Linux on Laptops

Installing OpenSUSE 11.4 on Acer Aspire A4551-4315

Last updated: 18 September 2011

See here for installing Slackware Linux.
General Hardware Specifications of Acer Aspire A4551-4315:

Hardware Components

Status under Linux

Notes

AMD Turion II X2 P520 (2.3GHz, 2MB L2 cache)

Works

14.0" HD Acer CineCrystal LED LCD

Works (resolution 1366x768)

ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250

Works

Proprietary ATI drivers work good; see below

3 GB Memory

Works

Western Digital 750 GB HDD

Works

(Upgraded from stock 320GB)

Multi Card Reader (SD/MMC)

Works

DVD Super Multi DL Drive

Works

Have not tested Dual Layer yet.

Internal Acer Nplify 802.1b/g/n

Works

1.3 MP Webcam

Works

USB ports (3)

Works

6 cell Lithium Ion Battery

Works

Gives longer life with proprietary ATI drivers

HDA ATI Sound Board w/ HDMI and Realtek ALC272

Works

Silken touchpad mouse

Works

Scroll region doesn't totally work but I don't use it

This laptop is operating under Kernel version 2.6.37.6.

Basic Installation of OpenSUSE 11.4:

I chose OpenSUSE 11.4 because it is easy to use, yet remains stable and professional. While I was a long time Slackware Linux user, I wanted to move towards something that didn't take as much time to maintain and use (though Slackware Linux is not labor intensive, you must do everything yourself on it, especially as far as adding software). OpenSUSE and Mandriva Linux are the two that I would highly recommend as far as Linux distributions that are "easy to use" yet still "professional" (i.e. not taking away the system administrator's ability to make major changes).

Installing OpenSUSE 11.4 is very easy. The auto-config option ("Use Automatic Configuration" I think) did its job properly. However, I create my own LUKS/LVM container for encrypting /home and swap so that I can choose 128bit rather than the default 256 bit.

Other than that, OpenSUSE has awesome things like AppArmor. You can also disable pulse audio, a huge plus for those of us who don't need it and/or don't like it.

Setting up additional features for OpenSUSE 11.4

App Armor: I found it best to use aa-autodep to add programs to the list of profiles and then set all profiles to "complain" for at least a week to profile how they are used. App Armor works good and works. Just keep in mind that although the program is allowed to do something, it still depends on your priveleges as a user for what it can actually do. I usually don't use App Armor except for Skype and programs that tend to be developmental in nature (i.e. not as stable as I would like), not the whole computer.

This laptop's internal hard drive's defaults to Advanced Power Management (APM) at 128. I use a script, however, that either sets APM to 1 (not plugged in) or disabled (plugged in).

Suspend works good with OpenSUSE, although the wireless RFKill function sometimes gets "stuck". I have not found a way to get OpenSUSE to unblock the wireless (seems to be related to the kernel drivers), however, so I don't use suspend unless I plan on not using wireless when I resume.

I've noted with experience that the non-proprietary ATI drivers (in kernel and Xorg) are more stable than the ATI proprietary ones. I would recommend using the non-proprietary ones unless you are a "hard-core gamer".

Unresolved Issues:

If you want to do an install where your /home and swap only are encrypted (not entire hard drive) you must still choose the LVM-based and select "encrypted" and create your own partition setup. This isn't hard: you create an unencrypted partition for root, a partition that's LVM and encrypted (and give it the password), then add that to the Volume Group, add logical volumes for swap and /home, and you're done. The installer does not give you a choice as to the encryption strength so be prepared for 256bit AES. You can try to use your own (I prefer 128bit AES) and see if the installer asks you when you begin for the password. If it does and it recognizes what's on the LVM, you should be good. If not, you'll have to ask it to set one up for you, in which case, again, 256bit AES. I had problems where the installer asked for the password, found the logical volumes, but then after install it would not seem to be able to open them during boot despite setting up /etc/crypttab and everything else. Best choice: let the installer do it for you. It might be possible to change the bit strength afterwards but I'm thinking that you'd probably have to recreate the LVM, which means that the LVM's UID would change, meaning more boot time problems ahead.
Slackware 13.37 and OpenSUSE 11.4 have issues with this touchpad's scroll region. It scrolls downward when touched but not upwards. I have not tried yet to configure it to work on either of these Linux distributions because usually I don't even use the scroll region.

Configuration Files: none needed.

Performance:

I/O Performance:

Internal Seagate Momentus 7200rpm 500GB Hybrid Drive: 101 MB/sec buffered read. Startup (cold boot) tends to be 17 seconds or less.
Seagate Barracuda 80GB 7200 rpm desktop hard drive, USB-SATA adapter: 30.61 MB/sec buffered read.
USB Iomega eGo 1TB External Hard Drive: 29.87 MB/sec buffered read.
4GB USB stick: 22.19 MB/sec buffered read.

4GB SD card, internal SD card reader: 12.50 MB/sec.
Internal CD drive: 3.30 MB/sec (note: this is per hdparm -T. In real life I have seen copy speeds from 5.0 to 7.6 MB/sec, and this is probably due to differences in rotational speeds at the point on the optical media the drive is reading the information).
I use ext4 because I once benchmarked all the filesystems on an SD card using more realistic tasks (like installing, removing, and upgrading packages) and found ext4 to be the fastest filesystem out of them all.

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