How to: Debian Installation on Acer Aspire 7520 Series!

After buying my new Acer Aspire 7520G and to be honest I have been using its default OS for 4 month! That is a Windows using record for me and I am not happy with it since Acer been joking around with the CD-ROM player since it was requested on order. Alright to get to work with Debian I had to replace the OEM CD/DVD Player.

NOTE: This will only happen when you got a worried mother that thinks here son/daughter is doing too much illegal stuff.

Requirements:
-Basic Linux Knowledge.
-Good memory.
-Acer Aspire 7520(g) with AMD Turion 64 2x.
-CD/DVD Burner!
-Internet Connection!!!!
First of all We are going to download the Net-Install of Debian Lenny with can be found on the official site.
For the easy way just simply click here for the direct download so you wont make mistakes.

Be for you want to go on please backup your files on an external hard drive or other external devices. Since we are going to destroy every thing with is on the laptop!

Alright follow the default steps of your Debian installation. If you need some assistance on installing Debian you can alwais search for the install FAQ. But it is preferred to find out your self since we are not going to undertake custom install.

Few things to know how to boot from Disk!
-Since the standard DVD Player does not support all disc’s so you have to make your own one!
-Bios must be adjusted (Boot order), CD-ROM then network then HDD.
-After installation you have to reset bios settings!
Official installation FAQ for AMD64 is located here.

Alright ready to Rumble!

Repositories!
Open terminal as root:
# gedit /etc/apt/sources.list
And simply add “contrib non-free” without quotes at your mirrors.

For me it looks like:

deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free

deb http://security.debian.org/ lenny/updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ lenny/updates main contrib non-free

WiFi Drivers:

Since MadWiFi drivers updates quite allot I wont update the direct download link but they can be obtained from incase link is broken!
http://snapshots.madwifi.org/ (Be sure to pick the latest!)

As root:
# wget http://snapshots.madwifi.org/madwifi-trunk-current.tar.gz
# tar -xzf mad*.tar.gz
# cd madwifi-trunk-r*
# cd scripts
# ./madwifi-unload

What have we done here?
We have extracted a package and unload the WiFi drivers!

# cd ..
# make
# make install
# modprobe ath_pci
# gedit /etc/modules
Add the following at a new line of the file!
“ath_pci” (Without quotes)
save and exit!
As you have noticed we have been ignoring system updates! Smart update now and reboot under your new Kernel!
Recommend to reboot now!

NVIDIA Drivers!
Because of the newer stable drivers are quite bad at performance I will make you chose between two drivers…

First of all as root:
# cd ~
STABLE!
# wget http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/173.14.12/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-173.14.12-pkg2.run

BETA!
# wget http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/177.67/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-177.67-pkg2.run
Alright now the easy bits, were going to kill GNOME!
# /etc/init.d/gdm stop

Login as root!
# cd ~
# chmod +x NVIDIA*.run
# export CC=gcc-4.1
# ./NVIDIA*.run
Follow the installation steps (every thing yes!)
Reboot your machine again.
# shutdown -r now

Your system should be now ready for office work and stuff like that. But do note that I am still working on the acer subwoofer since that does not work properly yet. Will be posted in comments some day when I find it.

Regards,

FeestBijtje

Note:
If some thing is not working or you found out that I forgot some thing, post in comments and I will comment you back.

Sponsored Link

5 thoughts on “How to: Debian Installation on Acer Aspire 7520 Series!

  1. Currently I have forgotten to add the following in the post:
    -Keep in mind its 64Bit!
    -Sound/Keyboard stuff should be working.
    -Blue Tooth Drives comes in a other guide!

  2. Hi, one tool I have used a few times when converting an existing xp installation to a dual-boot is the sysrescue cd ( http://www.sysresccd.org ). I use gparted on sysrescue to resize the ntfs partition and create a new partition for installing Debian GNU/Linux. The Lenny netinstall cd has then worked well for me, creating the grub menu entries for both xp and GNU/Linux.

  3. Can you explain the CD/DVD issue? What do you mean with “Since the standard DVD Player does not support all disc’s so you have to make your own one”??
    What kinds are not supported? Was it just faulty?

    Thanks

  4. My installation did not detect my network card, and its not in the list (I mean Cable Lan, not Wifi) so Im not able to install Debian in network mode or cd mode.

    Any suggestions?

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *