Making the Acer Aspire One 751 work with Linux

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viking60
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Making the Acer Aspire One 751 work with Linux

Postby viking60 » 25 Feb 2011, 13:13

One of the worst cards for Linux is the Intel poulsbo 500GMA chipset, because Xorg is not suporting it anymore. It is safe to say that AAO is NOT a Linux compatible laptop.
Image
It will work with most distros but only with 1024x768 resolution. This makes the small 11.6" screen almost useless.
Nevertheless the 1366x768 is can be tweaked and made to work! This is good because Linux makes a much better job of exploiting the scarce resources on AAO than Windows XP.

In particular a slim Linux distro like Archlinux:

I installed Arch (With Gnome/gdm)and installed this from AUR.
Then I "followed" this readme
I listed the possible resolutions on the lap with

Code: Select all

sudo 915resolution -l


And got: :A

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Intel 800/900 Series VBIOS Hack : version 0.5.3

Chipset: 500GMA
BIOS: TYPE 1
Mode Table Offset: $C0000 + $269
Mode Table Entries: 36

Mode 30 : 640x480, 8 bits/pixel
Mode 32 : 800x600, 8 bits/pixel
Mode 34 : 1024x768, 8 bits/pixel
Mode 38 : 1366x768, 8 bits/pixel
Mode 3a : 1600x1200, 8 bits/pixel
Mode 3c : 1920x1440, 8 bits/pixel
Mode 41 : 640x480, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 43 : 800x600, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 45 : 1024x768, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 49 : 1280x770, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 4b : 1600x1200, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 4d : 1920x1440, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 50 : 640x480, 32 bits/pixel
Mode 52 : 800x600, 32 bits/pixel
Mode 54 : 1024x768, 32 bits/pixel
Mode 58 : 1366x768, 32 bits/pixel
Mode 5a : 1600x1200, 32 bits/pixel
Mode 5c : 1920x1440, 32 bits/pixel

I then set the resolution in table 49 to 1366x768 because I do not need 1280x770 anyway:

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sudo 915resolution 49 1366 768

and I now had: :A

Code: Select all

Intel 800/900 Series VBIOS Hack : version 0.5.3

Chipset: 500GMA
BIOS: TYPE 1
Mode Table Offset: $C0000 + $269
Mode Table Entries: 36

Mode 30 : 640x480, 8 bits/pixel
Mode 32 : 800x600, 8 bits/pixel
Mode 34 : 1024x768, 8 bits/pixel
Mode 38 : 1366x768, 8 bits/pixel
Mode 3a : 1600x1200, 8 bits/pixel
Mode 3c : 1920x1440, 8 bits/pixel
Mode 41 : 640x480, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 43 : 800x600, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 45 : 1024x768, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 49 : 1366x768, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 4b : 1600x1200, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 4d : 1920x1440, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 50 : 640x480, 32 bits/pixel
Mode 52 : 800x600, 32 bits/pixel
Mode 54 : 1024x768, 32 bits/pixel
Mode 58 : 1366x768, 32 bits/pixel
Mode 5a : 1600x1200, 32 bits/pixel
Mode 5c : 1920x1440, 32 bits/pixel

Take a close look at Mode 49!
I restarted X and it worked!
The problem now of course was to make it happen everytime because the resolutions is reset on every boot - what to do? :confused
I put a line in /etc/rc.local
I is necessary to write the solution to the Bios before x starts:

Code: Select all

usr/sbin/915resolution 49 1366 768


Boot and all is good.
Manjaro 64bit on the main box -Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 920 @ 2.67GHz and nVidia Corporation GT200b [GeForce GTX 275] (rev a1. + Centos on the server - Arch on the laptop.
"There are no stupid questions - Only stupid answers!"

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