Puppy Linux on the Acer Aspire One

I know very little about Linux but I found a distribution called Puppy Linux which can load the entire operating system into RAM which sounds perfect for the Acer Aspire One!

Getting it looking half decent on the other hand and getting the hardware working is not as simple as you might think.

Here are some patches, drivers & fixes I have found which should get Puppy Linux working correctly on the little Aspire.

If you would like to help me create a remastered version of Puppy Linux for the Aspire please let me know. I'd like to get a nice distro of this working correctly on these machines but I'm a complete novice!

WIRELESS CARD
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=237740#237740

WIFI LED
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=31298&search_id=6021092...

Add these lines to /etc/rc.d/rc.local.

sysctl -w dev.wifi0.ledpin=3
sysctl -w dev.wifi0.softled=1


POWER MANAGEMENT

SUSPEND ON LID CLOSE/POWER BUTTON
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=35407&search_id=1400285...

Install the file acpid-1.0.8-i486.pet and then ddd these two lines to /etc/rc.d/rc.local.

modprobe button
acpid

Install the file acpitool-0.5.pet. Download the suspend-scripts.tar.gz and copy the files to these directories.

/etc/acpi/suspend.sh
/etc/acpi/events/suspend

AUTO SHUTDOWN
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?search_id=673216858&t=36109

WEBCAM SOFTWARE
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=31298&start=30

INTERNAL MIC
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=245886#245886

FAN CONTROL
http://n00.be/archives/758/

SPECIAL KEYS
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=19860

Create a file called .Xmodmap in root if it does not exist already and add these lines.

keycode 160 = XF86AudioMute
keycode 174 = XF86AudioLowerVolume
keycode 176 = XF86AudioRaiseVolume
keycode 223 = XF86Standby
keycode 210 = XF86Display

CPU SCALING
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=28443

Copy/paste below code section into /etc/rc.d/rc.local

modprobe acpi-cpufreq
modprobe cpufreq_ondemand
echo 800 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_min_freq
echo 1600 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq
echo ondemand > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor

VIDEO
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Acer_Aspire_One#Improve_graphics_per...

Add these lines to etc/X11/xorg.conf in the "Device" section

Option "AccelMethod" "exa"
Option "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"

XFCE
If you have come from Windows or Mac OS X like myself to Puppy Linux you may find the interface a bit on the ugly and unfamiliar side. I found this .pet on the Puppy Linux forum which is an alternative window manager. It has a really nice looking GUI and I thought it worked really well with the Aspire after a bit of tweaking font sizes etc.

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?search_id=241486634&t=39637

Don't forget to add or comment these lines in your /root/.xinitrc file.

if [ "$CURRENTWM" = "jwm" ];then
#relocates right-side icons to actual right-side of screen...
/usr/sbin/fixPuppyPin /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin #v1.0.7

rox -p /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin
fi

Also comment out some of the lines for absvolume

if [ -f /usr/bin/absvolume ];then
# if [ "$MENU_BG" = "" ];then
absvolume &
# else
# absvolume -bg $MENU_BG &
# fi
fi

Hopefully this info should leave you with quite a functional Puppy Linux system!