Acer TravelMate 4001WLMi

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To make a long story short, the notebook runs basically fine with Fedora Core 5 out of the box, although not all details function as they should. More on that later.

Although I had Fedora Core 2 installed, I decided to go for a brand new install of Fedora Core 5.

When the Fedora boot screen came on, I selected "linux askmethod". This allowed me to choose my local LAN server to proceed the installation from. By pointing the installer to the location where I kept the Fedora Core ISO images, the installer will use these and I don't need to keep feeding it with CD's.

I didn't change the existing partitioning, since that was okay.

Part Start End Size Type Use

hda1 1 1216 9767488+ c W95 FAT32

hda2 1217 1254 305235 83 Linux /boot

hda3 1255 7169 47512237+ 5 Extended

hda4 7170 7296 1020127+ 82 Linux swap Swap

hda5 1255 2471 9775521 83 Linux /

hda6 2472 3201 5863693+ 83 Linux /home

The installation went flawlessly. All devices were correctly identified. I installed all accumulated Fedora Core 5 updates, bringing the kernel to version 2.6.17.

A new investigation learned that the following components were not functioning optionally, if at all:

Reading battery and AC adapter status (no info); Works okay with kernel 2.6.18 and later
Controlling the fans (doesn't work);
Accelerated graphics (not available);
Many of the "special keys";
Suspend to RAM;

Major differences with the status after installing Fedora Core 2:

Controlling the CPU speed works;
Wireless drivers are part of the kernel. The firmware needs to be fetched externally due to licensing issues;
Suspend to Disk works; I also experimented with Software Suspend 2, which also works

Kernel patches required: DSDT from initrd.

The rest of this section describes the tricks and hacks needed to get most of these functional again.

Section "Acer keys" attacks the special Acer keys.

Section "ACPI hacking" attacks the harder issues of DSDT errors, and the battery status read out.