Linux on Acer Aspire AS9300 3716 Laptop

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I bought this laptop Acer Aspire AS9300 3716 from newegg (product detail), with the express purpose of running Linux on it. I cannot run Windows due to security problems and lack of automation. I consider Microsoft windows to be an operating system equivalent of "junk food". For $819, this was a good price for a 17" laptop. These pages describe my experiences with it.

I upgraded the hard drive to 250GB Toshiba Hard Drive. I removed the original HD. This way I have the original Windows hard drive that would be useful if I decide to sell the laptop.

This laptop has a 64 bit AMD CPU. The following things are working:

• Boots, runs
• Wifi
• Ethernet
• Microphone
• Sound
• Built in Webcam
• Bluetooth (with USB dongle)

Webcam

It was not recognized. lsusb shows it as Bus 002 Device 003: ID 5986:0100. After a web search for this bus ID, I found that it is called orbicam and it should be covered by uvcvideo. I ran this command:

root:~/install/src/linux-uvc ###svn checkout svn://svn.berlios.de/linux-uvc/linux-uvc/trunk
A    trunk/uvc_ctrl.c
A    trunk/uvc_queue.c
A    trunk/uvc_video.c
A    trunk/uvc_v4l2.c
A    trunk/uvc_compat.h
A    trunk/uvc_driver.c
A    trunk/uvcvideo.h
A    trunk/Makefile
Checked out revision 117.

  

After that I messed around, a long time, with google, etc just trying to understand what was the archutecture and how it worked. I discovered that I had a good device /dev/video0. The command to see my kitchen on the webcam, was

    $$ mplayer tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:device=/dev/video0:fps=25
    
    or
    
    $$ fswebcam webcam-grabbed-pic.jpg
    
  

WiFi using MadWiFi

My Wifi card is Atheros5005G or something like that. I installed madwifi and it seems to work fine.

Bluetooth and use of Cell phone as a modem

This is NOT specific to Acer Aspire. It would work the same on any other linux laptop. It is specific to Cingular's GPRS access and use of bluetooth to talk to a cell phone.

Here's what I defined as my command to connect to Cingular Wireless. The alias I call is called Cingular.

alias cingular="sudo pppd -d -d call cingular &"
alias Cingular="route del default; killall -9 pppd & sleep 4; cingular";

To use bluetooth, I reboot my cell phone (due to bugs in the phone). Then I insert the bluetooth dongle in the USB slot. Then I type Cingular in my command prompt.

Here's my file /etc/ppp/cingular:

/dev/rfcomm0 115200

debug
noauth
connect '/usr/sbin/chat -v -f /etc/ppp/chat-cingular'
modem -detach
crtscts
connect-delay 10
noccp
deflate 15
persist
defaultroute
usepeerdns
ipcp-accept-remote
ipcp-accept-local
user ISP@CINGULARGPRS.COM
password CINGULAR1

Here's my file /etc/ppp/chat-cingular:

ABORT BUSY ABORT 'NO CARRIER' ABORT VOICE ABORT 'NO DIALTONE' ABORT 'NO DIAL TONE' ABORT 'NO ANSWER' ABORT DELAYED '' "ATZ" 'OK' 'AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","ISP.CINGULAR"'
OK-AT-OK "ATDT*99***1#"
CONNECT \d\c

When the laptop was connecting to cell phone for the first time, the cell phone asked me if I want to bond with the laptop. I said yes. Then the cell phone asked me for a PIN. I specified a pin. Then the laptop popped a little message in the top right corner of the screen asking something like "click here to set up a pin" or something like that. I clicked that and entered the same number. I may not be remembering this correctly.