Installing Ubuntu Linux on an Acer Travelmate 4651lci (4650 series)

Last modified: Sat Jul 30 18:21:18 CEST 2005

Overview

This installation guide is for acer travelmate 4651lci with 915GM graphic chipset. There is also a model with the same product number but with a nvidia chipset in it.

Component	Status under Linux	Notes
Intel Pentium M 730	works	No special procedure required
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 (915GM chipset)	works	Requires installation of new driver (see below)
60GB Hard disk	works	No special procedure required
Network card (Broadcom)	works	No special procedure required
Modem	not tested
DVD/CDRW Combo	works	No special procedure required
Network controller: Intel Corp. PRO/Wireless	Not tested	No tested but the installation procedure detected the device
Sound card	works	No special procedure required

Ubuntu Linux

I installed Ubuntu Linux on the laptop because it is based on Debian. Debian was not an option because it contains (despite the new 3.1 release) a lot of older software. As with all new laptops newer distributions tends to give less problems. With Ubuntu you get the (almost) latest versions of GNOME/KDE, OpenOffice, X.org and the linux kernel. I used the 5.04 version in this howto. But if there is a newer stable version when you read this howto, it's better to pick that one as there will be probably more issues resolved.

The installation of Ubuntu requires some editing of config files but overall it isn't that hard. The Ubuntu forums is a special section dedicated to laptop issues so thats a place where you can ask for some help if you have. If you have any comments or questions about this howto, please send them to bram@bram.be. I am especially intrested if you found some better solutions for the 915GM driver.

Installation

Insert the ubuntu installation cd, boot the laptop and press F12 when you see the splash screen. You will get a boot menu. Choose the cdrom drive.

You will now be asked if you want to enter some special option. This is required. Enter

linux noapic nolapic

(these options do not give you any less functionality or performance on a uniprocessor system).

This howto will not guide you to every installation step in detail. Unfortunately Ubuntu doesn't have an official installation guide. However the URL contain a lot of information:

Ubuntu linux wiki
Ubuntu Guide

The laptop comes with Windows XP professional preinstalled. Windows is installed on the first partition (about half the hard disk). The second partition is empty. I decided to use the second partition to install Ubuntu Linux.

The installation program detects the ethernet controller and wireless network card.

Follow the installation. There is no need to configure any special settings at this point. After you completed the first part of the installation the ubuntu will reboot the computer and ask you some more questions. The installation will ask you for the resolution of the screen. Choose 1400x1050. Complete the rest of the installation. When you are finished you will notice that xorg only shows a black screen. Read on to the next section on know how to fix this.

X.org and 915GM

Normally the 915GM (aka Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900) should work with the i810 driver. This isn't the case with this laptop. To fix this problem you have to install 855resolution and a new i810 driver.

855resolution

The 915GM can only support a limited amount of resolutions. These resolutions are pre-programmed in the BIOS. Some laptops have a special BIOS section where you can select these resolutions. The Acer travelmate 4651lci hasn't. Luckily you can overwrite the BIOS settings with a utility: 855resolution. The utility only overwrite the settings in the RAM memory so you can't do anything wrong with the BIOS itself. Note that there is also a program called 915resolution. This one should also work but 855resolution (despite it's name) also supports the 915 chip.

Download the utitity from the website: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/apoirier/, untar and compile it.

wget http://perso.wanadoo.fr/apoirier/855resolution-0.4.tgz
tar zxf 855resolution-0.4.tar.gz
apt-get install gcc
make
sudo make install

You can list the preprogrammed resolution with 855resolution -l. Choose a resolution that you will never use. We will replace that resolution with the resolution from the LCD display 1400x1050. I choose the mode 5c (1920x1440). Reprogram that resolution with 855resolution:

855resolution 5c 1400 1050

. You can check the resolutions again with 855resolution -l. You will notice that the 5c mode is now 1400x1050.

Make sure that you do this each time you boot your laptop in graphical mode. Create a file /etc/init.d/resolution and insert this content:

#/bin/sh
855resolution 5c 1400 1050

Make it executable and symlink it to /etc/rc2.d/90resolution

New version of i810

Download the update for the i810 driver from this website: http://www.fairlite.demon.co.uk/i810_drv.o and overwrite the old driver.

cd
wget http://www.fairlite.demon.co.uk/i810_drv.o
cd /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/
sudo mv i810_drv.o i810_drv.o.old
cp ~/i810_drv.o .

Finished. Your X.org configuration should work now. Restart gdm or kdm: sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart

I didn't test the external monitor connectors (DVI and D-SUB)

Other hardware

The other hardware works out of the box. The power managment seems to work but the fan seems to switch on more then in Windows (it's almost always on). I didn't yet spend much time on this so there is probably some possible improvement possible here. If you have any suggestions please send them to me.

System specs

lspci

0000:00:00.0 0600: 8086:2590 (rev 03)
0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. Mobile Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
0000:00:02.0 0300: 8086:2592 (rev 03)
0000:00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corp. Mobile Graphics Controller (rev 03)
0000:00:02.1 0380: 8086:2792 (rev 03)
0000:00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corp. Mobile Graphics Controller (rev 03)
0000:00:1c.0 0604: 8086:2660 (rev 04)
0000:00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 04)
0000:00:1c.1 0604: 8086:2662 (rev 04)
0000:00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 04)
0000:00:1d.0 0c03: 8086:2658 (rev 04)
0000:00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 04)
0000:00:1d.1 0c03: 8086:2659 (rev 04)
0000:00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 04)
0000:00:1d.2 0c03: 8086:265a (rev 04)
0000:00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 04)
0000:00:1d.3 0c03: 8086:265b (rev 04)
0000:00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 04)
0000:00:1d.7 0c03: 8086:265c (rev 04)
0000:00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 04)
0000:00:1e.0 0604: 8086:2448 (rev d4)
0000:00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801 PCI Bridge (rev d4)
0000:00:1e.2 0401: 8086:266e (rev 04)
0000:00:1e.2 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 04)
0000:00:1e.3 0703: 8086:266d (rev 04)
0000:00:1e.3 Modem: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 04)
0000:00:1f.0 0601: 8086:2641 (rev 04)
0000:00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82801FBM (ICH6M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 04)
0000:00:1f.2 0101: 8086:2653 (rev 04)
0000:00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82801FBM (ICH6M) SATA Controller (rev 04)
0000:00:1f.3 0c05: 8086:266a (rev 04)
0000:00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 04)
0000:05:00.0 0c00: 104c:8026
0000:05:00.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB43AB21 IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link)
0000:05:01.0 0200: 14e4:169c (rev 03)
0000:05:01.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5788 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 03)
0000:05:02.0 0280: 8086:4220 (rev 05)
0000:05:02.0 Network controller: Intel Corp. PRO/Wireless 2200BG (rev 05)
0000:05:04.0 0607: 1524:1412 (rev 10)
0000:05:04.0 CardBus bridge: ENE Technology Inc: Unknown device 1412 (rev 10)
0000:05:04.1 0501: 1524:0530 (rev 01)
0000:05:04.1 FLASH memory: ENE Technology Inc: Unknown device 0530 (rev 01)
0000:05:04.2 0805: 1524:0550 (rev 01)
0000:05:04.2 0805: ENE Technology Inc: Unknown device 0550 (rev 01)
0000:05:04.3 0501: 1524:0520 (rev 01)
0000:05:04.3 FLASH memory: ENE Technology Inc: Unknown device 0520 (rev 01)
0000:05:04.4 0501: 1524:0551 (rev 01)
0000:05:04.4 FLASH memory: ENE Technology Inc: Unknown device 0551 (rev 01)

Bram Vandoren (bram@bram.be)