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Acer Extensa - wifi w/ Linux

post #1 of 8
9/19/08 at 4:30pm
Thread Starter 
I plan to buy an Acer Extensa EX4420-5239. I will eventually install Linux, either openSUSE or Linux Mint.

Has anyone here running Linux on this laptop? How was it connecting to wifi?



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post #2 of 8
9/20/08 at 1:53am
depends on what wireless chipset it has. if it's intel you're all set.

most others can be made to work. I cant find any information on google as to what Wireless card is in it. if you find out post back.

also, moving this to the linux section as you'll probably get more pertinent info there than here.
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post #3 of 8
9/20/08 at 8:46am
Thread Starter 
Thanks. This Acer has a AMD Turion chip.

here's the specs: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834115497
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post #4 of 8
9/20/08 at 11:40am
You are misunderstanding. The Turion is the processor, not the wireless chipset. The wireless chipset is the actual hardware that controls the wireless modem(WiFi).

I can't be sure, but based off what I am seeing, it appears that it is a Broadcom chipset. Broadcom is a company that is known for being anti-linux. There is a driver being reverse engineered, and is even included by default in some distros, but it isn't always the best at the moment. It also generally requires you have the firmware ripped to somewhere on your hard drive as well. As a result I would expect that wireless not to work without at least some work.

The worst case scenario you could get the wireless working under ndiswrapper with the windows driver. Again will require some work, but should work fine for typical connections.

Seablade
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post #5 of 8
9/20/08 at 12:02pm
Thread Starter 
That's too bad. I hope its not as bad as you say it is, otherwise I'll send it back. I know that other Extensa work well with Linux wifi but they have Intel chips. What's interesting is most Linux users like to use AMD chips. I'll do some more research on it, but the reason I got this was to do Linux demos to show other how well Linux works.

Maybe some one else in this forum has had more experience using these laptops with Linux.
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post #6 of 8
9/20/08 at 12:52pm
you might keep an eye on this thread.

http://forums.opensuse.org/network-i...r-extensa.html
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post #7 of 8
9/20/08 at 1:20pm
You are still confusing the PROCESSOR with the WIRELESS CHIPSET. These are two very different things. Intel makes both processors and wireless chipsets, but they are not the same thing. AMD on the other hand only makes processors(Of those two) and does not make any wireless chipsets. The AMD processor will be VERY well supported in Linux, as AMD has a history of supporting Linux development(We were the launch platform for the AMD64 for instance).

Wireless Chipsets on the other hand can be made by Intel, Broadcom, Atheros, etc. Often times those are what you find in wireless cards etc. that are marketed by third parties(D-Link, Zaxom, etc.). These ONLY have to do with the wireless card, and nothing to do with the processor.

These two seperate devices, bundled together and sometimes are marketed as a platform. An example would be Intel's Centrino Platform, which generally has a Core based processor and an Intel wireless chipset. But just because these are part of the same platform, does not mean that they are related.

Seablade
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post #8 of 8
3/1/09 at 1:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by vinoman View Post
That's too bad. I hope its not as bad as you say it is, otherwise I'll send it back. I know that other Extensa work well with Linux wifi but they have Intel chips. What's interesting is most Linux users like to use AMD chips. I'll do some more research on it, but the reason I got this was to do Linux demos to show other how well Linux works.

Maybe some one else in this forum has had more experience using these laptops with Linux.
Maybe it's a good idea to know exactly what you will be talking about before you speak on it. Listen to Seablade.
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