This is the report of my experience of trying to install Kubuntu 6.06 LTS (both i386 and x86-64) on my very own Acer Aspire 1524 laptop.
Here is a small roundup of the hardware support and below I give a more in depth comment about the problems I encountered:
Type of HardwareMake and modelState/comment
ProcessorAMD Athlon 64 3400+i386 ok.
x86_64 ok with annoyances. See below
RAM512MBOk.
Video cardNVidia GeForce FX Go 5700 64MB (dedicated)Ok with proprietary drivers
Screen15.4'' WXGA wide TFT LCD, 1280x800Ok with annoyances. See below.
Sound card VIA AC'97 Enhanced Audio ControlOk with annoyances. See below.
HDD80 GBOk.
Optical driveTSSTcorp CD/DVDW TS-L532AOk.
Wireless cardINPROCOMM IPN2220Lacks linux support. Works with ndiswrapper.
ModemAgere Systems AC'97Not tested.
Ethernet cardRealtek 10/100/1000 RTL-8196Ok.
FirewireTexas Instrument PCI7x20 1394a-2000Not tested.
TouchpadSynapticOk with annoyances. See below.
BluetoothNot tested.
Card readerPCMCIA cardNot tested.
I've installed Kubuntu 6.06 after running Kubuntu 5.10 and 5.04 and I have to say that so far this is the cleanest, less problematic Kubuntu install I had the pleasure of running. The Kubuntu folks really did a great job in this release. Kudos!
About the hardware support, there are quite a few problems with this install. To make matters worse, I have sent quite a few emails to Acer about linux support and they never had the courtesy to send me a single reply. So just because of that little detail I would suggest anyone who is thinking about buying an Acer computer to run linux to look elsewhere. They do build cheap laptop computers but their support is really appaling, bordering the ridiculous. To make matters worse, it isn't limited to linux issues.
So the absolutely major problem with this computer and kubuntu is it's severe overheating problem. As far as I can tell there is a bit of a problem with the ACPI support, which leads to quite some emergency shutdowns when doing somewhat intensive tasks like gaming, burning a DVD and even watching a google video. Compiling is also out of question, unless you hold on to a hair drier pointing towards the laptop's air intake or you live in Siberia.
Then there's the WiFi card. It isn't supported under linux, which is a shame. Yet, the wonderful ndiswrapper project made it possible to use it under linux. Yet, this leads to the x86_64 problem. As far as I could tell the x86_64 version of Kubuntu works flawlessly but unfortunately ndiswrapper complains about Acer's 64bit drivers and refuses to use them. So in effect that means that if you want to use x86_64 you have to say goodbye to wireless connectivity.
In 6.06 release of Kubuntu fixed a lot of problems but the automatic support for 1280x800 resolution isn't one of them. This is a prevailing problem since the days of 5.04. Kubuntu doesn't detect that resolution and doesn't even offer it in the system configuration menu. Yet, it is easy to make it work. You just need to edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file, add the following line to the "device" section
and remove any references to the following options from the "Monitor" section: HorizSync, VertRefresh. That takes care of the problem.
A problem that is new to Kubuntu is the sound volume. I don't know what happened from 5.10 to 6.06 but in this release the sound volume is extremelly low. It's maximum volume is about 60% of the 5.10's maximum sound volume. I don't know what caused this and don't know how to fix it.
Another annoyance which is new to kubuntu is the font size. The default fonts size is huge compared with 5.10. A 10pt font in 6.06 equals a 14pt font in 5.10. I don't know what caused this or how is it fixed but a nice remedy is to reduce KDE's font size definition. I tweaked them back to size 7 and 8 and everything became readable again.
Last but not least, the touchpad support isn't perfect. It isn't possible to turn it off through the Fn+F7 keyboard shortcut and the touchpad doesn't turn itself off while typing. That, as it is easy to see, is very annoying. Yet, after a few weeks typing and cringing your teeth you start to type without ever touching the touchpad.
So here you have it. The complete rundown of my experience installing Kubuntu 6.06 on an Acer Aspire 1524. To sum things down this is by far the best linux distribution I've installed on a computer. Yet, it still is far from perfect and has a few showstopper bugs like the poor ACPI support, which is becoming more and more annoying. On a side note, I've been told that SUSE 10.1 has beautifull ACPI support and that this problem doesn't appear, which is nice.
Here is a small roundup of the hardware support and below I give a more in depth comment about the problems I encountered:
Type of HardwareMake and modelState/comment
ProcessorAMD Athlon 64 3400+i386 ok.
x86_64 ok with annoyances. See below
RAM512MBOk.
Video cardNVidia GeForce FX Go 5700 64MB (dedicated)Ok with proprietary drivers
Screen15.4'' WXGA wide TFT LCD, 1280x800Ok with annoyances. See below.
Sound card VIA AC'97 Enhanced Audio ControlOk with annoyances. See below.
HDD80 GBOk.
Optical driveTSSTcorp CD/DVDW TS-L532AOk.
Wireless cardINPROCOMM IPN2220Lacks linux support. Works with ndiswrapper.
ModemAgere Systems AC'97Not tested.
Ethernet cardRealtek 10/100/1000 RTL-8196Ok.
FirewireTexas Instrument PCI7x20 1394a-2000Not tested.
TouchpadSynapticOk with annoyances. See below.
BluetoothNot tested.
Card readerPCMCIA cardNot tested.
I've installed Kubuntu 6.06 after running Kubuntu 5.10 and 5.04 and I have to say that so far this is the cleanest, less problematic Kubuntu install I had the pleasure of running. The Kubuntu folks really did a great job in this release. Kudos!
About the hardware support, there are quite a few problems with this install. To make matters worse, I have sent quite a few emails to Acer about linux support and they never had the courtesy to send me a single reply. So just because of that little detail I would suggest anyone who is thinking about buying an Acer computer to run linux to look elsewhere. They do build cheap laptop computers but their support is really appaling, bordering the ridiculous. To make matters worse, it isn't limited to linux issues.
So the absolutely major problem with this computer and kubuntu is it's severe overheating problem. As far as I can tell there is a bit of a problem with the ACPI support, which leads to quite some emergency shutdowns when doing somewhat intensive tasks like gaming, burning a DVD and even watching a google video. Compiling is also out of question, unless you hold on to a hair drier pointing towards the laptop's air intake or you live in Siberia.
Then there's the WiFi card. It isn't supported under linux, which is a shame. Yet, the wonderful ndiswrapper project made it possible to use it under linux. Yet, this leads to the x86_64 problem. As far as I could tell the x86_64 version of Kubuntu works flawlessly but unfortunately ndiswrapper complains about Acer's 64bit drivers and refuses to use them. So in effect that means that if you want to use x86_64 you have to say goodbye to wireless connectivity.
In 6.06 release of Kubuntu fixed a lot of problems but the automatic support for 1280x800 resolution isn't one of them. This is a prevailing problem since the days of 5.04. Kubuntu doesn't detect that resolution and doesn't even offer it in the system configuration menu. Yet, it is easy to make it work. You just need to edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file, add the following line to the "device" section
Code:
Option "IgnoreEDID" "0"
A problem that is new to Kubuntu is the sound volume. I don't know what happened from 5.10 to 6.06 but in this release the sound volume is extremelly low. It's maximum volume is about 60% of the 5.10's maximum sound volume. I don't know what caused this and don't know how to fix it.
Another annoyance which is new to kubuntu is the font size. The default fonts size is huge compared with 5.10. A 10pt font in 6.06 equals a 14pt font in 5.10. I don't know what caused this or how is it fixed but a nice remedy is to reduce KDE's font size definition. I tweaked them back to size 7 and 8 and everything became readable again.
Last but not least, the touchpad support isn't perfect. It isn't possible to turn it off through the Fn+F7 keyboard shortcut and the touchpad doesn't turn itself off while typing. That, as it is easy to see, is very annoying. Yet, after a few weeks typing and cringing your teeth you start to type without ever touching the touchpad.
So here you have it. The complete rundown of my experience installing Kubuntu 6.06 on an Acer Aspire 1524. To sum things down this is by far the best linux distribution I've installed on a computer. Yet, it still is far from perfect and has a few showstopper bugs like the poor ACPI support, which is becoming more and more annoying. On a side note, I've been told that SUSE 10.1 has beautifull ACPI support and that this problem doesn't appear, which is nice.
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