annoying. Is there a way to set a temperature that would turn up the fan just to mid-fast?

 

Just thought I would say I'm back to Ubuntu 10.04 64-bit after trying MANY different distros. This one was great for me, always has, and after trying out several different ones I have learned this is truly the best one for me (umm, my netbook I mean... LOL).

 

Hi dustrho,

I'm running 10.04.2 LTS 64-bit as well. What I'm not happy with is the battery life, I get no more than 3 hours. I was getting 4 with UNR Karmic. How about you?

 

Another distro definitely worth trying is Bodhi Linux. This is built on a Ubuntu 10.04 base, but with an updated kernel and updated applications, and it uses the Enlightment window manager. Enlightenment is very attractive and highly customizable, and Bodhi is light and really fast. It is also good on battery life; same as Ubuntu 10.10 or 11.04. You can use the script on it.

You can install it on a usb stick and run it live to try it. Forums are active and friendly. Check it out here.

 

I've never gotten more than 3 hours of battery life with ANY linux distro or even Windows 7 installed on my netbook. I thought the whole purpose of a netbook was to get an assload of battery life. Less than 3 hours has been a major disappointment with this netbook, but everything else about it has been wonderful.

I keep trying Ubuntu 11.04 64-bit because I always want the latest & greatest, but I am having a hard time trying to enjoy the whole Unity experience. I'm running it right now, but thinking about going back (again) to 10.04.

 

There must be something wrong with your ISO or the install. Did you check the MD5 on the download? That in not typical for Lubuntu. If all is well, it should be just the opposite. If it was that bad, Ubuntu wouldn't have given Lubuntu official status for the 11.10 release.

Also, there is an unofficial 64-bit version out there it that's your style. I've been using if for a few weeks now and it's working great.

 

I was getting more than 4 hours with Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.10, and a good half hour more with pre-installed Vista when I purchased it back in November 2010.

Funny, I just installed 11.04 64-bit over the rainy weekend. I'm not keen on docks in general but I'll give it a try. What annoys me is that they shipped something so unpolished. From right after install, I can't get the app-indicators (which replaced the notification applets on the top panel) to show their menus when I click on them, most of the time. I have to click on one beside it, and then the other one, go back, multiple times, before one decides to drop its $%?&* menu. It's a known bug, but it is unacceptable to have shipped a desktop OS with such a show stopper.

 

I have Xubuntu 11.04 installed on my 1410. Downloaded VLC media player.

Question: How to I make the HDMI output video? I plug the cable in, yet I get "no signal" on my lcd. How do I make Xubuntu output the video from my Aspire screen to the TV?

 

Has anyone installed Ubuntu 11.10 on their unit? At first I thought the battery life dropped drastically, but then I realized that I hadn't installed any of the energy saving scripts, that bluetooth was on by default, and the display brightness default was pretty high. When I manually turned off bluetooth and dimmed the display, I was again getting over 6 hours. There are some data by Phoronix that show significant battery life regression in the newer kernels (especially 3.0 and above), but this doesn't affect all hardware and I don't think it affects my 1810TZ. Anyone else have any experience with this?

 

I’m running Linux Mint 10 x64 (based on Ubuntu 10.10, but kernel 3.0.7) on an 1810TZ (4 GB RAM, 500 GB HD) and using this thread’s script I get a best case of over 11 hours of battery life (no b/t, no wifi, brightness as low as possible), at around 5.0 watts power consumption.

 

Hi yall,

I am facing the following problem:

HTML:

	It seems you have laptop-mode-tools installed, you should uninstall it
	since some of it features could make the script not to work properly
	Uninstall it now? (Y or N)	
y
Paketlisten werden gelesen... Fertig
Abhängigkeitsbaum wird aufgebaut       
Statusinformationen werden eingelesen... Fertig
Paket laptop-mode-tools ist nicht installiert, wird also auch nicht entfernt.
0 aktualisiert, 0 neu installiert, 0 zu entfernen und 0 nicht aktualisiert.
./InstallAcer_11.6_PowerSaving.sh: Zeile 395: aptitude: Kommando nicht gefunden.

	Laptop Mode Tools couldn'be uninstalled

FATAL: Error inserting acerhdf (/lib/modules/3.5.0-34-generic/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/acerhdf.ko): No such device
	 - The Power Saving and the check script are now INSTALLED
	Power Saving features will enable automatically when running
	of Battery power and disable when running of AC
	You can debug if everything is setup ok by running
	CheckPowerSaving in a terminal. Its output will show which
	values are applied to each entry, plus the expected value.

	 - The acerhdf fan control module is now INSTALLED
	It will load automatically on boot and start running
	when needed. The computer may feel a bit hotter than
	without the module, but it will be quieter.

And dmesg

HTML:

 dmesg | grep acerhdf
[   18.308886] acerhdf: Acer Aspire One Fan driver, v.0.5.23
[   18.308905] acerhdf: unknown (unsupported) BIOS version Acer/Aspire1810TZ   /v1.3314, please report, aborting!
 

any ideas?

 

Not sure, but since the appropriate acerhdf module is included in recent kernels (certainly including 3.5.0) you may be provoking problems by installing an extra copy via the (now moderately ancient) power saving script.

 

Hi! I didn't thought that I would see this thread resurrect, but here it is! So thanks for that

Unfortunately, it's of not much help, since it is pretty outdated. I'm now using another machine (XPS 14) and don't have my 1810TZ with me (it will be back in a week), but I recomment using TLP for the powersaving dutties. It's nice, works well and is easly configurable, so have a look at its website. Should you need help configuring it or have any doubts on what to put on the configuration file, just let me know (posting on this thread) and I'll try to help.

Patrick

 

Hi Patrick, I was wondering if I could change something in your powersaving script to influence at what temperature threshold the fan will accelerate?