Debian

Debian GNU/Linux on an
Acer TravelMate 630 series

 Acer TravelMate

Here you can find some installation guidelines on how to install Debian GNU/Linux on an Acer TravelMate 630 series laptop. If you have any comments or further info you'd like to add, just send me an e-mail at daniel@elvin.se.

One more thing. The information provided here is provided as is. I take no responsibility whatsoever if you mess up your coffee machine, toaster, laptop or whatever it might be.

Last updated: Daniel Elvin, 2005-June-14

 

Acer TravelMate 630 series

Processor: Intel Pentium 4 Mobile, 1.8 GHz
Core chipsets: ALi M1671 (north bridge)
ALi M1535+ (south bridge)
Memory: 256 MB, DDR266 soDIMM
Disk bus: Ultra ATA/100
Disk: 20/30/40 GB¹
Disc media: Removable 8x DVD/2x8x24x CD-RW
Network: 10/100 Mbps FastEthernet, Realtek RTL 8139C
modem 56 kbps, V.90¹
WLAN IEEE 802.11b support with built-in antenna¹
Ports: 1x CardBus type II with ZV support,
1x parallell ECP/EPP,
1x IrDA port,
1x RJ-11 (for modem),
1x RJ-45 (for netwok),
1x VGA (for external monitor),
2x USB ports (USB 1.1),
1x IEEE 1384 (FireWire) port,
1x S-Video (PAL/NTSC) TV-out
1x audio line in (external microphone)
1x audio line out (external speakers)
USB: ALi M5237
PCMCIA/CardBus: O2 Micro OZ6933
FireWire: VIA Tech, OHCI compliant
IrDA: Fast IR provided by south bridge chip
Audio: ALi 5451 chipset
built-in microphones and speakers
Graphic: nVidia GeForce2 Go 100, 16 MB, up to 1920x1200, 32 bpp, 85 Hz
4x AGP 3D engine, DualView support, hardware accelerated MPEG-2/DVD encoding, with support for external monitor and TV
Display: 14.1"/15" TFT for up to 1024x768 (32 bpp)/1400x1050 (32 bpp)

¹ Only available on some of the 630 models.

 

Status

This is the current status of the features provided.

Linux v2.4 Rock solid
XFree86 Smooth
TouchPad Running fine in X
Sound Greeeeeat!
ACPI Kind of
USB (storage) Yup!
USB (mouse) You bet!
USB (keyboard) As expected
TV out support Ohh yes!
PCMCIA So gentle
CD-R Yes
FireWire (storage) Verify
IrDA Verify
Modem Won't use it anyway

 

Background

The TravelMate 630's comes with either WinXP or Win2000 preinstalled. But I had other thoughts for mine ... :-)

I actually made it dual boot - both Windows 2000 and Debian GNU/Linux. First, I repartitioned the disk and installed Windows 2000 on the first (primary) partition. Acer provides some drivers that was quite useful. Anyway, this page is not about installing and setting Windows up. You just had that info for free.

BTW, if you need some additional drivers, ACER Laboratories Inc. (ALi) offers a special device drivers download page. They also provides a Linux FAQ.

 

Outline

The big picture is:

  1. Boot from a Debian GNU/Linux CD and install a basic Debian GNU/Linux system.
  2. Install some tools and utilities.
  3. Download, configure and install a new Linux kernel.
  4. Install and configure the X window system, a window manager and all other bells and whistles.

 

Basic Linux first

Since the TravelMate 630 is fairly standard, I downloaded a condensed bootable CD image from LordSutch.com. Debian has a list of other CD image providers, and Debian themselves offers official (full) CD images as well.

In short, download any bootable Debian GNU/Linux image you like, burn it, and boot the TravelMate from it. If you are unfamiliar with the Debian installation procedure, see e.g. the Debian installation guide. My advice is: stay away from tasksel and dselect. They are no friends of mine.

 

Some tools

I assume your TravelMate is up and running a basic Debian GNU/Linux system by now. First, we need some handy tools before we continue. If you are unfamilliar with the Debian package management system (dpkg and its brothers and sisters) see e.g. the Debian package management system or the shorter APT and DPKG reference guide.

Before we proceed we need to define were to fetch the packages from. This is stored in the file /etc/apt/sources.list. Just cut the following lines into it and you are home free. 

deb     http://ftp.se.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.se.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free

deb     http://ftp.se.debian.org/debian-non-US testing/non-US main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.se.debian.org/debian-non-US testing/non-US main contrib non-free

deb     http://security.debian.org/ testing/updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ testing/updates main contrib non-free

The se domain suffix is the country code for Sweden. Change it to whatever country code suites you better. The Debian Worldwide mirror site lists available mirrors. Also, the testing keyword selects what Debian release to use. I use the testing release since it is fairly close to the edge without that much bleeding stuff.

Once the list of package targets are typed into the sources.list file, the list of available packages and their revisions has to be updated. Note, this must be done manually every now and then. (Hey! I mean once a week or something and not necessarily every hour ;) Update the package list by 

% apt-get update

To upgrade already installed packages to their latest revisions, do 

% apt-get upgrade

If it states that some packages have been kept back, then also do a 

% apt-get dist-upgrade

Here we go! Now, it is time to install the tools 

% apt-get install apt-utils kernel-package ncurses-dev gcc wget tar

 

Debian package management

A very convenient way of installing a set of packages on a host is to just transfer the list from a previously installed Debian host and use that as a template. To do that, do as follows (on the reference host): 

refhost% dpkg --get-selections > selections.txt

Then transfer the selections.txt to the new host and then (on the new host).

% apt-get update
% dpkg --set-selections < selections.txt
% apt-get dselect-upgrade

 

A new kernel

Download a new kernel, configure and install it. Make sure you have write permissions in the directory before you download the kernel. 

% cd /usr/local/src
% wget -O - http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.4/linux-2.4.25.tar.gz | tar xz
Note, that 2.4.25 is the latest release of the 2.4-family as of today (2004-02-19). Check kernel.org before downloading.

Now, configure the kernel. You can either use my kernel configuration, by downloading it to the kernel source dir. Save it as <kernel source dir>/.config and then reconfigure the kernel based on it. In the kernel source dir, do 

% make oldconfig

Otherwise, configure the kernel by you own. 

% make menuconfig

If you want to configure your kernel by yourself some hints might be helpful. Enable at least the following entries either as modules (M) or built-ins (*). I won't argue if you prefer modules instead of built-ins or vice versa. You need the loadable modules anyway, to load the graphics card module and ALSA (sound) support later. 

Loadable module support –––>
  [*] Enable loadable module support
ATA/IDE/MFM/RLL support –––>
  <*> ATA/IDE/MFM/RLL support
  IDE, ATA and ATAPI Block devices –––>
    [*] Generic PCI IDE chipset support
      [*] ALI M15x3 chipset support
Network device support –––>
  Ethernet (10 or 100 Mbit) –––>
  [*] Ethernet (10 or 100Mbit)
  [*] EISA, VLB, PCI and on board controllers
    <*> RealTek RTL-8139 PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter support
Character devices –––>
  <*> /dev/agpgart (AGP Support)
    [*] ALI chipset support
  [*] Direct Rendering Manager (XFree86 DRI support)
Sound –––>
  <M> OSS Sound Modules
Exit the kernel configuration and save it.

Whether you configured your kernel by yourself or used my config, the next step is to build and install the kernel the (beautiful) Debian way. First, clean-up previous builds (if any): 

% make-kpkg clean

Then build the kernel 

% make-kpkg --append-to-version=-2004.02.19 kernel_image

And finally, install the new kernel (assuming you are using the LILO boot loader). 

% dpkg --install /usr/local/src/kernel-image-2.4.21-2004.02.19_10.00.Custom_i386.deb

Reboot and enjoy! Wasn't that beautiful? :-)

 

Kernel upgrade

To upgrade the kernel do as follows. Download and unpack the newer kernel source. 

% cd /usr/local/src
% wget -O - http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.4/linux-2.4.32.tar.gz | tar xz
Note, that 2.4.32 is the latest release of the 2.4-family as of today (2006-01-10). Check kernel.org before downloading.

Then copy the kernel configuration from the previous (older) kernel. 

% cp linux-2.4.<xx>/.config linux-2.4.32/

To configure the new kernel based on the previous one do 

% cd linux-2.4.32
% make oldconfig

You'll then have to answer questions concerning the new options available. In most cases, the default alternatives are valid.

Note!

Current Debian Testing (a.k.a. Etch) installs gcc-4.0 which is unsupported as compiler suite for the 2.4.xx-kernels. To solve that, append an explicit define of e.g. gcc-2.95 as follows.

Then rebuild and install the new kernel. Reboot and enjoy! 

% MAKEFLAGS='CC=gcc-2.95' make-kpkg --rootcmd sudo \
    --append-to-version=-2006.01.10 kernel_image
% dpkg --install ../kernel-image-2.4.32-2006.01.10_10.00.Custom_i386.deb

 

Bells and whistles

The TravelMate is now up and running a basic Debian GNU/Linux system. Next step into eternity is to decorate it with some the fancy bells and whistles.

The X Window System

So far, the console environment is up and running. Now over to the GUI part - the X Window System. Start by adding some more packages. At least you'll need 

% apt-get install xserver-xfree86 xbase-clients xfonts-100dpi xfonts-75dpi xfonts-base xfonts-scalable xterm

Then you also need a window manager (AfterStep, BlackBox, Enlightenment, FluxBox, WindowMaker, SawFish, etc.), and maybe also a desktop system (e.g. Gnome, KDE). Personally, I prefer BlackBox as the window manager and skip the desktop system. BlackBox is a very tiny window manager without many of the fancy stuff available in some of the other WM:s. But that's the way i like it. You can either install the Debian package by 

% apt-get install blackbox bbkeys
or download a more recent version on the Blackbox home page. Whichever window manager you prefer, install it before proceeding.

nVidia offers binary drivers only, i.e., no Open Source stuff from there. You'll need a kernel module and an X driver. These can be downloaded from ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/.

Note: When exiting X it may cause a flickering problem. Change the BIOS settings for the Boot display on the Main page, to Auto. Thx Josef! (If this description was too brief to be understod, you should probably not play around with your BIOS settings at all.) A similar problem on a TM 630 LCI was solved in the build 2880 but not in the 3123 or 4191 builds. (Thx Tim!) I don't know the status of this in the post 4191-builds.

To download and install the kernel video driver module and the XFree86 driver module, do 

% cd /usr/local/src
% wget ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/1.0-5336/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-5336-pkg1.run
% source NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-5336-pkg1.run

To load the kernel video driver module at boot add it to the /etc/modules file. 

% echo "nvidia" >> /etc/modules

If this had been a Windows installation guide it had said that you now had to reboot the computer. But since this is Linux and not Windows, you can simply just make sure the kernel video driver module is loaded, i.e. 

% modprobe nvidia

Now, either download my /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file or do it yourself. Mine is inspired by the one posted by Thimo Neubauer. When XFree86 is configured it is time to fly. Start X with 

% startx
or 
% startx -- -layout TV
if you want the TV-out profile enabled.

Stephane Crivisier told me that a resolution of 1400x1050 can be achieved by changing vertical refresh rate and horizontal sync frequency to 

HorizSync 29-65
VertRefresh 10-60
and adding resolution 1400x1050 to the desired color depth entries. Thanks Stephane!

 

X Window System tweakin'

To get rid of the annoying "Caps Lock" key, disable it in the .Xmodmap file. 

% echo "clear Lock" >> $HOME/.Xmodmap

To load this modification at startup every time, do 

% echo "xmodmap $HOME/.Xmodmap" >> $HOME/.xinitrc

 

Blackbox tweakin'

My personal Blackbox tweaking involves setting up the key bindings of $HOME/.bbkeysrc and the line bbkeys -i & to $HOME/.xinitrc. Add the line session.menuFile: $HOME/.bbmenu to the file $HOME/.blackboxrc and then the file $HOME/.bbmenu to enable menues.

 

Mounting local filesystems

If NTFS was supported in the kernel, and Windows 2000 is installed, then the NTFS partition can be mounted automatically, do: 

% addgroup ntfs
% adduser <your username> ntfs
Then note the gid (i.e. group ID) of the newly added group 
% grep ntfs /etc/group | cut -d: -f3
and extend the /etc/fstab 
% echo "/dev/hda1 /mnt/ntfs ntfs ro,user,gid=<the gid>,umask=0337 0 0" >> /etc/fstab

 

Sound

The soundcard ALi 5451 works with the ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) driver. To set it up, do as follows 

% apt-get install alsa-source alsa-headers alsa-utils alsa-base
% cd /usr/src
% tar xzf alsa-driver.tar.gz
% cd modules/alsa-driver/
% ./configure --with-cards=ali5451
% make
% make install

To load the modules automatically at boot add the module names to the /etc/modules by 

% echo "soundcore\nsnd-ali5451" >> /etc/modules

Load the sound modules by 

% modprobe -a soundcore snd-ali5451

Set up some aliases for the sound modules by downloading my /etc/modutils/sound (or edit your own manually).

Regenerate the modules configuration file 

% update-modules

The volume needs to be set manually with some mixer. I use aumix and have added the following /etc/aumixrc. (Then I removed /etc/init.d/alsa to run aumix automatically.)

 

Firewire - storage

Support for Firewire (IEEE 1394) storage devices are enabled and used in the following way.
Note: This is currently untested!

Enable (at least) the following kernel options either as modules or built-in. 

IEEE 1394 (FireWire) Support --->
  <M> IEEE 1394 (FireWire) Support
  <M> OHCI-1394 Support
  <M> SBP-2 support (Harddisks etc.)
  <M> Raw IEEE1394 I/O support

To enable the FireWire drivers do 

% modprobe -a ohci1394 sbp2

Maybe you'll need to rescan the SCSI bus before you can mount the newly attached FireWire storage device. Kurt Garloff provides a script rescan-scsi-bus.sh that does exactly this.

Then mount the device (assuming that the FireWire disc is the only SCSI device enabled) 

% mount /dev/sda1 mnt

See FireWire hard drive HOWTO by Ole Hagenes for a more in-depth description.

 

USB - general

To be able to plug-in your USB devices when the system is up and running you need support for hotplugging. Enable it in the kernel configuration: 

General setup --->
  [*] Support for hot-pluggable devices

There are some utilities that makes life a lot easier. Install them 

% apt-get install usbutils hotplug

 

USB - storage

In the kernel configuration, enable 

SCSI --->
  <M>  SCSI support
  <M>    SCSI disk support
File Systems  --->
  <M>  DOS FAT fs support
  <M>    VFAT (Windows-95) fs support
USB  --->
  <M>  Support for USB
  <M>    OHCI (ALi, ...) support
  <M>    USB mass storage support

Load modules for SCSI and USB storage support, and VFAT file system support. 

% modprobe -a sd_mod scsi_mod usbcore usb-ohci usb-storage fat vfat

Get the USB utilities and list which devices are available 

% lsusb

The USB storage device is now available as one of the SCSI devices. Mount it and it's ready for use. The [umf]mask options are to enable use by any user. 

% mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt -o users,umask=000,dmask=000,fmask=000

 

USB - mouse

Support for a USB mouse is enabled by the kernel configuration option 

USB  --->
  <M>  Support for USB
  <M>    OHCI (ALi, ...) support

Load the module 

% modprobe -a mousedev usb-ohci

Install the USB utilities and check the connected USB devices 

% lsusb

Add the following section to the /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 to enable the USB mouse in X 

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "USB Mouse"
        Driver          "mouse"
        Option          "SendCoreEvents"        "true"
        Option          "Device"                "/dev/input/mice"
        Option          "Protocol"              "ImPS/2"
        Option          "ZAxisMapping"          "4 5"
EndSection
and then also a line to the ServerLayout section 
InputDevice     "USB Mouse"

 

PCMCIA/PC Card

Since I set up the use of a 3Com OfficeConnect Wireless 11a/b/g PC Card, this section is a mixture of enabling PCMCIA support and setup for the WLAN-card. (And for my own purpose, the access point is a 3Com OfficeConnect® Wireless 11g Cable/DSL Gateway.)

The OfficeConnect-card is based on the Prism54-chipset. So, for a more thorough guide see the README file provided by prism54.org.

First, download the latest kernel patch from prism54.org. 

% cd /usr/local/src/
% wget http://prism54.org/pub/linux/snapshot/kernel/v2.4/patch-2.4-prism54-cvs-latest.bz2
% bunzip2 patch-2.4-prism54-cvs-latest.bz2

I usually apply the patch to a copy of the kernel tree, but you can of course skip the copy part and apply it directly to the original kernel source tree. 

% cp -a linux-2.4.25 linux-2.4.25-prism54

To apply the patch, do 

% cd linux-2.4.25-acpi-prism54
% patch -p1 < ../patch-2.4-prism54-cvs-latest

Then reconfigure the kernel 

% make menuconfig

The essential config options are 

Code maturity level options --->
  [*] Prompt for development and/or incomplete code/drivers

General setup --->
  [*] Support for hot-pluggable devices

Library routines --->
  <M> Hotplug firmware loading support

General setup --->
  PCMCIA/Cardbus support --->
    <M> PCMCIA/Cardbus support
    [*] Cardbus support

Network device support --->
  Wireless LAN (non-hamradio) --->
    [*] Wireless LAN (non-hamradio)
    <M> Intersil Prism GT/Duette/Indigo PCI/PCMCIA

Then rebuild the kernel and install it 

% make-kpkg --append-to-version=-prism54-2004.02.20 kernel_image modules_image
% dpkg --install ../linux-2.4.25-prism54-2004.02.20_10.00.Custom_i386.deb

Then you also need a firmware to upload to the card. It was previously avalable from prism.org/firmware. But because of copyright restrictions they've disabled that download for now. Either follow their instructions of downloading and renaming the Windooze-driver, or download it from me. 

% mkdir -p /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware
% cd /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware
% wget http://www.fagotten.org/daniele/acer-tm630/isl3890

Next, you then also need some additional Debian packages 

% apt-get install pcmcia-cs wireless-tools hotplug fxload

If you had the usbmgr package installed previously it will be removed, since hotplug replaces it.

To enable the WLAN-card at boot, add the following lines to /etc/modules 

yenta_socket
pcmcia_core
ds
serial_cs
firmware_class
prism54
Then also modify the /etc/network/interfaces according to your prefered address assignment mechanism. For a DHCP assigned address, add 
iface eth1 inet dhcp
and for a statically assigned address, add 
iface eth0 inet static
  address 192.168.0.5
  netmask 255.255.255.0
  gateway 192.168.0.1

When the kernel is up and running with the prism54-support enabled, and the modules above are loaded, then we are ready to fly. First, set the card in managed mode, since it will not be used as an access point. 

% iwconfig eth1 mode Managed

To probe available access points, do 

% iwlist eth1 scan

To connect to one of the available access points, do 

% iwconfig eth1 ap any
% iwconfig eth1 essid "3Com"
% iwconfig eth1 key open
% ifup eth1

 

News for me (and you). Create a separate wlan config file for each of the networks you want to login to. That is, edit /etc/wlan/wlan.conf and create a new entry with the SSID for your favorite Access Point. Then create a config file for this network, named /etc/wlan/wlancfg-<SSID>. Typically, edit the channel, WEP settings or whatever suites your net. See /usr/share/doc/linux-wlan-ng-doc/config.linux-wlan-ng.gz for documentation.

 

ACPI -
Advanced Configuration and Power Interface

To get power management up and running, read the excellent guide to ACPI by Emma Jane Hogbin. In short you need to:

  1. download the kernel patch from ACPI4Linux (e.g. acpi-20030619-2.4.21.diff.gz)
  2. patch the kernel 
    % cd <kernel dir> && gunzip -c <acpi kernel patch file> | patch -p1
  3. update kernel configuration (.config) 
    % make oldconfig
    and answer the questions or run make menuconfig and enable ACPI on the "General settings" menu
  4. build the new kernel 
    % make-kpkg --append-to-version=.acpi.<current date> kernel_image modules_image
  5. install it 
    % dpkg --install <newly built kernel.deb file>
  6. and make ACPI modules load automatically 
    % echo "processor\nac\nbattery\nbutton\nfan\nthermal\n" >> /etc/modules

To view the battery status do 

% cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/{state,info}

There is also an ACPI daemon you could install to get notifications of ACPI events to user-space applications, see acpid(8) for more info. 

% apt-get install acpid

 

NOTE:
I never got the ACPI working with the latest of nVidia drivers,
the 4363, but it works fine with the 4191 driver, however.

 

IrDA

Note: This is in theory only. Currently untested.

In kernel configuration, enable the following: 

IrDA (infrared) support  --->
  Infrared-port device drivers --->
    <M> ALi M5123 FIR (Experimental)
Install and boot from this new kernel. You also need the Debian package irda-common (or irda-utils in the unstable dist). 
% apt-get install irda-common

When the new kernel is up and running, disable the default serial port driver 

% setserial /dev/ttyS1

Then install the IrDA protocol and ALi FIR drivers 

% insmod irda ali-ircc

To start searching for available devices do 

% irattach irda0 -s

That should do.

 

CD-R

With SCSI-support enabled in the kernel configuration, i.e. 

SCSI support  --->
  <M> SCSI support
  <M> SCSI disk support
  <M> SCSI generic support
ATA/IDE/MFM/RLL support  --->
  IDE, ATA and ATAPI Block devices  --->
    <M> SCSI emulation support
burning a CD is easy. Do 
% mkisofs -r -J -o <iso_image> <source directory>
% cdrecord -speed 8 -dev ATAPI:0,0,0 -v -eject <iso_image>

Read more on http://www.hut.fi/cc/services/cdrw/CD-burn.html.

 

Java

This is yet another section of more private than public interest (probably).

The Blackdown Java run-time environment is reported being both faster and more reliable on Linux. Add the following to /etc/apt/sources.list 

deb ftp://ftp.tux.org/java/debian/ sarge non-free
And install the run-time environment (RE) and software developers kit (SDK) 
% apt-get install j2re1.4 j2sdk1.4

For more information, see blackdown.org.

 

Additional info

I ran into some trouble I'd like to share but didn't know where to put it.

 

From Stable to Testing

Some additional notes if you want to change from Stable (Woody) to Testing (Sarge) distribution.

After you have updated packages to testing, make sure you run lilo before rebooting!! It will otherwise hang at the LI text. If you are already there, I solved it by booting from the LNX-BBC disc, remounting the root partition rewritable 

% mount <device> <mount point> -o rw,remount
and run 
% lilo -r /mnt/.../part<x>

and than reboot.

I got screwed by DebConf since my original XF86Config-4 contained the nv driver while I manually had changed it to nvidia. Changing back to nvidia again solved the nasty Unresolved symbols referred to in a number of libs.

 

Links

[1]   ACER Laboratoris Inc. (ALi) Linux FAQ
[2]   ACER Laboratories Inc (ALi) Drivers Download page
[3]   Acer TravelMate 630 Windows drivers download page
[4]   Debian GNU/Linux
[5]   kernel.org
[6]   ALSA project: ALi 5451 setup howto
[7]   nVidia Linux Drivers Download page
[8]   Installing and configuring ALSA Sound modules in Debian GNU/Linux - HOWTO
[9]   The Linux USB subsystem
[10]   IEEE 1394 for Linux
[11]   Linux on the Acer Travelmate 634LC, by Tomas Elsen
[12]   Linux on an Acer TravelMate 632LC by Anthony Lichnewsky
[13]   Linux on the Acer TravelMate 630LC laptop, by Konrad Wojas
[14]   Linux on Travelmate 634LC, by Niels Peen
[15]   Linux on Travelmate 634, by Josef
[16]   Creating custom kernels with Debian's kernel-package system, by Kevin McKinley
[17]   FireWire hard drive HOWTO, by Ole Hagenes
[18]   Universal Micro Systems - TravelMate 630 specification
[19]   ACPI4Linux
[20]   Prism54.org
[21]   Linux IrDA Quick Tutorial, by Jean Tourrilhes
[22]   Linux-IrDA project
[23]   Power Management, by John Fremlin
[24]   ACPI links and documentation on TuxMobil
[25]   From Lilo to Grub @ Debian Wiki

 

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to the all the people involved in the Linux kernel development, all the Debian GNU/Linux maintainers, and all the ones providing the useful pages listed in the links list above.
 
Thanks also to Tim Dijkstra for the tip conserning the driver version to fix the flickering and stripes problem when exiting X or opening another terminal. Another huge thanks to Joseph for the tip to change the BIOS settings and for reporting that the USB stuff works just out of the box.

 

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