Installation story: Debian testing on Acer TravelMate 3012WTMi. This installation was done with the help of other similar stories found on http://www.tuxmobil.org/ which I highly recommend. Things that work 100%: - ethernet works out of the box. - USB and firewire work out of the box. - the bluetoooth button seems to work just fine out of the box. - synaptics TouchPad works out of the box. - wifi works with the ipw3945(d) packages. - Xorg works, with the 915resolution package. - suspend-to-disk works with `hibernate'. - power: I get between 1200mA and 1600mA while idle, depending on display/wifi/bluetooth. Wifi takes about 60mA. Things that still need to be figured out: - still haven't configured the external monitor (not sure how), so that I can plug a (1024x768) projector every once in a while. - suspend-to-disk doesn't work yet with ACPI events (e.g. via powersaved), and neither does it work from the gnome thingy in the top-right corner. - suspend-to-ram doesn't work. It sleeps but freezes upon wake up (even the caps-lock light doesn't respond. Haven't tried the network yet). - the battery "charging rate" is way too large (claims it's charging at 60A, aka 600W ;-), so the GUI widgets keep saying "only 3 more minutes". - sound doesn't work. - the wifi button seems to work to turn the wifi off (I doubt it uses ifdown, but the end result is sufficiently close: wpa_supplicant is stopped). But to turn it on, I have to call ifup after pressing the button. - the webcam supposedly works with gspca. The driver loads, the /dev/video0 device is created, but ekiga doesn't seem to like it. Untested: - bluetooth. - IrDA. - modem. - 5-in-1 card reader. Change log (started around the 25 Feb 2007): - Boot off an old Debian testing netinst CD - install the minimal stuff (ethernet works but no internet access) - reboot: - with a USB key, copy lynx from another machine - bring up ethernet, start lynx, use it to authenticate on the web-page to get internet access - setup /etc/apt/sources.list; apt-get install *-keyring; apt-get upgrade. The kernel used is the stock Debian linux-image-2.6.18-4-686. - install gnome and xorg. dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg. - Xorg works, but only 1024x768 - apt-get 915resolution to get 1280x800. No configuration necessary, great! - apt-get ipw3945d, apt-get ipw3945-modules-2.6.*, wpasupplicant cp /usr/share/doc/wp/examples/... /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf and in /etc/network/interfaces add iface eth2 inet dhcp wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf - apt-get ifplugd to control eth0 - apt-get ntpd; apt-get resolvconf add file /etc/resolvconf/update-libc.d/ntpd: #!/bin/sh /etc/init.d/ntp stop /etc/init.d/ntp start - suspend-to-disk doesn't seem to work (it starts and aborts midway, something about device 8:15 (or somethign like that) failing to snapshot). - apt-get uswsusp - after upgrading the kernel once more, it seems to work - apt-get install hibernate - uncomment the 915resolution line in /etc/hibernate/* - I get constant spurious halts because of "critical system temperature reached" for no apparent reason. After looking fruitlessly for a solution on the web and waiting for a day, it seems the problem has currently disappeared. - tried to look for a good "vga=" parameter for the kernel, but it seems all the modes available have only 80 columns, so anything past the default ends up with oddly short&wide chars. I guess I should just configure the framebuffer.