Installing Suse 10.2 on an Acer Aspire 3692wlmi

Last updated: Wed 14 Feb 2007

General Hardware Specifications of Acer Aspire 3692wlmi

Hardware Components	Status under Linux	Notes
Intel(R) Celeron(R) M CPU 420 @ 1.60GHz	Works	No special procedure required during installation.
15.4 WXGA+ TFT Display	Works	Use 915resolution to get 1280x800 otherwise works perfectly at 1280x768
Intel Mobile 945GM	Works; 3D acceleration works too	No special procedure required during installation.
1GB, DDR2-333, (2x512) - Max 2GB	Works	No special procedure required during installation
80 GB 5400RPM Hard Drive	Works	No special procedure required during installation
Floppy Drive	Unknown	Not present. USB floppy drive should work but not tested
Integrated Network Card	Works	No special procedure required during installation
Internal 56k Modem	Unknown	Untried; could be unsupported
DVD RW/+R/RAM Reader/Writer Drive	Works	Read/write with no problems. No special procedure required during installation
Internal Broadcom Wireless Networking	Works	Needs firmware for the card to work, after that nothing special is required. You can also use ndiswrapper if you want - I don't
6-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery	Works	No special procedure required during installation
Intel 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller	Works	No special procedure required during installation
Scrollpad/side scroll/4-way buttons	Works	No special procedure required during installation
PCMCIA Slot	Works	No special procedure required during installation
Multi Card Reader	Not Working	Few more tests to do, don't have an mmc/sd card to try fixes as yet.
USB Camera	Not Working	Manufacturer appears uninterested in supporting this under linux. No working drivers are available, although there is one that gets part way but breaks usb badly.
Bluetooth Adaptor	Unknown	Bluetooth is a factory option which was not present on this laptop

This laptop is operating under Kernel version 2.6.18


catnip:~ # uname -a
Linux catnip 2.6.18.2-34-default #1 SMP Mon Nov 27 11:46:27 UTC 2006 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

Output of lspci


catnip:~ # lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 02)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
06:01.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX (rev 02)
06:02.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)
06:04.0 CardBus bridge: ENE Technology Inc CB-712/4 Cardbus Controller (rev 10)
06:04.1 FLASH memory: ENE Technology Inc ENE PCI Memory Stick Card Reader Controller (rev 01)
06:04.2 Generic system peripheral [Class 0805]: ENE Technology Inc ENE PCI Secure Digital Card Reader Controller (rev 01)
06:04.3 FLASH memory: ENE Technology Inc FLASH memory: ENE Technology Inc: (rev 01)
06:04.4 FLASH memory: ENE Technology Inc Unknown device 0551 (rev 01)

Output of lsusb (showing USB Camera)


catnip:~ # lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 005 Device 002: ID 0402:5602 ALi Corp.
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Basic Installation of Suse 10.2

Ok, look.. I'm serious, you just install it - there's not much else you need to do other than what I list below:

Tweaks Required

Broadcom wireless card sort of works out of the box, all you need is the firmware installed and it works
To get the multimedia buttons working you need a slightly modified version of acerhk and include these changes in /usr/share/hotkey-setup/acer.hk - You might also want to look at my .Xmodmap file. modprobe acerhk with force_series=3690

Unresolved issues

Internal Modem is probably not going to work, but to be frank I don't really care :)
The currency keys (Euro and Dollar) not yet working.
USB Camera doesn't work. It's pretty poor anyway. No working drivers (m560x) appear to be available anywhere for it.
Multi-card reader not working/fully tested. I've tried a couple of things there are a couple more on my list.