unfolding disasters/ posts/ Aspire One 722

Hardware

Processor

The processor is an AMD Fusion C-60 (dual core, x86-64, 1 GHz; CONFIG_MK8 option).

You can monitor the processor temperature uring the k10temp module (CONFIG_SENSORS_K10TEMP option), which communicates with the processor via the PCI bus:

$ lspci -k
…
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Device 1703
    Kernel driver in use: k10temp
    Kernel modules: k10temp
…

You can find read the relative processor temperature in degrees Celsius using sysfs. On my system, I can use:

$ cat '/sys/module/k10temp/drivers/pci:k10temp/0000:00:18.3/temp1_input'
75500

You can also get there directly through the PCI interface:

$ cat '/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:18.3/temp1_input'
75500

lm_sensors is a fancier way to monitor temperature:

$ sensors
k10temp-pci-00c3
Adapter: PCI adapter
temp1:        +69.0°C  (high = +70.0°C)
                       (crit = +115.0°C, hyst = +107.5°C)

radeon-pci-0008
Adapter: PCI adapter
temp1:        +69.0°C

Graphics

Radeon Evergreen IGP (HD 6290) integrated into the C-60 processor (radeon module, CONFIG_DRM_RADEON and CONFIG_DRM_RADEON_KMS options).

Audio

Builtin ATI soundcard and ATI Azalia. Both sound cards use Intel's HDA interface:

00:01.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc Device 1314
    Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device 0598
    Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
    Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel
00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) (rev 40)
    Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device 0598
    Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
    Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel

In order to get these working with ALSA, I had to adjust the default soundcard by adding /etc/asound.conf:

pcm.!default {
  type hw
  card SB
}

ctl.!default {
  type hw
  card SB
}

following this FAQ.

You may also want to enable the dmix plugin, to enable software mixing of multiple streams (e.g. to play two songs at the same time). I haven't bothered yet, but Pedro Venda discusses the setup here. If you haven't enabled the plugin, you may get errors like:

$ ogg123 -q test.ogg &
$ ogg123 -q test.ogg
=== Could not load default driver and no driver specified in config file. Exiting.

Networking

The wired network card is an Atheros/Attansic AR8152 (atl1c module, CONFIG_ATL1C option; Atheros aquired Attansic in 2007). The wireless network card is a Broadcom BCM4313 (brcmsmac module, CONFIG_BRCMSMAC option).

The Broadcom drivers require firmware, which you can get from git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/dwmw2/linux-firmware.git (or sys-kernel/linux-firmware on Gentoo). You'll need to install bcm43xx-0.fw and bcm43xx_hdr-0.fw into /lib/firmware/brcm. Despite the name similarity, this is not the firmware installed by Gentoo's net-wireless/b43-firmware package (which fills in /lib/firmware/b43).

There is also difficulty running both the atl1c and brmcsmac drivers at the same time. Upon associating with a wireless access point, the kernel (3.2.0-rc2) hangs, forcing a hard-reboot. To avoid this issue, it's wise to remove the atl1c module before attempting to connect to a wireless access point. For example:

# /etc/init.d/net.eth0 stop
# /etc/init.d/net.wlan0 stop
# modprobe -r atl1c
# modprobe -r brcmsmac
# modprobe brcmsmac
# /etc/init.d/net.wlan0 start

I'm not sure if re-loading the brcmsmac module accomplishes anything here, but it can't hurt ;).

Another brcmsmac limitiation is that it only supports managed and monitor interfaces (no master, ad-hoc, etc.).

Webcam

The Suyin webcam is fairly standard, supporting the USB video class for video4linux (uvcvideo module, CONFIG_USB_VIDEO_CLASS option).

Card reader

I haven't tested the Realtek RTS51xxx card reader yet, but it uses the ums_realtek module (USB_STORAGE_REALTEK option).

Internals

$ lspci -k
…
00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 SMBus Controller (rev 42)
    Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device 0598
    Kernel driver in use: piix4_smbus
    Kernel modules: i2c-piix4
…

TODO

What are these for?

00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 LPC host controller (rev 40)
    Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device 0598
00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge (rev 40)
00:15.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc Device 43a0
    Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:15.2 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc Device 43a2
    Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:15.3 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc Device 43a3
    Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Device 1700 (rev 43)
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Device 1701
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Device 1702
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Device 1704
00:18.5 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Device 1718
00:18.6 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Device 1716
00:18.7 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Device 1719