Acer 2312 TravelMate

Like I had posted before, I recently bought myself an Acer 2312 TravelMate notebook. It's time to rave about the machine. The 2312 comes equipped with 256 mb DDR memory, which coupled with its 1 mb L2 Cache and 1.4 ghz processing power is pretty fast. It has a 15" TFT screen. You get a DVD-reader-CD-writer drive and a 40 gb hard disk. The hard disk is not 7200 rpm BTW. The battery easily lasts two-and-half hours. I have tested this and it is true. The 2312 comes with Linpus Linux pre-installed. The much taled "limited functionality" refers to the absense of X. And, while I desperately promote the use of the command line, it is hard to function without X. Also, I did not recieve the install CDs for Linpus Linux. The machine is very light and you can easily work with it on your lap for an hour. After that the heat would make your trouser burn! All in all, it's the pretiest of all the notebooks in the market. Comparing it with Compaq-HP and Zenith. The most eye-catching feature of the 2312 is it's curved keyboard layout. 2312 comes with a modem, an ethernet port and in-built wireless. It neither has bluetooth not infrared, btw. The amazing thing about the screen is its stability. It does not flicker, easily runs at 1024x768 at 75 hz. Awesome! Most of the laptops in the market can only achieve 60 hz and at 1024x768, they ensure your eyes are well lubricated :) If you plan on using an external mouse, that is, you are uncomfortable using the mouse pad, please note that there is no PS/2 or serial port in the 2312. You do have three USB ports and so you can use a USB mouse. I have successfully got Ubuntu 5.04 Hoary working on my 2312. No hassles anywhere except in getting the wireless working. Here is what finally got the wireless working: I am using ndiswrapper 1.2, which was the last stable release. Don't go for the latest test release. To install ndiswrapper, 1. make distclean 2. make 3. make install 4. ndiswrapper -i location-of-the-driver.inf-file (you can use the driver as provided on the cd 5. ndiswrapper -l 6. modprobe ndiswrapper 7. ndiswrapper -m 8. iwconfig In step 5. it is small 'L' and not 1 or I. When you run iwconfig, you should see wlan0 listed, which would mean your ndiswrapper is working fine and you can now configure your card :) To do that go to System->Administration->Networking If you chums need any help on your linux, look me up :)