Gentoo Linux, Kernel 2.6 & Acer Travelmate 611TXV

Last updated 2008:08:01.

Current status (August 2008)

Since this page still gets more hits than I ever expected I want to release a small update: I still have my old Travelmate 611TXV and it's still working. I have never received a driver for the smart card reader, therefore I have never actually tried to get it work. Maybe there is a binary version available now.

What's working so far?

Everything except the Smartcard Reader/Writer. Since I upgraded to kernel 2.6.0 all information on this page is related to kernel 2.6. I had the machine running under 2.x without any problems either.

Part Detailed information Module
Harddrive Fujitsu MHT2060AT (standard was an IBM 20GB drive)
Graphic Card Intel Corp. 82815 CGC [Chipset Graphics Controller] agpgart
DRI is finally working (with XFree 2.3.99)
Sound Intel Corp. 82801BA/BAM AC'97 Audio snd_intel8x0
PCMCIA O2 Micro, Inc. OZ6933 Cardbus Controller
USB Intel Corp. 82801BA/BAM USB usb_core + uhci_hcd
Network Intel Corp. 82801BA/BAM/CA/CAM Ethernet Controller e100
Powermanagement APM (better than ACPI under 2.6) apm
ACPI (working under 2.4 and 2.6) *1 acpi
ACPI Buttons (Sleep, Lid, Power) working with 2.4 and 2.6
Speedstep Working - switching with speedfreqd
Modem Intel Corp. Intel 537 [82801BA/BAM AC'97 Modem] slarm *2
CD/DVD TOSHIBA DVD-ROM SD-C2502
Infrared Port Reported to work under 2.6 but not tested yet smc-ircc
Smartcard Reader/Writer Binary drivers will be shipped really soon *3
Serial Port Working - compiled into the kernel
Parallel Port Working - but not set up (since I never have to use it)
Synaptics Touchpad Working - compiled into the kernel
Launch Keys Working under 2.4, no driver for 2.6 (yet)

Completely working
Working, but 2.4 only
Not working yet

*1 ACPI under 2.4.x worked, but I could not switch to external output with Fn + F5 (crash!). Also Fn + F6 (dim screen) crashed the entire notebook with ACPI - no debugging possible since the crash wasn't even caused by a kernel panic.
*2 Modem works with drivers (version 2.9.3) from www.smlink.com (drivers for kernels <= 2.4 and 2.6 available)
*3 I never received any binary drivers (this information was added on the 01. August 2008).

.config

That is my .config for 2.6.0. It's not perfect since I'm still playing around with the new kernel. But it's good enough to get your TM 61x up and running with Gentoo! ;-)

lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 82815 815 Chipset Host Bridge and Memory Controller Hub (rev 11)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corp. 82815 CGC [Chipset Graphics Controller] (rev 11)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801BAM/CAM PCI Bridge (rev 03)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82801BAM ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82801BAM IDE U100 (rev 03)
00:1f.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801BA/BAM USB (Hub #1) (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corp. 82801BA/BAM SMBus (rev 03)
00:1f.4 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801BA/BAM USB (Hub #2) (rev 03)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corp. 82801BA/BAM AC'97 Audio (rev 03)
00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corp. Intel 537 [82801BA/BAM AC'97 Modem] (rev 03)
01:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corp. 82801BA/BAM/CA/CAM Ethernet Controller (rev 03)
01:0f.0 CardBus bridge: O2 Micro, Inc. OZ6933 Cardbus Controller (rev 02)
01:0f.1 CardBus bridge: O2 Micro, Inc. OZ6933 Cardbus Controller (rev 02)

Harddrive

The 20GB drive was getting way to small and too loud, so I upgraded to a really quiet 60GB Fujitsu drive. I personally don't like having partitions for /home etc. on a one harddisk system. So I just have one big partition for my root filesystem and (of course) one for swap. Since I (have to) use Windows occasionally there is one ~7GB FAT32 partition.
Here is what fdisk says:

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System Additional comments (not from fdisk)
/dev/hda1 * 1 829 6658911 b W95 FAT32
/dev/hda2 830 834 40162+ 83 Linux "/boot" ext2
/dev/hda3 835 897 506047+ 82 Linux swap 2 * 256 MB (RAM) = ~512 MB
/dev/hda4 898 7296 51399967+ 83 Linux "/" Reiserfs


/etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6

I like using my USB keyboard and USB mouse while working at home, so remember to adapt the autoload to your needs!

apm
intel_agp
e100
usbcore
hid
uhci_hcd
evdev
snd-intel8x0
snd-pcm-oss
aes

Graphic Card

DRI is finally working with XFree 4.3.99. I experienced problems with 4.3.0 and finally decided to upgrade to 4.3.99 - it was worth it! :-)
I like using my USB keyboard and USB mouse while working at home - so you have to adapt the XF86Config to your needs!
My XF86Config

Sound

The soundcard is working out of the box. No special configuration is required. I'm using ALSA with 2.6. With kernel 2.4.x I was running OSS (ALSA was kind of buggy).

PCMCIA

PCMCIA is working under 2.6. But right now I don't have the need to use it - I will test it with a 802.11b card pretty soon.

USB

My USB keyboard and mouse are working fine. Sometimes I have to attach my Olympus camera it is also working (you need SCSI and USB mass storage in your kernel!).

Network

With kernel 2.4 I had problems with the eepro100 driver (crash of the network card). I tried using the e100 driver (original Intel) and it worked fine - so I'm still sticking to the Intel driver. No problems at all.

Powermanagement

There is not much to do - just enable APM in your kernel!

- I will put some ACPI scripts for 2.4 / 2.6 here -

Speedstep

With 2.4 (and ACPI enabled) Speedstep was not working at all(I tried ALL of the patches out there). Meanwhile I'm using APM and Speedstep is working fine. You can switch from 850 MHz to 700 Mhz and of course visa vers.

Modem

A friend of mine bought an IBM notebook and his Intel modem (onboard) started working under Linux with a driver from Smart Link. I tried to use the same driver and....it worked! :-)
The dmesg output tells you that the modem is not supported, but the driver continues to set it up. You will have the necessary devices in your /dev directory - for more information have a look into the README of the Smart Link drivers.

This is the dmesg output when you load the Smart Link modules:

This driver is not compatible with the installed modem codec.
Please contact your modem provider for support.
slamr: slamr0 is ICH card.

Infrared Port

Working, but not configured in my .config

Smartcard Reader/Writer

I contacted O2Micro asking for a binary driver they released about two years ago. They told me that they don't ship that one anymore, but there will be a new version coming up really soon (December 2003 / January 2004). This one should be compatible with all Acer Notebook Smartcard Readers/Writers. I think it's a good idea that everybody interested in this driver should mail to info@o2micro.com. They will put you on the developers list.
A working Smartcard Reader under Linux is quiet great - you can store certificates on there and login without a password etc..

Synaptics Touchpad

The kernel has a really nice synaptics driver (2.4.x and 2.6). You just have to enable it and configure your XF86config (see mine for details!).

dmesg output:

Synaptics Touchpad, model: 1
Firmware: 4.6
180 degree mounted touchpad
Sensor: 18
new absolute packet format
Touchpad has extended capability bits
-> four buttons
-> multifinger detection
-> palm detection


To configure the touchpad you need to edit the XF86Config. My XF86Config can be found here.

Launch Keys

Working driver for 2.4, but no driver for 2.6 (yet).