Acer Aspire One On Ubuntu

[zzSleepyJohn]

Big C were doing a special offer on Acer Aspire One 522 netbooks last week, and as I was in dire need of a backup computer and it was a cheap deal, I got them to put 2GiB RAM in one and bought it. It came with no operating system except text-based Linpus Linux, and I didn't really want the hassle of Windows, neither legit or otherwise, so I took at as it was and installed Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty) on it myself.

I was expecting the 1.0GHz AMD processor would make it feel slow, but that hasn't been my experience at all so far. Natty does tend to freeze up during initial loading when it's cold (but strangely not if I've warmed it up with a short session in Linpus Linux first). However, once warmed up and logged in it's stable and doesn't freeze. Maybe this could be a processor issue; I'm not sure. It has a 320GB HDD, built-in wifi and webcam, and on the whole seems great considering the size and price.

But I do have a few problems with it's sound. There's just a single (left) built-in speaker and an earphone socket, but when I plug earphones in, the speaker continues to play and there's no sound in the earphones at all. I haven't got the sound system muted anywhere as far as I know, and I'm using the same Natty sound programme and same pair of earphones on another laptop without any problem. On-line radio and video clips only play silently, so there's clearly something wrong, but I can't tell whether it's h/w or s/w or some kind of compatibiity between the two causing my problem. Also, neither can I detect any sound from the built-in mic nor from an external mic in the mic socket.

Before taking my netbook back to Big C and telling them sound doesn't work, I really ought to try and find a way of proving whether there's a h/w problem or not.

The netbook comes with an Acer DVD full of Windows based utilities, including a Conexant audio codec, but AFAIK none of this is of much use to me.

Wondering if any Linux users here have tried an Aspire One netbook, and if so, with what result? Appreciate any comments.

[dave_boo]

I don't have that model, but I've struggled with similar issues on other laptops. Mostly always you have to add a snd-intel-hda or similar line to your /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf. If your lsusb gives you a 1002:4383 result for the soundcard, try putting in

#Headphone-Fix

options snd-hda-intel model=generic

Open up a terminal and do the following to get it done.

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

I don't know if that will mute the onboard sound while playing through the headphones, but have you also mucked around in Pulse Audio settings?

[justsumhelp]

This is not specific to your problem but just a general suggestion, the unity/gnome desktop manager that ships with Natty 11.04 is rather resource heavy for a netbook. I have used both lubuntu and crunchbang on my old msi u100 and they both work well (preferring crunchbang). Both have very good communities and are geared towards the netbook crowd, so most likely your question has been asked and solved there.

[zzSleepyJohn]

Yes, I agree with you, justsum, about Natty being resource heavy, not only from the desktop angle, but in the wasteful way it gobbles up ram and cache. When I upgraded another laptop from Karmic to Natty last month, I immediately ran into a problem whereby swapfile doesn't get cleared after successive hibernations, and as more cache gets added to it between each hibernation, it's not long before the next hibrnation fails. Community's solution seems to be only to increase swapfile size, which doesn't really address the basic problem. An ongoing long saga on this at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1796851 presently has me totally preoccupied trying to recover from a broken partition table on my main working laptop that happened while I was trying to increase the swap capacity there. But yes, once I get over my current crisis, maybe I should have a look at crunchbang. Thanks for the suggestion.

[zzSleepyJohn]

Thanks dave_boo. Let me try this and come back to you. Just now, as per my last post, I've descended into crisis mode on another computer and need to try and restore basic communications there first.

[Jiu-Jitsu]

May I suggest that you test it with Windows XP(or Windows 7) first? If you don't you might get short shrift from the seller if you cannot demonstrate to them that it is not working?

If it does work with Windows, at least you will have eliminated it as a hardware problem.

[zzSleepyJohn]

Yes, thanks Jiu-Jitsu, That thought had actually also crossed my mind, and that's partly why I thought I'd ask here first if anyone's tried Ubuntu on an Aspire One.

I've been trying to migrate completely away from Windows for a few years now, but none-too-successfully I have to admit, so whenever some requirement like this for Windows comes up, I do my best to find a way round it for a while. Sometimes I do find a way around it, and sometimes I don't!

The only copy of Windows I have is a 5-year old legit version of XP that's registered and in use on another laptop, so I couldn't install that permanently. However I suppose I could use its 30 day trial period to prove whether my sound problems are h/w or s/w. I daresay if I saw the same sound problems on Windows and proved it was h/w to my own satisfaction, I could send the netbook to Acer for repair under guarantee and they'd probably end up installing a new Windows in it for test purposes,

[Jiu-Jitsu]

I'll send you the retail XP Home SP3 disc if you would prefer.

[Jiu-Jitsu]

I'll send you the image via PM. You can check the hash to ensure it is the unadulterated item.

Once installed, I'd like you to run a test for me. I'll include it in the PM.

[Jiu-Jitsu]

Look here

I suggest you carry out my instructions and report back. That way if all is positive, you will be able to Dual Boot. So at least you will have the choice of Windows(where everything will work as it should) or Linux.