OSS Ramblings
http://www.ossramblings.com/acer_aspire_5920_with_ubuntu_linux
The New Laptop
I just picked up an Acer Aspire 5920. I did a bit of research and people seem to be having good luck with them with Ubuntu Hardy 8.04.
Being brave, I never even booted into Vista. I went straight to Ubuntu.
First, I downloaded and installed from the 64 bit Alternate install CD. I used the alternate install because I wanted to encrypt the hard drive and the installer has full support for installing to an encrypted partition. Being a laptop, I don't want my files floating the Internet if someone steals it.
After install, I opened the volume control and enabled the "Surround Sound" output and set the volume on it. I also installed the restricted nVidia driver. The wireless worked out of the box, once I figured out where the button was on the laptop to enable it. The webcam worked perfectly.
The screen on this thing is gorgeous. The only downside I see is that my palms constantly hit the touchpad (which is HUGE) when I'm typing.
The wireless strength is amazing. It's got full bars where other laptops I've used in my office would only have 1/2 signal strength. It does put off a bit of heat, though.
All in all, the best Linux laptop decision I could have made I think. Literally no hassles to set up Ubuntu 8.04.
Encrypted, Eh??
I'm intrigued. Once I realized today that a dev environment change would present an opportunity for me to rebuild my laptop setup to improve the dev layout, I thought this would be a good addition since it's a laptop.
Thanks for highlighting this... and here's to hoping we both have good luck with it ;-)
Acer 5920 W/ Unbuntu
I have an Acer Aspire 5920 and just installed Ubuntu 9.02 on it. I am having one problem and went looking for solutions and found your site. I'm curious if you have any suggestions....
I ran the computer for just over a year with the original Vista instillation. It would crash on a daily basis and I just plain am sick of MS and their BS. The HDD up and died one day, so I bought a new HDD, threw it in and booted up ubuntu. I went with the regular 32bit instillation. I saw that you went with the 64bit instillation. Why?
The only problem I am having, is the extreme left side of my keyboard will not work (a,s,q,w,z,x,1,2,`,ect...). I can't figure this out. Did you have any problem with the keyboard when you first installed?
Thanks
Billy
Congrats on the switch!
I went with the 64 bit because I've run 64 bit Ubuntu for about 4 years now and I only experience one problem - the Macromedia Flash browser plugin occasionally crashes causing me to have to restart the browser to view Flash apps. Software that's compiled for 64 bit architecture will commonly run faster. For instance, when I first switched over I did it with a server. I originally had 32 bit Ubuntu server installed and benchmarked our own application we'd developed and compiled for 32 bit. I then installed the same edition of Ubuntu, but 64 bit, recompiled our app for 64 bit (with no source changes) and experienced about a 30% speed boost. Obviously that's not always the case, but there are advantages sometimes, and overall I'd rather make use of the hardware I have.
Now I haven't installed 9.04 on my laptop yet - honestly I'm waiting a bit to let things shake out. I did install it on my desktop however. On my laptop I'm currently running 8.10, and I've never seen anything like what you describe. One software thing I can think of that might cause it would be if you chose the wrong keyboard type when you installed (instead of the basic US keyboard layout.) A hardware possibility would be that maybe when swapping the hard drive you knocked a connection loose inside and just didn't notice until later? Or it was loose enough that after install it disconnected some of the lines.
You might try booting the desktop edition live CD and see if the live CD has the same keyboard problem - if so then it's likely a hardware problem.
On a side note, you may want to know that unfortunately my keyboard and touchpad tweaks for the Acer in Ubuntu don't apply to 8.10 or 9.04 due to the implementation of the new HAL (hardware access layer.)
Post new comment