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After successfully finding an x86 laptop that is compatible with free software: ASUS EEE PC 1000HE (http://kerneltrap.org/node/17096), I got another order to find an x86 laptop that was bigger (preferably 14.1 inches laptop) and cheaper than ASUS EEE PC 1000HE. So, I went searching for one. After trying some tight-budget laptops that I dismissed because their wireless cards (e.g., Broadcom or newer Ralink cards) or graphics accelerators (e.g., new SiS chipset) were not compatible with free software, I landed on an A*Note 12.1 inches laptop whose vital devices were mostly free software compatible (fingerprint reader and built-in modem are nonvital for me).
Since my new FSF member card just arrived a week before I got this laptop and I don't have another machine that can boot from a USB disk, I tried to boot the laptop with the USB member card containing gNewSense 2.1 as shown in `1 - A*Note 12.1 Inches Laptop On The Boot Selection Screen.jpg'. Yes, the USB member card works well as shown in `2 - A*Note 12.1 Inches Laptop Booting FSF Membership Card.jpg'. Of course, at the end I installed gNewSense 2.2 as well as the newest Ali Gunduz home-baked linux-libre kernel because the laptop uses Atheros as its wireless device. Once installed, everything works well except, of course, the nonvital devices I mentioned above.
The laptop is equipped with the following working components under gNewSense 2.2 + Ali Gunduz's 2.6.29-1 linux-libre:
The output of `lspci -vvv' can be found in `lspci.txt'.
This laptop has one quirk. If someone touches the wireless on/off touchpad-like button on gNewSense no matter how many times the button is touched, the wireless device will not be disabled until the next time gNewSense is entered again as a result of restarting or shutting down the laptop, in which the wireless device stays disabled. To activate it, just touches the button again no matter how many times and restart the laptop to have it active again. It will stay active across restart and shutdown as far as no one touches the button again. Otherwise, the wireless device will be disabled again and has to be reenabled again in the aforementioned way. If instead someone touches the button while outside gNewSense (e.g., during BIOS POST screen) no matter how many times, if the state of the wireless device is active, the device will be disabled upon entering gNewSense, and vice versa.
To conclude, when looking for a free software compatible laptop, it is best to bring gNewSense live CD as well as Ali Gunduz's home-baked linux-libre kernel for enabling Atheros wireless card and an apt-cacher's cache in a large USB disk for downloading further packages to test the laptop to see whether all of the vital components work. Of course, you may have your own definition of vital components.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| 1 - A*Note 12.1 Inches Laptop On The Boot Selection Screen.jpg | 827.63 KB |
| 2 - A*Note 12.1 Inches Laptop Booting FSF Membership Card.jpg | 784.12 KB |
| lspci.txt | 17.86 KB |
| Wireless Select Switch Screen.JPG | 66.54 KB |
| Wireless Indicator - Wireless Is On.jpg | 119.9 KB |
Activating Wireless LAN & Losing Sound
I exchanged my current laptop (Intel Celeron Banias 1.5 GHz, 512 MB of RAM) with the A*Note laptop that I bought the other day because I need its processing power. It turned out that the GNU/Linux gNewSense that I had installed on it along with additional packages like Ali Gunduz's home-baked linux-libre kernel was replaced with Microsoft Windows Vista.
The use of Microsoft Windows screwed up the operations of the devices under GNU/Linux. For example, the wireless LAN couldn't be turned on using the trick mentioned above. Moreover, the sound card cannot output sound through the built-in speakers but the line out to a headset or external speakers. Although the wireless LAN can eventually be switched on, the sound card remains the same so that I have to plug in my headset to hear the sound.
To recover the devices, I installed Microsoft Windows XP and tried to find A*Note device drivers in the Internet. Googling for `a*note centurion driver' landed me on this Indonesian page: http://a-note-centurion-driver.blogspot.com/. It simply says that A*Note is one of the brand names of the products of Compal Electronics (http://www.compal.com) and that the drivers can be downloaded from http://www.compal.com/asp/driver_dnd/index.htm. The problem in the driver selection page was that I couldn't find `Centurion CA-8281', which is the model of my A*Note laptop, there. After downloading and installing some wireless switch drivers under products that have Atheros wireless card driver to no avail, I googled for some more before landing on this Indonesian page: http://blog-indonesia.com/blog-archive-10615-7.html that led to: http://service.marasst.com/compal.htm for some wireless switch drivers that I tried to no avail too. At last I googled for `A*Note' and landed on this Indonesian page: http://www.a-note.com/. It turned out that the true model of my A*Note laptop is written on the bottom cover: http://kerneltrap.org/files/Model%20Label.jpg (JFT00).
Knowing the true model of my A*Note laptop, I downloaded the right wireless switch from Compal drivers page that I missed because it is buried deep enough (http://www.compal.com/asp/driver_dnd/e_download.asp?M_Path=%2FDownload%2...). After installation, I could turn on the wireless using the wireless switch software (http://kerneltrap.org/files/Wireless%20Select%20Switch%20Screen.JPG). Once it is turned on, the wireless indicator lamp emits orange light (http://kerneltrap.org/files/Wireless%20Indicator%20-%20Wireless%20Is%20O...). Under GNU/Linux, the wireless indicator lamp will stay off although the wireless card is on and works fine.
After completing this all night long, I realized that the wireless switch driver is contained in the drivers CD included in the laptop box. Had I realized this sooner, I wouldn't have had to spend hours to activate the wireless card.
As to the sound, since installing and uninstalling the sound driver does no good, the only way I can think of is to remove the laptop's battery along with its CMOS battery to completely reset the laptop. But, since I can live with a headset, I don't bother to open the laptop to take out the CMOS battery, which requires some effort.
To conclude, never try to install Microsoft Windows on an A*Note laptop if you still want to run GNU/Linux smoothly on it. In case Microsoft Windows has ever been installed, if the wireless device cannot work under GNU/Linux, you have to activate it first using wireless switch application included in the drivers CD under Microsoft Windows. If no sound comes out of the built-in speakers of the laptop, you can still listen to the sound through the external headphone jack. If you want the sound to come out through the built-in speakers, you may need to remove the laptop battery as well as the CMOS battery by opening up the laptop.