Linux on a Acer Aspire 3680

Acer Aspire 3680 is a budget laptop using the Celeron M processor.

Fedora 7

The 32-bit and 64-bit version of Fedora 7 will work on this machine because Celeron M 520 is a 64-bit processor. Most things will work right out of the box. The only exceptions are:

• Sound works, but defaults to mute. You must un-mute the controls.
• The multimedia card slot does not work.
• Wireless is an Atheros based card and require you to download restricted drivers.

Enabling Sound

The sound driver works, but you cannot hear it because the playback device is set to mute. The playback device is actually “Surround”.

1. Double-click on the speaker icon in the title bar. This brings up the volume control.
2. Click on edit preference. This brings up a list of volume control preference.
3. Check the box for “Surround” and press Close.
4. A surround control should appear in the volume control. Unmute the surround control and adjust the volume.
5. Close the volume control.
6. Right-click on the volume control again and select Preference. This brings up a different volume control preference. This allow you to select which control the main slider is hooked to.
7. In the Volume control preferences. Select Surround and press the Close button. This connects the volume slider to the surround control.

Unfortunately, all of the other controls on some of the media software like RealPlayer is hooked to the wrong control. Changing the volume control does not change the surround and so you must use the volume control on the menu bar instead of on the media player.

Enabling the Restricted Repository

Unlike Ubuntu, Fedora does not include any restricted codec or drivers, to get those drivers, you need to add the restricted repository.

1. Log into Fedora as root.
2. Open a terminal by selecting the menu Applications->System Tools->Terminal.
3. Type in the following statement:rpm -Uvh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-7.rpm
rpm --import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-livnaThe U parameter tells the rpm to upgrade the package by removing the old package and installing the new one. Because U works even when there is no previous package, you should use “U” instead of “i”, which just installs. The “v” is verbose output and “h” is used with the “v” to print the hash marks. The second line imports the public key for Livna used to check that the packages come from Livna.

Wireless

The wireless chip in Acer Aspire 3680 is Atheros based, but the exact model will vary from machine to machine. The first Acer 3680 I purchased had an Atheros AR5006EG chipset. When that laptop failed and had to be return 2 days later, the new Acer had an Atheros AR5005G.

1. You must enable the livna repository. See instructions on how to do this earlier in the blog.
2. Login as root.
3. Open a terminal window and type the command:
   yum install madwifi
4. Select the menu System->Administration->Services. This brings up the service configuration.
5. Check the checkbox for NetworkManager. You’ll need this applet to switch between different wireless networks.
6. Close the window. Press Yes when asked to save changes.
7. Reboot machine. You should see an applet icon on after startup.

Note that I had trouble with getting the madwifi driver working with AR5006G and AR5005EG chipset under 64-bit. I was able to get AR5006G to work fine under 32-bit Fedora 7.