• Contact: Nemti, F3000, ActiuInformatica

• Brand: Acer
• Model: Extensa 5220

• Product website: http://acer.com.au/acer/akc/portablepc.nsf/Page/RWPF2D97F75D3893C36CA2573620049801B

Pending issues

• Suspend doesn't work properly with stock kernel and old BIOS, see notes.

• Sound doesn't work after coming back from hibernation -- See Notes -> Sound, works in hardy.

Known hardware

sudo lshw -short

H/W path               Device      Class       Description
==========================================================
                                   system      Extensa 5220
/0                                 bus         Columbia
/0/0                               memory      105KiB BIOS
/0/4                               processor   Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU          530  @ 1.73GHz
/0/4/5                             memory      64KiB L1 cache
/0/4/6                             memory      1MiB L2 cache
/0/10                              memory      1GiB System Memory
/0/10/0                            memory      1GiB SODIMM Synchronous 533 MHz (1.9 ns)
/0/10/1                            memory      SODIMM Synchronous 533 MHz (1.9 ns) [empty]
/0/100                             bridge      Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub
/0/100/2                           display     Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller
/0/100/2.1                         display     Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller
/0/100/1a                          bus         82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4
/0/100/1a.1                        bus         82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5
/0/100/1a.7                        bus         82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2
/0/100/1b                          multimedia  82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller
/0/100/1c                          bridge      82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1
/0/100/1c/0            eth2        network     NetLink BCM5787M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express
/0/100/1c.1                        bridge      82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2
/0/100/1c.1/0                      network     BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN
/0/100/1c.2                        bridge      82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 3
/0/100/1d                          bus         82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1
/0/100/1d.1                        bus         82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2
/0/100/1d.2                        bus         82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3
/0/100/1d.7                        bus         82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1
/0/100/1e                          bridge      82801 Mobile PCI Bridge
/0/100/1e/6                        bridge      PCIxx12 Cardbus Controller
/0/100/1e/6.1                      bus         PCIxx12 OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
/0/100/1e/6.2                      storage     5-in-1 Multimedia Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/xD)
/0/100/1e/6.3                      system      PCIxx12 SDA Standard Compliant SD Host Controller
/0/100/1f                          bridge      82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller
/0/100/1f.1            scsi3       storage     82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller
/0/100/1f.1/0.0.0      /dev/cdrom  disk        DVDRAM GSA-T20N
/0/100/1f.2            scsi0       storage     82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller
/0/100/1f.2/0.0.0      /dev/sda    disk        80GB Hitachi HTS54168
/0/100/1f.2/0.0.0/1    /dev/sda1   volume      47MiB Windows FAT volume
/0/100/1f.2/0.0.0/2    /dev/sda2   volume      78MiB Windows NTFS volume
/0/100/1f.2/0.0.0/3    /dev/sda3   volume      39MiB Windows NTFS volume
/0/100/1f.2/0.0.0/4    /dev/sda4   volume      74GiB Extended partition
/0/100/1f.2/0.0.0/4/5  /dev/sda5   volume      1906MiB Linux swap / Solaris partition
/0/100/1f.2/0.0.0/4/6  /dev/sda6   volume      72GiB Linux filesystem partition
/0/100/1f.3                        bus         82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller
/0/1                   scsi5       storage     
/0/1/0.0.0             /dev/sdb    disk        2063MB DataTraveler 2.0
/0/1/0.0.0/0           /dev/sdb    disk        2063MB 
/0/1/0.0.0/0/1         /dev/sdb1   volume      1967MiB Windows FAT volume
/1                     eth3        network     Wireless interface

sudo lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM5787M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 02)
04:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN (rev 01)
0f:06.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Cardbus Controller
0f:06.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments PCIxx12 OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
0f:06.2 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments 5-in-1 Multimedia Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/xD)
0f:06.3 SD Host controller: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 SDA Standard Compliant SD Host Controller

Achievements - results

(*) Notes and recipes

Graphic acceleration

You can test if 3D acceleration runs with the game Planet Penguin Racer (if it shows graphics normally or frame-by-frame)

• Ubuntu GNU/Linux 7.04 (Feisty Fawn): Install the package xserver-xorg-video-intel. Then change 'Driver "i810"' to 'Driver "intel"' in /etc/X11/xorg.conf. A more recent driver for Feisty can be found at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=494943

• Ubuntu GNU/Linux 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon): xserver-xorg-video-intel is automatically installed and "intel" automatically configured in /etc/X11/xorg.conf but it's not enough for success. This seems to be related to bug #136598.

  • Solution 1: Running sudo aptitude purge xserver-xgl. However, be aware, as a consequence you won't be able to run things like Beryl until this bug is fixed. Removing xserver-xgl also fixes an issue where only the logout button is shown on the shutdown dialog (possibly bug #136598).

  • Solution 2: Install first Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty) and solve the 3D acceleration with the Feisty procedure. Then upgrade the Ubuntu version to 7.10 (Gutsy). At the moment (2007.12.19) visual effects cannot be activated.

• Ubuntu GNU/Linux 8.04 (Hardy Heron): Working out of the box, including visual effects. 2d/3d works much better when acceleration is switched to XAA: http://linux-tipps.blogspot.com/2008/06/operaintel-x-shared-memory-problem.html .

External monitor works

• Ubuntu GNU/Linux 7.04 (Feisty Fawn): Hotplugging of external monitors doesn't work at the moment (although I've read this will be fixed in Gutsy). Note I haven't tested these, but for the impatient:

  • http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=561865

  • http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-21600.html

So, until then, the external monitor only gets recognised after restarting the X Server. Also, if the external monitor isn't widescreen, the bottom of the LCD screen gets cut off.

Suspends & Hibernates

The system goes into both of these states successfully, however problems arise when coming out. After hibernation, the power button continues flashing and WLAN does not work. When trying to come out of suspension, the system powers off.

• Ubuntu GNU/Linux 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon): Suspend still does not work. Hibernate works, but sound does not work after coming back from hibernation. It works again only after rebooting. (F-3000: Doing the trick mentioned in Sound-section below doesn't fix that hibernation & sound-problem for everyone? Something needs to be corrected either at this point, or at the Sound below, as there's conflicting info.)

F-3000: My experiences (at 27.11.2007): Both suspend and hibernate works well when entering into those states, but when awakening from suspend, problems arise, as it ends up to unix mode with flashing cursor and yellow word "Linu" after it. Hibernate seems to work otherwise 100%, but simply shutting down and starting up the laptop is actually faster.

Djtm2: Got it working fine. At first it shut down and never awoke again. Then I upgraded my Bios from 1.21 to 1.31 -- and my kernel to 2.6.24.1-vanilla. Then my harddrive did not work after resume, IO-errors only. After a bit of tweaking I found out that the kernel parameter combined_mode=libata did fix that for me. Now almost everythings working for me, except the use of the power-saving C2-state, which is used only after suspend/resume, until kernel 2.6.26. Use powertop to check if the power saving states are used properly. If you get 40.000 hz or more you are seeing the bug and they are not used. Boot kernel 2.6.26 or later with idle=nomwait or suspend and resume the machine once to fix it. After a BIOS upgrade the hard disk password must be disabled and reenabled or the system will not wake from suspend to ram.

• Ubuntu GNU/Linux 8.04 (Hardy Heron): (sportember at 18.08.2008) Suspend and hibernate still does not work. Actually, installing a vanilla kernel and upgrading Bios seems a bit much effort for achieving working suspend and hibernate. In 04.2008 I also tried a 2.6.25.x Fedora, and suspend worked without Bios upgrade just fine. I will experiment with some slight reconfiguration of the stock Hardy kernel...

(sportember, some hours later): I have followed the methods described in DebuggingKernelSuspend . I figured out that probably "device ttyp7" or "device device:20" causes the problem. I could not figure out with the lspci command the proper device and currently stuck. Does anyone has some idea about which device causes the problem? Any other ideas? I had the same problem and I think it was the hard disk for me(see above). Try booting with init=/bin/bash and manually going into suspend: mount /sys, echo mem > /sys/power/state. This might show you where the problem lies.

nau (at 12.09.2008): @sportember try 'sudo rmmod psmouse'.

Sounds on speakers

• Ubuntu GNU/Linux 7.04 (Feisty Fawn): To normal use sound devices you must:
  • install "linux-backports-module"
  • add line: "options snd-hda-intel model=acer" to file: /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base
  • reboot your computer

This also fixes sound not working after hibernate, but not the headphone jack.

Mic jack

• Ubuntu GNU/Linux 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex): Volume too slow.

Wireless NIC

Install bcm43xx-fwcutter. Post-installation configuration may fail due to a 404 error, if so, change http://boredklink.googlepages.com/wl_apsta.o to http://xeve.de/down/wl_apsta.o in /usr/share/bcm43xx-fwcutter/install_bcm43xx_firmware.sh, and run sudo dpkg-reconfigure bcm43xx-fwcutter

If you'd prefer to use a native windows driver with ndiswrapper (as this method sometimes works better), you can use the guide at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx/Feisty_No-Fluff following step 2b when you get to it.

• Ubuntu GNU/Linux 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon): works "out of the box" using restricted driver.

• Ubuntu GNU/Linux 8.04 (Hardy Heron): works "out of the box" using proposed B43 restricted driver, but needs to download the package. Once activated the driver, clicking with secondary mouse button on NetworkManager (the net-PC icon) disable and re-enable the Wireless checkbox.

• Ubuntu GNU/Linux 8.10 (INtrepid Ibex): works "out of the box" using proposed B43 restricted driver, but needs to download the package. Once activated the driver, clicking with secondary mouse button on NetworkManager (the net-PC icon) disable and re-enable the Wireless checkbox.

Hardware Switch/LED

The switch on the front side of the laptop which enables and disables WLAN works, but the LED which indicates WLAN state is inverted. It lights when WLAN is disabled and is dark when it's enabled. Loading bcm43xx with option noleds=1 does not help, neither does the acerhk module: Setting the WLAN state through acerhk simply does not work. Note: It works exactly the same in Microsoft Windows (LED is off, when WLAN is activated and on when WLAN is disabled), so perhaps this is a new Acer "policy" or design decision...

F-3000: My experiences (at 4.12.2007): I haven't had similar effects regarding Microsoft Windows Vista and that LED. Although, first time when I was able to successfully install the (restricted) drivers, the led worked inverted for a short time, and since then, it's been dark with Kubuntu. I'll do further examining once I get my hands on the laptop.

PSTN Modem

It has a softmodem that should work with these (paid) drivers: http://www.linuxant.com/drivers/hsf/full/downloads.php http://www.linuxant.com/alsa-driver/ or these free drivers http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/packages/intel/Philippe.Vouters/

Local language characters

• Ubuntu GNU/Linux 8.04 (Hardy Heron): [Del] key not working. Fix at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=766204

CD/DVD drive reads

• Ubuntu GNU/Linux 7.04 (Feisty Fawn): If your system doesn't detect any CD or DVD inserted on the drive, you need to add the parameter 'all_generic_ide' to the kernel.

It can be done editing the /boot/grub/menu.lst : adding a space and all_generic_ide to the "defoptions" string, and do the same at the end of the kernel line.

Memory card reader(s)

• Ubuntu GNU/Linux 7.04 (Feisty Fawn): In order to use the card reader, you may need to do sudo modprobe tifm_sd && sudo modprobe mmc_core.

• Ubuntu GNU/Linux 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon): Even doesn't recognize every card (formats), like Memory Stick. (this might be old info, I'll confirm this once I get my hands on the laptop. -F)

Videocamera

In order to use the webcam, you may need to install linux-uvc (installation guide). Note that the webcam seems to be supported "out of the box" in Intrepid.

I've tested it with (some of these seem to not be working for me at the moment on Intrepid, not sure why):

• luvcview -f yuv (this seems to work on Intrepid)

• gst-launch v4l2src ! ffmpegcolorspace ! ximagesink

• ffmpeg -f video4linux2 -s 320x240 -r 5 -i /dev/video0 -f m4v out.m4v

• kopete configuration dialog

Note: Not all Extensa 5220s have a webcam. The version that comes with Linpus Linux does not have it.

Live-CD boots until desktop?

• Ubuntu GNU/Linux 7.04 (Feisty Fawn): "can't access tty" error on startup. LiveCD requires all_generic_ide parameter at bootup (when LiveCD boot menu loads, press F6 and add all_generic_ide to the prompt then press ENTER). -- Needs confirmation, reported in question #14966 (in Russian).

  • To boot on LiveCD: when boot menu loads, press F6 and write all_generic_ide to the prompt. Then press ENTER.

  • To boot on installed system: edit /boot/grub/menu.lst as root, locate the kernel(s) line, and append it with a space and all_generic_ide

  • Alternative procedure (Bug #106864): Do modprobe piix && exit. I'm not sure how to fix this permanently, so you'll need to do this every startup.

This issue seems to be fixed in gutsy. The initramfs shell still appears, but a simple ctrl+D is all that is needed.

General about Hardware (not really a problem related to Ubuntu?)

If you unplug the power from main while having power connected to the laptop (especially if laptop is shut down), it may cause that the laptop doesn't start at all next time you attempt to boot it.

To fix this, ensure that the power isn't connected to the laptop, remove battery, install it back, and laptop should work as if nothing was wrong.

To avoid this, always first remove the power cord from the laptop first, before unplugging it from the main current.

F-3000: This problem with unability to start the laptop is more of an experience with a single laptop. (If anyone else has had equal experience(s) with same model, please let me know, and I can remove this line)

See also

• PCI bus list

• Product Specifications (PDF)

• Product User Guide (PDF)

• Manual, BIOS updates, Utilities + Drivers (Windows XP + Vista, but may be useful e.g. network drivers) (FTP)

• Hardware Specifications:

  • Video card (GMA X3100)

• Information for other Linux Distributions:

  • Debian

  • Gentoo

  • Arch Linux

  • General Linux

• Irda on the 5220

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CategoryLaptop