Ubuntu Natty on the Acer TimelineX 3820T
From David Darts Wiki
Updated: May 9, 2011
Ubuntu Natty 11.04 (AMD64) runs very well on the TimelineX 3820T (I have the 3820T-7459). Installation is rather painless and there are just a few items that need tweaking out of the box - I've listed them below.
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Installation
The first thing you'll want to do is access the computer's BIOS and activate the F12 Boot Menu option. Start your computer and press F2 to enter the BIOS. Navigate to: Main > F12 Boot Menu and toggle "Enabled". Press F10 to Save and Exit.
Next, download a copy of 11.04 AMD64 and create a Live USB stick following these instructions.
Assuming your Acer 3820T is running Windows 7 and you plan to dual boot, you'll first need to partition your HDD. I recommend using GParted which comes pre-installed on the Live version of Ubuntu. Insert your Live USB stick, boot the computer, and press F12 to enter the boot menu. Select your USB stick and initiate a live Ubuntu session.
When prompted, press the "Try Ubuntu" button which will boot you into the Unity environment. Click the Ubuntu logo at the top left corner of the screen to bring up a search dialog. Type GParted and click on the icon to open.
Select the partition you would like to shrink, right click on it and select "Resize/Move". Enter a new size for the partition and be sure that the "Align to" field is set to "MiB" (not cylinder!). Click the "Resize/Move" button and wait until the procedure is completed.
NOTE: Once you have resized the partition, be sure to boot into Windows (2X) before proceeding with the installation. This will allow Windows to automatically rescan the newly-resized partition and write changes to its own bootloader configuration files. If you skip this step, the Windows bootloader will not be able to read the partition table properly and will not boot entirely. If this happens, you may later have to repair the Windows partition bootup files manually using the Windows Recovery Console. Check out this Ubuntu Community Documentation page for more info.
Now insert the Live USB stick, boot the computer, and press F12 to enter the boot menu. Select your USB stick and proceed to install Ubuntu on the empty disk space you created.
Ath9k Wireless Fix
For models equipped with an Atheros card, there is currently a bug with the ath9k wireless driver which causes the network speed to be extremely slow and flaky. Fortunately, there is an easy workaround.
First determine if you have the Atheros wireless card by opening a terminal and typing:
lshw -C network
If you do have this card, simply create the following file:
sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/ath9.conf
And add the following line:
options ath9k nohwcrypt=1
Now restart networking (or reboot) to initiate:
sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart
Note that you can check your wireless speed with the following command:
sudo iwconfig
Touchpad
Natty supports two-finger scrolling though it seems to work better if your two fingers are spaced well apart or if you use three fingers. To activate, click on the Ubuntu logo at the top left corner of the screen and type "mouse" in the dialog box. Click on the mouse icon, navigate to to the Touchpad menu, and select "Two-finger scrolling." Note that TG models appear to have a different touchpad.
Microphone Fix
To activate the microphone, you need to adjust one input settings with the Pulse Audio Volume Control daemon. You can install it with the following command:
sudo apt-get install pavucontrol
Note: You may need to first activate the Universe repository via the Ubuntu Software Center (Edit > Software Sources)
Once pavucontrol is installed, open it with:
pavucontrol
Then click on the "Input Devices" tab and unlock the sliders. Next move the "Right" slider all the way to the left (Silence). Close and reboot. The microphone should now be working.
NOTE: If you are using Skype, go to Options > Sound Devices and uncheck the box beside "Allow Skype to automatically adjust my mixer levels." Otherwise Skype will override your settings under pavucontrol.
