Note: This page is very old. Fedora Core 3 was current at the time. Now I run Ubuntu Gutsy, and everything just worked; I didn't need to massage ANYTHING, with the except of the known bug regarding WPA encrypted wifi with non-broadcast SSID, which I solved by broadcasting my SSID.
The Averatec AV6128H1 is one of the best buys on widescreen laptops right now, but doesn't officially support Linux. I lived with Windows XP on it for a while, and it's a remarkably usable experience, but of course at my first opportunity it needed to be Linux.
I settled on Fedora Core 3 because I have to support RedHat Advanced Server at work, so I run FC3 there. If you don't like my choice of distros, please send email to the appropriate place.
| Processor | Intel P4 2.8GHz |
| Memory | 512MB |
| Screen | 15.4" 1280x800 |
| Graphics | ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 M10 |
| Disk | 40GB |
| Network | SiS 900 PCI Fast Ethernet |
| WiFi | RaLink RT2500 |
| Sound | SiS SI7012 AC'97-compatible |
| Modem | SiS SI7013 MC'97-compatible |
| Optical | CD-RW/DVD-ROM |
First things first; Fedora recognized the Synaptics touchpad just fine, and since they include the Synaptics driver for Xorg, I didn't have to futz with that. I'm including the link for folks using other distros. If your distro doesn't include this driver, you'll want it. Among other things, it will let you emulate the middle mouse button by tapping two fingers on the pad, and the right by tapping three, which is hella convenient. It also recognizes the built-in Fast Ethernet, so net-based installs are an acceptable option. Sound was recognized and configured properly too.
Now for the stuff that didn't go quite so easily.
First hurdle was the resolution. Fedora configured Xorg for a maximum resolution of 1024x768. Since the graphics subsystem automatically scales lower resolutions up to 1280x800, this is surprisingly usable. However, making it 1280x800 is an easy fix; just edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and find the Modes line to include "1280x800". Restart X, and voila; full resolution. Next, you might want accelerated graphics. If so, the ATI proprietary accelerated driver will work, as long as you either follow these instructions or just download their pre-configured RPM. I did the former, because I'm a dork and didn't read the top part of that page. Be warned that the current (3.14.6) drivers don't support the version of X.org in FC3, so you have to turn off DRI, which means you'll not get full acceleration yet. Follow the bug report to see when this is fixed.
The next hurdle was the built-in WiFi card. To make a long story short, the official driver doesn't work properly, even if you follow the usual instructions, so don't bother. I used ndiswrapper with the Windows drivers from here. Note that the ndiswrapper wiki recommends against using the Windows XP drivers, but I'm using them and they seem to be fine. The native Linux drivers just lock up my box every time, but these are smooth and reliable under ndiswrapper.
Addendum 8/29/2005: Recently booted Ubuntu Breezy Badger Colony 3 LiveCD on this box, and the RT2500 driver works peachy. This page will be updated at some point when I swtich over. The laptop currently is running Windows XP because of required software at work and not having enough RAM to run an emulator, but I've got a GB coming and some success stories with wpa_supplicant, so expect this page to talk about Ubuntu on the 6128 soon.
It's a Smartlink. Works fine with the official drivers.
I have not yet made any attempt to use the IR or Firewire interfaces. The latter seems to be detected and even sets up a sit0 network interface, so I assume it would work, but I've done nothing about the former at all. I know the USB ports work because I use an external USB mouse, and it coexists with the touchpad just fine, including hotplugging after a few xorg.conf tweaks. Note that I reinstalled from scratch recently, and had the external mouse plugged in this time, and FC3 actually configured everything properly without tweaking. I've also mounted a USB thumb drive and it worked fine. The biggest problem has been cpuspeed. It works, but once it gets down to 350Mhz, the interrupt that's shared by the back USB port and the WiFi gets dropped for screaming. I suspect the short-term solution will be to make cpuspeed not go that low, but I haven't had time to mess with it. I also have not tried to implement any of the sleep etc. buttons yet. I will update this page when I get them working.