NetBSD on the Acer Aspire 1691

Note: I no longer have this laptop.

This is how I configured my laptop to use with NetBSD. I did not figured out how everything worked in one step, but it took me some months to understand what was missing in NetBSD and commit the appropriate bits. That's the main reason why you see different NetBSD versions in this document.

http://global.acer.com/products/notebook/as1690.htm

Laptop information

PCI devices

000:00:0: Intel 82915PM/GM/GMS,82910GML Host Bridge (host bridge, revision 0x03)
000:01:0: Intel 82915PM/GM PCI Express Graphics Port (PCI bridge, revision 0x03)
000:28:0: Intel 82801FB/FR PCI Express Port #0 (PCI bridge, revision 0x04)
000:28:1: Intel 82801FB/FR PCI Express Port #1 (PCI bridge, revision 0x04)
000:28:2: Intel 82801FB/FR PCI Express Port #2 (PCI bridge, revision 0x04)
000:29:0: Intel 82801FB/FR USB UHCI Controller (USB serial bus, revision 0x04)
000:29:1: Intel 82801FB/FR USB UHCI Controller (USB serial bus, revision 0x04)
000:29:2: Intel 82801FB/FR USB UHCI Controller (USB serial bus, revision 0x04)
000:29:3: Intel 82801FB/FR USB UHCI Controller (USB serial bus, revision 0x04)
000:29:7: Intel 82801FB/FR USB EHCI Controller (USB serial bus, interface 0x20, revision 0x04)
000:30:0: Intel 82801BAM Hub-PCI Bridge (PCI bridge, interface 0x01, revision 0xd4)
000:30:2: Intel 82801FB/FR AC'97 Audio Controller (audio multimedia, revision 0x04)
000:30:3: Intel 82801FB/FR AC'97 Modem Controller (modem communications, revision 0x04)
000:31:0: Intel 82801FBM ICH6M LPC Interface Bridge (ISA bridge, revision 0x04)
000:31:1: Intel 82801FB/FR IDE Controller (IDE mass storage, interface 0x8a, revision 0x04)
000:31:3: Intel 82801FB/FR SMBus Controller (SMBus serial bus, revision 0x04)
005:01:0: Texas Instruments PCI7x21/7x11 Cardbus Controller (CardBus bridge)
005:01:2: Texas Instruments PCI7x21/7x11 IEEE 1394 Host Controller (Firewire serial bus, interface 0x10)
005:01:3: Texas Instruments PCI7x21/7x11 Integrated FlashMedia Controller (miscellaneous mass storage)
005:03:0: Intel PRO/Wireless LAN 2200BG Mini-PCI Adapter (miscellaneous network, revision 0x05)
005:08:0: Broadcom BCM5788 10/100/1000 Ethernet (ethernet network, revision 0x03)

ACPI configuration

This laptop comes with a buggy DSDT table, so, we need to patch it. Using NetBSD, that's a matter of adding: 

options         ACPI_DSDT_OVERRIDE
to the kernel config, copy a modified DSDT to src/sys/dev/acpi/acpica/Osd/dsdt.hex and rebuild the kernel.

This enables you to read the battery state information: 

% envstat -r
    acpiacad0 connected
       acpibat0 present
    acpibat0 design cap:      4.400 Ah
 acpibat0 last full cap:      4.034 Ah
    acpibat0 technology:          1
acpibat0 design voltage:     14.400 V
      acpibat0 warn cap:      0.300 Ah ( 7.44%)
       acpibat0 low cap:      0.132 Ah ( 3.27%)
       acpibat0 voltage:     16.800 V
        acpibat0 charge:      4.034 Ah (100.00%)
    acpitz0 temperature:     62.000 degC

Disabling the LCD backlight

You can save battery if you disable the LCD backlight when you close the lid. To achive this, use the radeontool utility avaliable in pkgsrc in conjunction with powerd(8): 

% cat /etc/powerd/scripts/lid_switch
#!/bin/sh -

export PATH=$PATH:/usr/pkg/bin:/usr/pkg/sbin

case "${2}" in
pressed)
        radeontool light off
        exit 0
        ;;
released)
        radeontool light on
        exit 0
        ;;
*)
        logger -p warning "${0}: unsupported event ${2} on device ${1}" >&1
        exit 1
        ;;
esac

IrDA port

Using NetBSD >= 3.99.15, the IrDA port should be recognized as: 

com0 at acpi0 (NSC6001)
com0: io 0x2f8-0x2ff irq 3 drq 1
com0: ns16550a, working fifo
Then in /etc/rc.local I added: 
irdaattach tty00
This requires 
com*		at acpi?
pseudo-device 	irframetty
in your kernel configuration file.

Remarks

At boot, you'll see: 

wd0(piixide0:0:0): using PIO mode 4, Ultra-DMA mode 2 (Ultra/33) (using DMA)
but don't worry. Unfortunately, this is due to some bug in the BIOS that doesn't set the correct UDMA bit. The disk works at UDMA 100.

The Intel PRO/Wireless in this laptop has a software controlled led that blinks when roaming for a WiFi® network. There is no support for it under NetBSD <= 3.0. I added support for it in NetBSD 3.99.13.

What doesn't work

$Id: acerlap.html,v da8a30897e61 2008/09/09 19:03:56 rpaulo $