Acer Aspire 4520 and Ubuntu 8.04 64 Bit

After using the Ubuntu 7.10 64 Bit for about 1 year i decided to format and go Microsoft since i am taking MCSE for this year.

However the itch to go back to the Open Source community was too strong lol !

So i ordered from Ubuntu a 8.04 Desktop 64-bit Edition and away i went.

Now this time, the CD installed everything BUT the Display and Wifi. The last time i had to do it in safe mode.

I hate this about linux sometimes, but it pushes you to find an alternative and also to challenge ure googling skills hehehe !

So anyways as per my initial post at http://jeisern.blogspot.com/2008/01/acer-aspire-4520-and-ubuntu-gutsy.html, i can only follow the basic instructions.

Now for the display, you can basically follow the initial instructions as below

Go to Applications - Add/Remove
Type nvidia and choose : nvidia binary X.org driver ('new' driver )
Click on apply button and wait until the installation finished
Go to system – Restricted Drivers Manager – enable the NVIDIA

BUT you do not need to do the below.

open terminal
type sudo vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf
replace the resolution manually from “1024x768” to “1280x800”
reboot the computer

Initially when i checked out the xorg.conf file the resolution line does not appear in the Screen Section.

I manually added and the whole screen went down to low graphics mode, ouch!

Then all i did was re-enabled Nvidia in the Restricted driver and rebooted and all was good.

NEXT for the Wifi....THIS IS A PAIN believe me, took me a night to figure it all out.

First i downloaded the Windows XP Driver from the Acer 4520 CD which was provided at purchased time. Actually, i can barely remember where i got the files from. All i know is that, the folder is named ar5007eg-64-0.2, if you got this folder then it will definitely work. Er...worked for me la...hehehe

PLEASE Take note, that you cannot simply use any drivers for the Atheros Wifi, i tried the Vista version and also the Windows XP from Ronald Soo's blog and it did not work. I do not know if it is becoz i have not installed the acer-acpi or the acerwificontroller package though. But kudos to Ronald for hosting the files. That was a selfless act of kindness.

http://ronaldsoo.com/2007/08/31/acer-aspire-4520/

Then i install ndiswrapper, ndiswrapper-utils-1.9, wicd,

Initially, this will allow you to see the AP but u cannot access it, donno for what reason it did not work, since i am no super techie. I messed around with the settings somemore and re-checked what i did the last time.


Next i installed acer_acpi and acer-wireless-controller since i referred to what i did again. Problem here, last time someone by the name of mumblyworld provided a deb package, but now its no longer available....so i had to download the tar for both package and also the build-essentials to compile both files.

Oh yeah, then i also had to disable the support for Acer HAL and also the support for the Atheros Wifi Lan Card in the Restricted Drivers option tabs.

After that make sure you select Wicd becoz their support for Wext (WPA) is good. Wifi Radar conflicts and only allows for WEP the last time i used it. In 7.10 i had to download wpasupplicant to allow wicd to work, this time it was already there.


Here is also a good site to refer to : http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=715187