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linux on amilo li 1718

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Re: linux on amilo li 1718

Postby tomin » Tue Nov 02, 2010 2:14 pm

All I've tried has been for i386. I don't know if Celeron can handle 64-bit OS (I might can it later, cat /proc/cpuinfo |grep lm). I have also tried many other Linux distributions and OSs: Debian 5.0 is fine, Ubuntu 9.04 is installed and fine, in 9.10 mouse and keyboard won't work but boots, OpenSuse 11.3 didn't boot, but got pretty far. Chakra (I think it had Linux version 2.6.34) got stuck after it had booted, but anyway I won't install it on that computer.

Nexenta boots (that's sort of OpenSolaris but with Ubuntu 8.04 programs/packages/something like that). What is the future of OpenSolaris anyway? Now when Oracle has bought it, I mean. I'm not sure should I use OpenSolaris on that computer, because it's not mine but for my dad's work, so it really should work. He has been quite happy with Ubuntu 9.04 until now. Something I haven't tried are BSD-version of Debian (how stable is it? Compared to Debian testing with Linux) or any other BSD and the real OpenSolaris.

I know this is weird issue, but it won't make it any easier to handle. I doubt Fujitsu will give any support if I ask but I might even try that. :P
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Re: linux on amilo li 1718

Postby hikaru » Tue Nov 02, 2010 2:36 pm

tomin wrote:All I've tried has been for i386. I don't know if Celeron can handle 64-bit OS
No, it can't handle 64bit OSes.

tomin wrote:I have also tried many other Linux distributions and OSs: Debian 5.0 is fine, Ubuntu 9.04 is installed and fine, in 9.10 mouse and keyboard won't work but boots, OpenSuse 11.3 didn't boot, but got pretty far.
Well, then I'd just stick with Debian*. It's not that different from Ubuntu. If you set it up properly your dad won't have any problems adapting to it. Maybe you want to try Debian Squeeze already. It's in freeze for some time now and already pretty stable.The release will most likely be some time in february.

tomin wrote:Nexenta boots (that's sort of OpenSolaris but with Ubuntu 8.04 programs/packages/something like that).
Did you manage to get a desktop working on it? I tried a year ago or so, but failed due to broken dependencies.

tomin wrote:What is the future of OpenSolaris anyway? Now when Oracle has bought it, I mean.
I guess OpenSolaris itself is dead. But I'm not quite sure about the future of Illumos. I'd give them another year to see what happens.

tomin wrote:Something I haven't tried are BSD-version of Debian (how stable is it? Compared to Debian testing with Linux) or any other BSD and the real OpenSolaris.
I'm not sure about desktop systems, but I know someone who uses Debian/kFreeBSD on a server, and I haven't seen him complaining about the stability so far. I guess it's as stable as other testing architectures, but there might be some rough edges when it comes to fine tuning.

tomin wrote:I doubt Fujitsu will give any support if I ask but I might even try that. :P
I doubt whether the telephone supporter has even heard of the existence of Linux. ;-)

*) I'm biased. ;-)
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Re: linux on amilo li 1718

Postby tomin » Tue Nov 02, 2010 2:46 pm

hikaru wrote:
tomin wrote:I have also tried many other Linux distributions and OSs: Debian 5.0 is fine, Ubuntu 9.04 is installed and fine, in 9.10 mouse and keyboard won't work but boots, OpenSuse 11.3 didn't boot, but got pretty far.
Well, then I'd just stick with Debian*. It's not that different from Ubuntu. If you set it up properly your dad won't have any problems adapting to it. Maybe you want to try Debian Squeeze already. It's in freeze for some time now and already pretty stable.The release will most likely be some time in february.

Ok. I guess I'll try it next. :) I've used Debian 5.0 with LXDE on one older computer and yes there isn't that much difference between it and Ubuntu (with same desktop). I will anyway use apt-get and other command line tools. :)

hikaru wrote:
tomin wrote:Nexenta boots (that's sort of OpenSolaris but with Ubuntu 8.04 programs/packages/something like that).
Did you manage to get a desktop working on it? I tried a year ago or so, but failed due to broken dependencies.

Well, it was (text-based) installer I booted into. I thought for a second that I'd try another disc, but my ADSL is quite slow and it at least showed me that OpenSolaris itself works.
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Re: linux on amilo li 1718

Postby tomin » Sun Nov 07, 2010 3:18 pm

I installed Debian Squeeze (kernel was 2.6.32), btw I left Ubuntu (and very out of date Vista) still on the hdd. Although (text)installer worked fine (in graphical keyboard didn't work correctly, same happened on VirtualBox), it didn't boot after install without acpi=ht parameter. Now I'm even more out of ideas...
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Re: linux on amilo li 1718

Postby hikaru » Mon Nov 08, 2010 10:38 am

Did you try Debian with Kernel 2.6.26 i.e Lenny or at least the Lenny-kernel under Squeeze? I'm sorry, but since I have no Li 1718 I can't help you much here.

Concerning the keyboard issue there must have gone something wrong with your installations. I installed various Squeeze systems within the last months (i386 & amd64, on real hardware & in VBox), the last one just on Friday and all of them have correctly working keyboards. So even if there is a problem related to your hardware, at least the VBox installation should work.
Is your ISO intact?
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Re: linux on amilo li 1718

Postby tomin » Mon Nov 08, 2010 3:27 pm

hikaru wrote:Did you try Debian with Kernel 2.6.26 i.e Lenny or at least the Lenny-kernel under Squeeze? I'm sorry, but since I have no Li 1718 I can't help you much here.

Concerning the keyboard issue there must have gone something wrong with your installations. I installed various Squeeze systems within the last months (i386 & amd64, on real hardware & in VBox), the last one just on Friday and all of them have correctly working keyboards. So even if there is a problem related to your hardware, at least the VBox installation should work.
Is your ISO intact?

After installation keyboard is fine. I used network install disc. Lenny boots. Doesn't Lenny have quite old programs (for example Firefox/Iceweasel 3.0). Is there any easy way to get Lenny's kernel to (installed) Squeeze? Or is it just copy, paste (kernel) and edit grub?
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Re: linux on amilo li 1718

Postby hikaru » Mon Nov 08, 2010 4:01 pm

tomin wrote:Doesn't Lenny have quite old programs (for example Firefox/Iceweasel 3.0)
You could use the backports:
http://packages.debian.org/lenny-backports/iceweasel

Just add the repository to your sources.list:
Code: Select all
deb http://www.backports.org/debian lenny-backports main


tomin wrote:Is there any easy way to get Lenny's kernel to (installed) Squeeze?
You could temporarily change your sources.list from Squeeze to Lenny, run apt-get update and install the kernel (e.g. http://packages.debian.org/lenny/linux-image-2.6.26-2-686). This will do a regular installation of the Lenny kernel including the changes to grub.
I'm not sure if all the kernel interfaces are still the same, so you should check if everything still works with the new old kernel. I did the same procedure once with Lenny and the Etch kernel and everything but the battery monitor worked because of some changes in the proc filesystem.

If the Lenny kernel works in Squeeze you should keep Lenny and Squeeze in your sources.list. The Squeeze repositories will be preferred because of the newer versions, but since there will never be updates to the Lenny kernel from Squeeze you won't even have to use pinning. You might want to uninstall the Squeeze kernel then to prevent your grub configuration to be overwritten by the next kernel update in Squeeze.

Edit:
Now that you have Lenny installed it might be the easiest way to just run a dist-upgrade to Squeeze. You'll get the new Squeeze software but can keep your existing Lenny kernel. But you should still keep at least the Lenny main entry in your sources.list for security fixes of the kernel.
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Re: wireless on amilo li 1718

Postby johntait » Sun Nov 14, 2010 12:14 pm

http://sourceforge.net/projects/acerhkg ... b/download

there is a simple solution now just download acerhkgui and follow the instructions
It doesn't get the wireless button working it gives you a small window with buttons to turn on your wireless or bluetooth.
The led turns on/off to let you know its working
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Re: linux on amilo li 1718

Postby tomin » Sun Nov 14, 2010 2:02 pm

I tried to install Lenny's kernel to Squeeze. I managed to install and boot it (no need to disable acpi), but neither ethernet nor wifi is working. Network Manager doesn't list any devices but ifconfig lists both eth0 and wlan0. Though when I connected ethernetcable eth0 disappeared. I didn't manage to get wifi working with iwconfig and dhclient (also tried to use modprobe acer-wmi (which didn't give any error message) so currently I don't have any internet connection. Maybe I should try wicd instead of nm.
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Re: linux on amilo li 1718

Postby hikaru » Sun Nov 14, 2010 3:43 pm

Can you please post the content of /etc/network/interfaces ?
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Re: linux on amilo li 1718

Postby tomin » Sun Feb 20, 2011 9:38 am

Now I've installed Debian/kFreeBSD (as experiment) and it doesn't seem to have wireless drivers so it's quite useless. :P Ethernet works though but that isn't enough. Computer will be replaced in future and now it runs quite badly outdated Ubuntu 9.04 as main os. I haven't got much time to test it nor any good ideas.
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Re: linux on amilo li 1718

Postby roadrash » Sun Feb 20, 2011 12:06 pm

The Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick meerkat has all the drivers for the LI1718 and works out of the box. That means you can also use the other derivitives as well like the latest Linux Mint etc.
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Re: linux on amilo li 1718

Postby tomin » Sun Feb 20, 2011 12:28 pm

roadrash wrote:The Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick meerkat has all the drivers for the LI1718 and works out of the box. That means you can also use the other derivitives as well like the latest Linux Mint etc.

I have tried Ubuntu 10.10 and it didn't work. You can read above why it didn't. Somehow my dad's amilo just doesn't like Linux. :P I know that it works for many other same kind of amilos.
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Re: linux on amilo li 1718

Postby johntait » Sun Feb 20, 2011 4:49 pm

Hi Tomin,
a good first step might be to try this sourceforge link where you can download a simple graphical interface which will let you turn the wireless connection on. Copy and then paste the link into your browsers address window.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/acerhkg ... b/download
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Re: linux on amilo li 1718

Postby roadrash » Sun Feb 20, 2011 5:17 pm

I have tried Ubuntu 10.10 and it didn't work. You can read above why it didn't. Somehow my dad's amilo just doesn't like Linux. :P I know that it works for many other same kind of amilos.


Check your bios.

1. Press F2 at boot screen
2. Go to ADVANCED menu
3. Check that this setting is DEFAULT WIRELESS SETTING [Enabled]
if not change it and exit saving changes.
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