Hardy Beta is now supported - fsca16xx

Last night I've pushed Ubuntu Hardy beta support to the installation script.

For those of you that use hibernation -

Currently, the wireless will not resume correctly, so after resuming, you should run the following lines to make it work:

sudo rmmod ath_pci ath_rate_sample ath_hal
sudo modprobe ath_pci


In the following weeks I'll make the script do that automagically on resume.

some updates for the fujitsu script

I've just made some updates to the fujitsu auto installation script. Its not "the" update I wanted to do, just some fixes.

Changes:

* use of newest atheros instead of ndiswrapper (should support AR5007).


I did not had time to get into the "add the missing bits to acerhk so that it will properly read the wireless led state".

On the tip of a plastic spring

First, let me say BAHHHH!!!!

Now, my Amilo's touchpad left button has stopped working - it even sounds physically broken... Anyway, the technicians at store of which I bought this laptop from said:"This was caused by improper use so warranty is the null and void".

Unhappy, I've decided to take it to my own hands. In order to check it out I had to almost strip the laptop entirely. I mean, the only 2 thing that were left complete were the motherboard to the bottom panel and the screen which was just seperated as is from the rest of the machine.

I was amazed to find out that I had 3 broken plastic springs which are suppose to place both of the buttons in place: 2 broken on the left button an 1 on the right button. More then that, I found out that a plastic spring was completely missing as if it was never there. Some further investigation showed me that it was truly never there and the lack of it was the reason that it broke in the first place! It was designed to take the pressure but in order to lower the manufacturing costs this stabilizer spring has just been left out + reassuring the purchase of a newer model when the old has supposedly become cripple.

BAHHHHH!!!!! When I'll have some free time (probably in 4 months from now), I'll install some real springs below the buttons - that should be suffice to make it last for at least 2 more years.

acpi acer hotkey pooler for my amilo

Recently I've started a fork of the acer_acpi kernel module to also pool the 3 hotkeys.
On another note, the patch I've made for acerhk was finally entered the mainstream.

I've moved on to acer_acpi since it supports 64bit distros as well.

I'm up to my ears in homeworks and projects (last year to end my undergraduate degree - yeppieee) so it will probably go gold by May 08.

Work notes:
1) listen for _Q10 (wireless key) event - after it is done, also add the browser and fancy fan buttons.
2) rig the wireless button to run the wireless activation/deactivation method in acer_acpi
3) ask for merge and go mainstream.

some of (1) has already been done.

This will also make the lives of Amilo LI1718 owners much easier...

UPDATE 8/12/07: current work is posted on http://fscamiloa16xx.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/acer_acpi_hkey/
The AML Method PHSR change the values of INF (button id) ,BCMD (0x8B = button pressed) and SMIC (0x00/0xff). When loading this module with debug=4 and press one of the 3 buttons, you'll see (in dmesg) that it sensed the key press. Bad news, SMIC is not updated to 0 as expected and therefore it will act as if the button is being pressed over and over again. Some mutexes are MIA and should be added. acpi-devel list seems to be inactive - so I'll keep searching for a way to acquire an AML mutex...

Behold at that installation script

Finally it is here!

The auto installation script for Amilo A1650G for 32bit Ubuntus (Feisty,Gutsy) is here.

Features:
1) Make the hotkeys work - all of them (besides change display)!
2) Notification bubbles and Cool n' Quiet - done by info2 @ubuntuforums.
3) Make wireless work - only if you have the Atheros 5005g. I'll be happy to add Broadcom if I had testers with that configuration.

Requirements:
1) 32bit Ubuntu >= 7.04
2) Amilo A1650G or similarly hotkeyd laptop
3) internet connection

HowTo:
Open a console and run:
wget http://fscamiloa16xx.googlecode.com/files/fsca16xx.sh
chmod 755 fsca16xx.sh
sudo ./fsca16xx.sh

Wait a bit till it's Done.
Log out, Log back in and viola!

Last Edited: 29/8/07

Amilo A1650g the overheater

Recently I've been having some serious overheating issues with this awful laptop (the main reason for the hatred is the video card).

I didn't understood why all of a sudden, Feisty has become "heavy" as have suse and mandriva.... well, suse was already heavy to begin with. tried: Mandriva 2007.1 (spring), Opensuse Gnome 10.3 beta 2, Ubuntu Feisty and Gutsy...

I used acpi -t to track the temperatures and I was able to reach 87 Celsius degrees and have occasional shutdowns (+90 degrees)...

And yesterday I found out why.

My laptop's cooling ribs were clogged up for good - I even found a feather there. I disassembled the largest panel in the back of the laptop and then just the fan (without the cooling ribs). I used a slightly wet cue-tip to clean the fan side of the cooling ribs. The amount of dust there were unbelievable!

Now I'm glad to say that it's working again at nominal temperatures. WinXP in Virtualbox helped me reach a nice temperature of 67 Celsius degrees. It's sad though that if I ran Firefox into a site with a rich flash content - I'll reach 75 Celsius degress, which is much higher then running a virtual machine. Someone have to make the flash plugin better!

FSC Amilo A1650g Ubuntu Fiesty 32bit How-To

Last Updated: 3/7/2007

3/7/2007 Added Distribution ready wireless button support (see "way 3") which also fixes the wireless scan/connect issue when enabling/disabling the wireless led.
26/6/2007 Added: Distribution ready wireless button support (see "way 2")

Specs:
AMD Turion 64 ML-32 / 1.8 GHz
512MB RAM
60GB HD
ATI Xpress 200M (Shared) - Crippled By Design
SD/MS CardReader
TV-OUT
CRT-OUT
PCMCIA Slot
Firewire
LAN
Modem
4 USB
DVDRW+
Atheros 802.11a/b/g
1200x800 Display
Fancy HotKeys

How-To
Installation did most of the magic. The following were automagically detected and operational:
AMD Turion 64 ML-32 / 1.8 GHz
512MB RAM
60GB HD
Firewire
LAN
4 USB
DVDRW+
Builtin SD/MS CardReader


The Rest is as follows

ATI Xpress 200M
FGLRX Doesn't work well for me, suspend sometimes stuck at turn off etc...
Xgl is a mess in Ubuntu so Compiz/Beryl is out of the question for now till AIGLX in fglrx.
On that front, a bunch of good faithed people has gathered to hack the RS480 down, so hopefully by the next version of Ubuntu, the opensource driver will be able to supply 3D support (with AIGLX) for the CBD Xpress 200M.

Fancy HotKeys
Most of the HotKeys are recognized and are configurable. The following HotKeys were detected upon install:
HELP, SLEEP, BLANK_SCREEN, BRIGHTNESS UP/DOWN, SCROLL LOCK, NUM LOCK, HOME, END.
MUTE, VOL UP/DOWN - might needed some tuning which was done through gnome's System->Preferences->Keyboard Shortcuts.
WWW_BROWSER became operational after acerhk was loaded (read ahead).

To get wireless button working there are 3 ways:

way 1:compile a prepatched version of acerhk - this will add support for all of the missing buttons (wireless, browser, fancy fan, display...)
downside: You have to repeat this process upon each kernel update.

I've set up a place in google code for this - http://fscamiloa16xx.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/Fiesty/
1) Run uname -r at the console, if there exist a folder that matches the output and you are using the 32bit version of ubnutu. download the file and put it in:
/lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/input/misc/
you'll have to overwrite the existing file.
If such folder doesn't exist, you can use the patch I made against acerhk 0.5.35 recompile it and put the acerhk.ko file in the folder mentioned above ('make install' places it in the wrong folder).
(patch is at http://code.google.com/p/fscamiloa16xx/downloads/)

2) add at the end of the file /etc/modules:
acerhk

3) add at the end of the file /etc/modprobe.d/options
options acerhk autowlan=1

Restart and start using the buttons.
(or:
sudo rmmod acerhk
sudo modprobe acerhk
)

2. way 2: force the acerhk that comes with ubuntu to a certain settings
downside: this will make the wireless and browser button operational, but the display will be recognized as ''start media" and fancy fan will not be operational

1) add at the end of the file /etc/modules:
acerhk

2) add at the end of the file /etc/modprobe.d/options
options acerhk force_series=5020 autowlan=1

Restart and start using the buttons.
(or:
sudo rmmod acerhk
sudo modprobe acerhk force_series=5020 autowlan=1
)

3. way 3: dont use acerhk at all
downside: none of the three buttons above the keyboard will be operational, wireless will always be switched on regardless of the wireless led state.
upside: WIRELESS IS FINALLY SCANNING AND CONNECTING WITHOUT A HASSLE!!! YYYPPPPIIIEEEE!

1) add at the end of the file /etc/modprobe.d/options
options ath_pci rfkill=0


Atheros 802.11b/g
To make this baby running you should fix the hotkeys (as stated above) and then press the wireless button. the wireless card driver works out-of-the-box except for the fact that area scanning is awful - you'll have to know the accesspoints names and enter them manually in order to connect. (unless way 3 was used).

To be updated on good news.