Linux Kernel Customization on Acer Aspire One

@dattaway
Using your config file on 2.6.27-rc7:
- Timing buffered disk reads: 29.20 MB/s
- Timing cached reads: 654.03 MB/s
- SD/MMC not works, because SDHCI support on PCI bus disabled
- Have no PTY support, Konsole and Terminal refuse to start
- CPU scaling not work
- Sound not work

 

Mine's not the SSD, but the Seagate:

localhost dattaway # hdparm -i /dev/sda
/dev/sda:
Model=ST9120817AS , FwRev=3.AAA

 

So, the only solution is upgrade to 1.8" HDD

The stock kernel have UDMA66 support by default, so it's safe to apply my UDMA66 patch on page 4.

After #7 compilation, now I knew why KDE media notication failed on SD/MMC and Thunar can not detect the expansion storage even my kernel have aufs support. Do not enabling deprecated sysfs!

 

AAO comes preconfigured with frame buffer mode for 640x480 pixels. A nicer mode is 800x600, which is mode 0x315 (specify in /boot/grub/grub.conf where it says vga=....). With the default 8x16 font this is good for a text resolution of 100x37, or 100x42 when selecting a 14 point font. I couldn't set to a 1024x600 frame buffer console yet. I'll try svgatextmode on a text mode (non-fb) console when I get around.

 

I have suspend-on-closing-lid running again (with 2.6.27 and reinstalled debian).
Only thing i needed to do was to create the directory
/etc/acpi/local
and add a script named lid.sh.post in there. the script contains
the suspend command, which is in my case s2ram --force. s2ram comes from the uswusp package.

when I studied the acpi scripts, I noted that the method employed in them to turn off and on the display backlight, also works:
xset dpms force off
xset dpms force on
No dimming though.

 

Just found a solution for wireless led last night, on both madwifi and ath5k but no wireless network around me for test purpose. I can control the right led on/off but have no idea how to control the left one.

 

I wish one of the engineers who configured Linux for the One would spend time on here.

 

The XD module compiled and loaded successfully but not sure will work or not since I have no XD card. The sources downloaded from http://svn.berlios.de/svnroot/repos/tif ... nk/driver/ and need a minor change to compile. I have trying to upload all my patch and config file but failed so far. Only have slow GPRS connection right now.

 

I think this discussion is going in two different areas, but so be it. I just downloaded the sources you cited above and compiled them for Fedora Rawhide kernel-2.6.27-0.372 on my desktop PC. Loaded them up on the AA1 in sequence: insmod flash_bs.ko, insmod xd_card.ko, insmod jmbx_xd.ko. Inserted an xD card and got a few kernel errors. Oh, well.

 

Thanks to a productive configuration- and recompilation session with annafil, the right card reader also works now, without the need to insert a sd card during boot.
The kernel configuration can be found under
http://scarydevilmonastery.net/aspire/config.oct02

It appear that everything except mail/wifi LEDs is working now.
Thank you annafil for your input!

 

@RockDoctor
Is it works?

@Bushmills
Using your config file on 2.6.27-rc7, I got kernel panic! The problem is building SCSI disk block device as a module:

Code:

...
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SD=m
...

The kernel fail to mount root filesystem on SSD.

As my own config file, only the "Storage Expansion" have hotplug support.

It's hard to explain something in English

 

For LED support in ath5k module, please try my solution. Open base.c and change:

Code:

...
    sc->led_on = 1; /* active high */
    /* Enable softled on Acer Aspire One */
    if (pdev->subsystem_vendor == 0x105b) {
        __set_bit(ATH_STAT_LEDSOFT, sc->status);
        sc->led_pin = 3;
        sc->led_on = 0; /* active low */
    }
...

 

LED support and broken wireless

I tried Blackhawk's modification to the base.c file. It worked fine the first time I used it. The LED came on and then turned off when I turned off the wireless. But ever since the very first time the wireless LAN hasn't worked at all. When I try to restart after that, I got this:

SIOCSIFFLAGS: Resource temporarily unavailable

I removed the code and recompiled the kernel with the original base.c file, but still no wireless support.

Finally, I powered down the machine and let it sit while off for a few seconds. That seemed to fix it. Wireless works again, but sadly, no LED.

 

xD card still not working on its own. May have more time to work on it when I get back from my trip.

 

@loudmax
No wireless area around me right now for intensive test I got a strange problem too. The LED turned on when the wireless card on but refuse to off when the card turned off (sometimes), the brightness value 255:

Code:

# cat /sys/class/leds/ath5k-phy0\:\:tx/brightness
255

BTW, we can reuse the wireless LED as mmc read/write indicator:

Code:

# echo mmc0 > /sys/class/leds/ath5k-phy0\:\:tx/trigger

@RockDoctor
Thanks.

@all
My work on building a compatible kernel for Aspire One: [attachment=0:32xur4g0]aspireone-2.6.27-rc7-bh.tar.bz2[/attachment:32xur4g0]
It's contains:
- aspireone-ata_piix-udma66-2.6.27-rc7.patch
- aspireone-ath5k-led-2.6.27-rc7.patch
- aufs-20080922-2.6.27-rc7.patch
- bootsplash-3.1.6-2.6.27-rc7.patch
- coretemp-atom-2.6.27-rc7.patch and
- config-2.6.27-rc7-bh

 

If too lazy building your own kernel, you can download 2.6.27-rc9 for Aspire One from http://rapidshare.com/files/152247034/l ... r.bz2.html .

If saved in /home/user/Downloads:

Code:

$ cd /
$ sudo tar xvjf /home/user/Downloads/linux-2.6.27-rc9-bh-aspireone.tar.bz2

Edit your grub.conf:

Code:

$ sudo vi /boot/grub/grub.conf

...
title Linpus Linux 2.6.27-rc9-bh
        rootnoverify (hd0,0)
        kernel /boot/bzImage-2.6.27-rc9-bh ro root=LABEL=linpus vga=0x311 splash=silent loglevel=1 console=tty1 quiet
        initrd /boot/initrd-splash.img

For better audio control and wakeup after suspend:

Code:

$ sudo vi /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base

options snd-hda-intel model=toshiba

Disable ath5k wireless module, my above kernel have both ath5k and madwifi wireless module:

Code:

$ sudo vi /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

...
blacklist ath5k

Reboot and select "Linpus Linux 2.6.27-rc9-bh"

 

blackhawk, vga=0x314 (64k colors) or 0x315 (16M colors) gives 800x600 resolution, an improvement over the 640x480 you get with 0x311. 314 appears to be a bit faster.

 

My sexy splash screen still in 640x480 format Thanks for your input.

 

blackhawk: the LED mod works - thanks very much! I also applied the ata_piix mod, I've yet to run some benchmarks but it seems to have made the internal ssd work a little less hard, and the system a bit more spiffy. Could be placebo effect though.

For those interested, I have deb packages for Ubuntu Intrepid, kernel version rc9 with wifi (led), lan, coretemp, powertop, unsafe resume, bluetooth (and some other stuff) compiled in. Bios to X load about 14 seconds. But I need a place to upload them, my ftp speed to my free server is abysmal

 

blackhawk, thanks for that 2.6.27 kernel, it works great except I had to delete the suggested /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base to get audio working (it also caused NetworkManager to be greyed out on the desktop and not report its status??)


Bushmills: nice tip for the console resolution, I use vga=0x314 (16k colors), it's particularly useful if you enable virtual consoles (ctrl-alt-fn where n=1,2,3,4,5,6) (comment out 'DontVTSwitch' and 'DontZap' in /etc/X11/xorg.conf and add these lines to /etc/inittab

n:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty ttyn

where n=1,2,3,4,5,6 (use ctrl-alt-f7 to return to graphical screen)

btw, you can test console videomodes by installing vbetest (sudo yum install vbetest), you add 512 to the mode number and use it in the vga kernel parameter (or convert to hex, 0x314 = 512+276)