Acer Travelmate 8172

Overview
This is an article about running Gentoo on an Acer TravelMate 8172 series laptop.

Laptop Specifications
Hardware specs may vary. These are the specs for the model Acer TravelMate 8172-33U3G32nkk:


 * Intel Core i3-330UM 1.2GHz 3MB cache
 * 3GB DDR2 RAM (2 slots)
 * Intel HD Graphics (on-CPU)
 * Integrated HDA Conexant Audio
 * 11.6in TFT LCD Screen (Widescreen), 1366x768 WXGA
 * 320GB 2.5in SATA Hard Disk
 * 3x USB 2.0 ports
 * VGA output
 * Broadcom tg3 Gigabit ethernet
 * Broadcom brcm80211 Wifi 4357 abgn
 * 5in1 Card Reader
 * Dock connector

Printout of lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Arrandale DRAM Controller (rev 02) 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Arrandale Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02) 00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak HECI Controller (rev 06) 00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak USB2 Enhanced Host Controller (rev 05) 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak High Definition Audio (rev 05) 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev 05) 00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev 05) 00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak PCI Express Root Port 3 (rev 05) 00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak USB2 Enhanced Host Controller (rev 05) 00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev a5) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak LPC Interface Controller (rev 05) 00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak 4 port SATA AHCI Controller (rev 05) 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak SMBus Controller (rev 05) 00:1f.6 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak Thermal Subsystem (rev 05) 01:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation Device 4357 (rev 01) 03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM57760 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe (rev 01) ff:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation QuickPath Architecture Generic Non-core Registers (rev 05) ff:00.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation QuickPath Architecture System Address Decoder (rev 05) ff:02.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation QPI Link 0 (rev 05) ff:02.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation QPI Physical 0 (rev 05) ff:02.2 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Device 2d12 (rev 05) ff:02.3 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Device 2d13 (rev 05)

Printout of lsusb (builtin devices, no external devices connected):

Bus 002 Device 005: ID 0bda:0138 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0020 Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0489:e010 Foxconn / Hon Hai Bus 001 Device 004: ID 08ff:168c AuthenTec, Inc. Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0402:9665 ALi Corp. Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0020 Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Printout of lsmod (builtin devices, no external devices connected):

leho@travelmate ~ $ lsmod | sort ac                     1632  0 acer_wmi              13531  0 arc4                    958  2 battery                4386  0 bluetooth             40786  1 btusb brcm80211            560283  0 broadcom               4722  0 btusb                  8128  0 cfg80211              84944  2 brcm80211,mac80211 cifs                 189381  2 coretemp               3822  0 fan                    1738  0 i2c_i801               5488  0 intel_ips              6695  0 iTCO_wdt               8341  0 libphy                11577  2 broadcom,tg3 mac80211             130876  1 brcm80211 md4                    2665  0 pcspkr                 1199  0 processor             20540  0 psmouse               29722  0 rfkill                10464  3 bluetooth,cfg80211,acer_wmi rtc_cmos               6822  0 rtc_core              10241  1 rtc_cmos rtc_lib                1434  1 rtc_core snd                   32871  10 snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_hda_codec_conexant,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer snd_hda_codec         45259  2 snd_hda_codec_conexant,snd_hda_intel snd_hda_codec_conexant   29810  1 snd_hda_intel         15331  0 snd_mixer_oss         10119  1 snd_pcm_oss snd_page_alloc         4925  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm snd_pcm               42465  3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec snd_pcm_oss           25723  0 snd_seq               33123  5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event snd_seq_device         3685  3 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq snd_seq_dummy           907  0 snd_seq_midi_event     3636  1 snd_seq_oss snd_seq_oss           19436  0 snd_timer             12082  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm sparse_keymap          1892  1 acer_wmi tg3                   99008  0 thermal                6050  0 uvcvideo              45608  0 videodev              45609  1 uvcvideo wmi                    5926  1 acer_wmi

Information from :

Drives and Storage

 * Hard Drive controller works using ahci driver in the kernel.

WLAN Card
You'll also need the firmware:

2.6.38 kernel driver is capable of seriously spamming syslog with "Short CCK" messages. This was patched for 2.6.39, but hasn't been backported as of 2.6.38.7.

Sound Chip

 * Works under alsa using the HDA driver. Codec is Conexant.

Webcam

 * Works using uvcvideo driver.

Card Reader

 * Is a PCI device. SD Card portion works using SDHCI driver.

Fingerprint reader

 * Untested

WiFi, HDD LEDs

 * HDD LED works
 * WIFI LED blinks very rarely, not sure whats going on

Problems
leho@travelmate ~ $ cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp 6800 leho@travelmate ~ $ cat /sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/temp1_input 39000
 * thermal zone driver seems to be confused and fan seems to turn on way too often and too early

leho@travelmate ~ $ ls /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/trip_point_* /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/trip_point_0_temp /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/trip_point_0_type /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/trip_point_1_temp /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/trip_point_1_type /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/trip_point_2_temp /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/trip_point_2_type

leho@travelmate ~ $ cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/trip_point_* 100000 critical 70000 active 55000 active