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Fedora Core 4 Installation notes on Acer Travelmate 240

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1. Acer Travelmate 240 Hardware Specification

The most common variation probably is:

Wireless devices : Mine doesn't come with built-in one

Hard disk : different sizes, but best bet is all is working with FC4

CPU : Pentium 2.6 ghz celeron, with 9 stepping frequency, use p4_clockmod 2.6 kernel module

Bluetooth : There is switch available but mine doesn't come with one, perhaps other variant has one?

Infrared : There is switch available and port visible but mine doesn't come with one, perhaps other variant has one?

Others : Video card?, Temperature sensor?. etc.

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Acer Travelmate 240 hardware specification :

Model : Acer Travel Mate 240

CPU : Intel® Celeron® Processor 2.6GHz (400MHz front side bus), 9 stepping frequency

Modem : Intel® 852GME chipset

Harddisk : 20 gb

Memory : 256MB PC2100 DDR-SDRAM

Video : Intel® 852GME chipset

Video Mem : 16 mb

Mouse : Synaptics ALPS

Keyboard : 105 key with extra button

Network : 10/100 mbps, integrated

Parallel port : 1 port for printer

USB : 4 port

CD ROM : 1 cdrom

Floppy Disk : 1, 3.5 floppy disk

PCMCIA : 2 Type II slots

Soundcard : Intel® 852GME chipset

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Acer Travelmate 240 Devices Status

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2. Fedora Core 4 Installation

Fedora Core 4 supports different method of installation method. This site will only cover the installation method and tips for installing Fedora Core 4 in a Acer Travelmate 240 laptop. Other kind of Installation such as installing Fedora Core 4 to be a server (mail server, DHCP server , WWW server, ftp server and other kind of server), Virtual client and etc, is not covered in this site, you can check out this personal Fedora Core 4 Installation notes , another personal Fedora Core 4 Installation notesand this general Fedora Core installation notes

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2.1. Installation Method

Since Acer Travelmate 240 Laptop have internal CD-ROM, I strongly Suggest in using the CD-ROM installation method and forget the other method.

The other method is listed purely for educational only, its not recommended and its not practical to use :

Network Install

Basically it will involve bootstrap and fast internet connection or local server with bootstrap available. Not recommended since this laptop have internal CDROM installed.

Floppy

You can combine the floppy disk to boot then downloading the package using network (not recommended for slow connection). this is somehow not the easiest install process and CDROM install method is far much easier.

This method is somehow not practical, and its seems best to use for rescuing damaged linux installation rather than fresh installing

CDROM

The recommended install method, you will need to :

1. Download the .iso file from fedora or its mirror server

2. Burn the image file to cdrom (or DVD if you download the dvd image file, if you have DVD-ROM instead of CD-ROM)

3. Change the bios setting to enable it to boot from cd-rom

then goes on to the installation process.

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2.2. Disk Partition

You will need to Resize your partition if you still need to keep Microsoft Windows XP, basically you will need to use disk partition software such as Partition Magic. You will need to free the space needed for the Fedora Core installation. You will need at least 10 Gigabyte for Linux.

Since my laptop comes with small 20 gb hard drive, its not practical to keep Microsoft Windows XP. If you keep the existing Microsoft Windows XP and install new Fedora Core system, you will have to configure the Grub (Default FC 4 Boot loader) or Lilo to make you able to boot either system during boot.

If you don't need to use any of the Microsoft Windows XP partition, then you can proceed to load the Fedora Core CD image into your CDROM and start the installation process.

Its generally a good idea to make a seperate /home partition when you partitioned the linux partion, its can be a logical volume manager partition or normal partition, This will save your personal files if by any chances you need to reinstall the Fedora Core 4 system

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2.3. Package Selection

You can check http://www.mjmwired.net/resources/mjm-fedora-fc4.html for more detailed information regarding installation method and packages.

Some of the packages recommended :

1. KDE library for KPPP and KDE-Bluetooth ->If you choose for gnome-ppp, skip this.

2. KPPP -> actually you can decided to skip this and choose over gnome-ppp if you want your system to be clean from KDE.

3. KDE Bluetooth -> you can change to gnome-bluetooth but its far less superior than KDE Bluetooth.

4. Yum -> Recommended

5. Joe or Nano -> Recommended

6. Samba -> Recommended

Its better to install minimal system, then install the later on needed packages later using yum. this will allows you to get the most recent updates on certain packages.

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3. Hardware Configuration

This section is provided for configuring Acer Travelmate 240 hardware under Fedora Core 4. Some of the hardware configuration is generic enough for other linux distribution and other Acer models.

Some of the hardware that are generic enough :

Modem : Other Acer laptop / other brand laptop / other linux distribution can use the same way and driver as long as the modem kernel module is the same snd_intel8x0m kernel modules thus using ALSA as its driver.

ALPS touchpad : There is a good chance that the configuration is similar to synaptics and other Acer laptop models.

PCMCIA : There is a good chance that the configuration is similar to other laptop model.

USB : This device configuration is almost the same with other laptop model and its automatically configured using Fedora Core 4.

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3.1. Modem Configuration

You will need to use the smartlink modem driver. You can choose to download the driver, compile it as module then install it or you can download the slmodemd here and tweak the configuration as following :

Modules needed for modem is : snd_intel8x0m - ALSA modem modules

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3.2. Sound Configuration

Fedora Core 4 will automatically configure the sound devices using ALSA driver. The only tweak you need to adjust is to open the ALSA mixer and turn on external amplifier option on. If you updated your alsa there is possibility that it will not function anymore. If this happens, you can either revert back to the released version or us OSS as its front end.

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3.3. Network Interface Card Configuration

The network interface card is automatically configured and detected under Fedora Core 4. You will need to run the network configuration to set every parameter right.

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3.4. ACPI Configuration

FC 4 will automatically load Video, button, battery, and ac modules.

Battery Meter and AC Outlet Meter

This doesn't really need any configuration, you can view the status by using gnome battery applets or gnome-power-manager.

Download the gnome power manager rpm now at : http://www.gnome.org/projects/gnome-power-manager/packages.html and there is available for fedora core packages specific.

or you can install the laptop_mode from http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsamwel/laptop_mode/ to have all the acpi script and the tools to power down your harddisk (laptop_mode).

Modules used for acpi :

video
button
battery
ac

Laptop Config "ltpconfig"

A good GUI program for controlling brightness, ACPI and ALPS Glide (Synaptics), this program is totally optional. You can download them at : http://sourceforge.net/projects/ltpconf

ACPI script

After installing the laptop_mode and hibernate package, you can edit the /etc/acpi/action/lm_lid.sh and add /usr/sbin/hibernate to make the laptop go to hibernate mode when the lid is closed.

You can also download this script to make the cpuspeed frequency changes when battery moved. I have tested them using Toshiba Portege R100 and it work like charm but I don't know why it wont't work on Acer Travelmate 240, Fix is needed.

Acer Hotkey

You will need to install acerhk by downloading the source and compile them, you will need the kernel-devel package or full kernel source to compile the acer hot key. I got the binary package in the download page, feel free to try them (no warranty whatsoever).

Upon successful installation, you will need to configure the button manually, assuming you are using gnome, please go to desktop -> preferences -> keyboard shortcuts and configure the button as you like.

You will need to edit the rc.local and add module acerhk , for loading the module everytime you boot the computer.

Harddisk Tweak

Edit your rc.local and put this line : hdparm -d1 -u1 -m16 -c3 /dev/hda, this is based on my 20 gb harddisk, your correct setting may vary, check http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2000/06/29/hdparm.html for more detailed information. Caution : incorrect setting can destroy your harddisk!.

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3.5. Video Card Configuration

Video card is working out of the box and its configured properly

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3.6. USB Configuration

FC 4 will load the usb modules automatically and it will recognizes the usb devices plugged in automatically.

modules used :
uhci_hcd
ehci_hcd

USB-bluetooth dongle

I bought generic Bluetooth dongle for connecting my nokia phones to the laptop. I am using kdebluetooth-1.0.0-3.beta.1.fc4.kde.i386.rpm. When you choose the workgroup install then you will need some libraries for the software such as kdelibs-3.4.2-1.2.fc4.kde.i386.rpm as the dependencies.
I can access the nokia for sending files, receiving files and as modem to connect to internet. please read this enlightening pages for setting Bluetooth.
Modules used :
bluetooth
rfcomm
l2cap
hci_usb

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3.7. PCMCIA Configuration

FC 4 seems to load the modules for PCMCIA automatically but since I don’t have pcmcia card to try then I don't really know the results.

Modules used:
pcmcia_core
yenta_socket
rsrc_nonstatic

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3.8. ALPS touchpad Configuration

Works out of the box. You don't need to configure them. There is a good nice GUI software for setting the parameter of the ALPS, you can try http://gsynaptics.sourceforge.jp/ or ltpconf here.
To have the configuration program works, you will need to get the synaptics driver for xorg, at http://web.telia.com/~u89404340/touchpad/ and compile the source, you will need the xorg-x11-devel package (if you recompile the xorg using fc4 source rpm, then you should have this in your computer). After successful compilation and installation, you will need to put Option "SHMConfig" "true" in you xorg.conf file under your synaptics driver.
You can also download the binary driver for synaptics for xorg-x11-6.8.2-37.FC4.49.2.build by me, but I cannot guarantee anything or will it work on your system. Use it at your own risk.

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3.9. Temperature Sensor Configuration

Using ACPI function with gnome-sensors-applet seems to work

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3.10. CPU Frequency Scaling

The Acer Travelmate 240 turns out to have 9 stepping of CPU frequency, If you are using kernel 2.6 (Fedora Core 4 standard) then you should have cpufreq kernel module, cpufreq-selector and optional : cpufreq-utils package installed using yum.

To install the CPU frequency, first you will need to load the kernel module :

p4-clockmod

cpufreq_ondemand

cpufreq_powersave

Then use dmesg to check if the module loaded correctly or not. Then you will need to load the gnome CPU frequency applet. After that, issue /usr/sbin/cpufreq-selector -g governor (ondemand, powersave, performance) to set your desired governor.

After successful loading, edit the rc.local to add :

modprobe p4_clockmod

modprobe "desired_governor" (cpufreq_ondemand, cpufreq_powersave)

Then you are done!.

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4. Tuning Fedora Core 4

Fedora Core 4 is a very good and stable linux distribution, but like other linux distribution there are always several things that need to be tuned and tweak.

For Fedora Core 4, you will need to tune mostly in its multimedia program. Since Fedora Core 4 multimedia program doesn't include capabilities to play MP3, AVI, WMA and other useful multimedia format.

4.1. Program updater & Repository

If yum that you wish to use, then you can use gnome-yum or yumex for nice graphical interface. Please be caution not to use development and updates testing level of rpm since it will make your system less stable. It will be also very hard to revert back to updates releases level of rpm due to dependencies problem.

You can add more reps for more rpm choice such as from :

Fresh RPM

DAG RPM

Livna RPM

Dries RPM

ATRPMS RPM

RPMforge RPM

Newrpms RPM

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