Acer Travelmate 3004WTMi with Linux

Acer Travelmate 3004WTMi with Linux

Acer Travelmate 3004WTMi (Travelmate 3000 -series) works well with Ubuntu Linux Dapper 6.06.

2006-11-12: WLAN enabled led works. Memory card reader untested configuration. 2006-11-07: Added 1024×768 display mode to improve usability with some vga projectors.


What works

Most things work out of the box in Ubuntu Dapper, without any additional drivers or settings. Works out of the box: wired network, wireless network, CPU frequency scaling, touchpad, keyboard, multimedia keys, battery monitor, sound input and output, firewire, external DVD drive (read). Works with extra settings: widescreen display (1280×800), suspend-to-ram, bluetooth, external monitor, wlan enabled led.

CD/DVD writing not tested. Multimedia card reader will probably never work, but youTo read multimedia cards, you can use an external card reader or try untested instructions below.


Required settings


Suspend-to-RAM s3

I got it working as of 2006-06-09. Add this to /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

Section "Device"
   #...
   Option  "VBERestore" "true"
EndSection

Picture comes up after changing virtual terminals back and forth, but computer can do this automatically. In /etc/default/acpi-support

DOUBLE_CONSOLE_SWITCH=true

Suspend by right clicking battery image on panel and choosing suspend. Display works now. Also works with 915resolution. Tested by Tero 2006-06-09.


Correct Resolution with Widescreen Display

Enable universe and multiverse repositories.

 $ sudo apt-get install 915resolution
 $ sudo nano /etc/default/915resolution
 MODE=5a
 XRESO=1280
 YRESO=800

Switch to virtual console 1 (alt-ctrl-F1), then

 $ sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart


Synaptics Touchpad Drag and Scroll

In /etc/X11/xorg.conf, add

Section "InputDevice"
      Identifier      "Synaptics Touchpad"
# from 'sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg'
      Driver          "synaptics"
      Option          "SendCoreEvents"        "true"
      Option          "Device"                "/dev/psaux"
      Option          "Protocol"              "auto-dev"
      Option          "HorizScrollDelta"      "0"
EndSection
Section "ServerLayout"
      # ...
      InputDevice     "Synaptics Touchpad"
EndSection

Tero’s xorg.conf for Acer Travelmate 3000 contains modifications described above.


External Monitor

Using my xorg.conf, external monitor on VGA port works. It works with suspend, and it works when plugged to a running computer. Builtin widescreen display shows about 25 more pixels than external display, but you can use a panel on the right side to make windows maximize nicely. With latest changes to /etc/default/915resolution and xorg.conf, you can set display resolution to 1024×768 and get perfect picture on most video projectors.

I added clone mode to device section:

Section "Device"
      # ...
      Option          "MonitorLayout" "CRT,LFP"
      Option          "Clone"         "true"
EndSection

and wrote additional Device, Monitor and Screen and modified Serverlayout. All changes are probably not required. All those changes are allready made in the xorg.conf.


Bluetooth

Press the Bluetooth led button in the front panel to enable bluetooth hardware. Blue light is illuminated. Bluetooth is detected, and normal bluetooth software can run.

The other led button is for WLAN (IEEE 802.11). If your WLAN mysteriously stops working, you must press the WLAN button again to enable it. The light in WLAN button is newer lit.


WLAN light

WLAN works out of the box. Travelmate has a button to disable WLAN on hardware level. The button is on the front, between speakers. To make the button display orange light when WLAN is enabled (not disabled), create /etc/modprobe.d/ipw2200 and add to it

### /etc/modprobe.d/ipw2200
options ipw2200 led=1


Untested configuration

Marco Rojas wrote that card reader works on his Acer Aspire 5601AWLMi after ‘sudo update-pciids’. The command downloads and installs http://pciids.sourceforge.net/pci.ids.bz2 .

Phillb wrote he got WLAN light working with TM3002WTMi, Fedora Core 6 and NetworkManager. Put in /etc/tc.local:

modprobe acerhk
echo 1 > /proc/driver/acerhk/blueled
echo 1 > /proc/driver/acerhk/wirelessled
echo 1 > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200/0000:06:08.0/led 


See also

Acer Travelmate 3004WTMi with Linux notes. Things work out of the box now partially because I have tested, reported bugs and even found some bypasses for problems. This is partially documented in notes. Thanks to all of those who fixed the bugs or had helpful ideas!

Acer Travelmate 3004WTMi command outputs


Lyhyesti suomeksi – Briefly in Finnish

Linux toimii Acer Travelmate 3000 kannettavassa tietokoneessa hyvin. Tämä laite on kirjoitushetkellä Acerin kevein malli. Levityspakettina on Ubuntu Linux 6.06 LTS Dapper. Asennus onnistuu helposti, useimmat tarvittavat muutokset tulevat Ubuntun asennusrompulla. Lähes kaikki toimii suoraan asennuksen jälkeen: langallinen ja langaton verkko, prosessorin nopeuden säätö, äänet, erikoisnäppäimet, romppuasema, patterin varausmittari ja firewire-liitäntä. Yllä on ohje, kuinka laajakuvanäyttö saadaan toimimaan oikealla resoluutiolla, bluetoothin saa päälle, ulkoinen näyttö toimii ja kuinka kone voi nukahtaa (suspend-to-ram). En ole vielä ehtinyt testata dempun kirjoitusta.



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