Linux on Averatec 6200
I purchased an Averatec 6200 series laptop. The very first thing I did when I received it was to stick in a Linux boot CD and attempt to wipe off Windows. Sadly, it had a problem during booting.
Symptoms
- Linux just does not want to boot or run on an Averatec 6200 series laptop.
- There are also problems sometimes when the lid is closed.
Causes
- Broken ACPI.
Solution
Add noapic nolapic to your kernel boot parameters. You can also add vga=771 for the right text mode.
Problem solved.
Shortcomings
This laptop also seems to have problems with Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron. In order to install Ubuntu 8.04, you will need to use the alternate boot CD. Once that is done, you will need to edit /etc/default/acpi-support and change SAVE_VBE_STATE=true to SAVE_VBE_STATE=false before the system will boot properly. The good news is that the rt2x00 drivers work great with the wireless, sound is flawless, and everything else just works.
The hardware doesn’t support a 3D accelerated X server, so don’t go trying to find something that will speed up your graphics-intensive screensaver.
Additional Information
A 2.6.1x kernel (possibly others) has a problem with ACPI producing continuous lid events when the laptop is closed. If you are compiling Linux yourself, edit drivers/acpi/button.c, line 77. Just remove the PNP0C0D, save, and compile.
To get sound to work, you may need to edit /etc/modules.d/alsa. Also look at removing the audio plugin (rmmod i810_audio) and then running /etc/init.d/alsasound start to make it all work well.
In the kernel config, the IDE controller is SiS5513. If you use Gentoo, add USE=-ipv6 to your make.conf and add blacklist ipv6 to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist, and turn off IPv6 in the kernel config (Networking -> TCP/IP networking -> The IPv6 protocol). With IPv6 turned off, more things (like networking) will work better. This might have been fixed in Linux kernels newer than the one I tried.
The keyboard scan codes are Vol- 174, Vol+ 176, Stop/Eject 164, Rew 144, Play/Pause 162, Fwd 153, Menu 237, On/Off (no code). You can copy the text below and put it into ~/.Xmodmap, then add /usr/bin/xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap & and /usr/bin/xbindkeys & to your X startup file (for IceWM, it’s .icewm/startup).
keycode 174 = XF86AudioLowerVolume
keycode 176 = XF86AudioRaiseVolume
keycode 164 = XF86AudioStop
keycode 144 = XF86AudioPrev
keycode 162 = XF86AudioPlay
keycode 153 = XF86AudioNext
keycode 237 = F22