Acer Travelmate 242FX and Linux

• 04.09.2005: please note, that installing GNU/Linux on this notebook is now very easy and you will probably not need any information at this page, but feel free to contact me if you have any problems. now, i am running Red Hat Enterprise Workstation (WS) & Debian on my laptop
• 01.05.2005: all information is now related to 2.6.x kernel

Acer Travelmate 242FX is relatively cheap Intel Celeron notebook with this default configuration:

• Intel Celeron 2.4GHz processor
• 256MB RAM
• 20GB harddisk (i got 80GB toshiba disk on it, it was really expensive)
• CDROM + Floppy
• 14.1" 1024x768 LCD Panel
• Touchpad + Keyboard ;)
• 4 USB ports, IrDA, VGA port, Serial Port, 2x PCMCIA slot
• approximately 3.4 kilograms
• battery: about 2.5 hours

Linux on it: works

Some kernels doesn't boot, because of APIC and SMP. turn it off and it should be ok.

Install any distribution you like, i like debian

Kernel 2.4.26

CPU frequency scaling working!
use cpudynd (for example) for frequency scaling

   cat /proc/cpuinfo:
   processor       : 0
   vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
   model name      : Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.40GHz
   cpu MHz         : 299.711
   cache size      : 128 KB
   

nice :)

With original disk, DMA works in 2.4.22 and 2.6
My Toshiba 80gb disk is is detected properly with 2.4.22 (not 2.4.20) and 2.6-test kernels
Try experimenting with cpudynd (above), for disk performance and sleeping

No problem with kernel 2.4 version, driver below is not needed, but can be useful
With kernel 2.6.0-test8 it doesn't work normally (i hope it will be ok in stable versions). You must download this synaptics touchpad driver and install it. Follow installing instructions. Now the touchpad works, i don't use it (use external usb mouse), i think, there is some bug still, but it's usable i hope.
UPDATED: I think it works with 2.6.0-test9, i have the driver commented...If not, try driver upper

There is problem with XFree 4.3.0
Sometimes, the keyboard starts to write some letter again and again, without any user action. It can be stopped by pressing a key. But it's not so annoying as it seems. I'm writting this by that keyboard :) Sometimes mean not many times...
UPDATED: Lukas Hejtmanek reported flashing BIOS removes this bug, didn't tried yet

No problem with kernel 2.4 version No problem with properly configured 2.6.11 kernel version. See my kernel configuration above.

It's so common that there can't be any problems ;)

I was testing everything above in XWindowS (fluxbox), so no problem. Lukas says you must delete VideoRam information from XFree86 config to get 3D acceleration working and download new DRI driver for XFree 4.3.0. Didn't tried yet (that driver is for 2.4 kernels only). Now i get approximately 290fps in glxgears. With glx working ok, it should be more than 400 i hope.
After upgrading to 2.4.24 kernel, 3D acceleration works!
There is problem with XFree when using 24bit color depth. When switching back to text mode, LCD panel goes unsynchronized and strange blinking appears. Thanks to xhejtman for information about 24bit color depth. Solution is not to use 24bit depth or use framebuffer :)

Working on this. Got acerhk-0.5.0(TODO link) driver and installed. Follow instructions in INSTALL file (for 2.6 or 2.4 kernel). Now, cat /proc/driver/acerhk/key shows 0x861 always, but info file increases counter everytime i press some hotkey. See this page in a month...I have some problem with libxml so i cannot compile some drivers. But some people reported working hotkeys.

No problem. I use USB mouse. CIJOML reported, that Acer is lies when talking about 4x USB 2.0 ports. It's 3x USB1.1 and 1x USB2.0. USB2.0 is that right one

THIS SECTION IS NOT UP-TO-DATE! Please check if IRdA is working properly without this patch - i think it is
To get IrDA working in 2.4.x, you must patch kernel source by irda patch or download complete kernel patch above (recommended) (thanks to Lukas Hejtmanek for this). The infraport is nsc-ircc but with new chipset, this patch is backported from 2.6 kernel. It works after doing this:

 setserial /dev/ttyS1 uart none
 modprobe nsc-ircc dongle_id=0x08
 irattach irda0
 

note the dongle_id, it's IMPORTANT

Don't know how to handle this, looking for some nice penguin stick to override this one ;))