Linux on the A900 Desknote

The A900

The A900 (also called the i-Buddie 3V) is a desknote made by the Elite Computer Group of Taiwan. They call it desknote rather than laptop or notebook because it does not have any internal battery. I do not mind it too much since I never intended to use it on the train or plane, so I knew I could find main power pretty much anywhere I needed the computer. Some companies that resell the A900 provide it with a power unit that can keep the machine running for 45 minutes once unplugged from the main. I would recomend to get one of these (and will get one myself !) because it is a major inconvenient to have to shut it down just because you want to go from one room to another.

The major advantages of the A900 are:

It's price ! You can find it for 1000 Cdn$ with 128 MB of mem, a 10 GB hard drive and a normal cd rom drive. Definitely the most compelling feature - if you want to spend a lot on a cool UNIX laptop, www.apple.com is always an option.
No Microsoft tax to pay, most reseller sell it OS-less.
Low power, the VIA chip runs on 30 watt.
memory and hard drive are just regular ones, easy to upgrade at reasonable cost.

Resellers

There is a list of resellers on the ECS website, and you can contact them via email, they do answer, although it can take a while sometimes.

Here is a list of the ones I was looking at, a search on the web for "A900" or "desknote" should bring you more:

PCwave, an ECS member.
IPC personal computers
Daiwa: They are an official reseller for Canada, not sure about the other countries. You won't find any information about the A900 on their websites, but they do sell it. They have offices in Calgary, Halifax, Montreal, Toronto and Vanconver.
www.desknote.net not sure who this is.
www.desknote.biz not sure who this is.

Specs

core logic	SiS630ST
CPU:	VIA C3 Gigapro 733 MHz 128KB L1/64KB L2 cache, Enhanced 3DNow! & MMX
BIOS:	AMI Mobile PC BIOS; PnP, ACPI, DMI
memory:	Standard (184-pin or 168-pin) 3V non-ECC 128 or 256 MB SDRAM, upgradeable to 512MB (apparently it should support a 1 GB single DIMM when available)
video:	128 bits 3D Graphic Engine Built-in
TV out:	SiS301B TV-Out Chip
display:	14.1" XGA TFT-LCD with 1024x768 resolution
audio	SIS 7018
network:	Built-in RealTek 8100 10/100Mbps LAN controller
modem:	PCTel HSP 56 MR mini PCI Modem Built-In; 56K/V.90 This is a winmodem that I haven't managed to get working
pointing device:	Built-in Synaptics/K-tech Touchpad with 2 click buttons
main drive:	2.5", 9.5mm enhanced ATA100 IDE HDD
space for optical device:	5.25" 12.7mm high slim type
AC Adapter	Input: 100~240V Output: 12V, 3.7A, 45W (I used mine both on 110V and 240V)
power management:	PC2001, ACPI compliant Support suspend to RAM (S3), suspend to Disk (S4) and Soft Off (S5)

I keep a copy of the user manual here, in case it disapear from the ECS website.

Linux driver

I still use the 2.4.16 kernel (don't ask), I expect a lot of things to work better when I move to a current kernel, and will update this page.

audio: trident driver, no problem

usb: OHCI, no problem

console mode: I have run into problems from time to time, but have now forgotten which one and in which conditions. Anyway, to get rid of the problems boot with "vga16:off", so for booting from a LILO prompt (and assuming your kernel is called "linux"):
linux video=vga16:off vga=normal single

X-windows: You can make it run through the frame buffer, but the easiest is to use the xserver from http://www.winischhofer.net/linuxsis630.shtml. Go to the bottom of the page, there are pre-compiled driver there, and some instructions too (thanks very much Thomas for all that work by the way, if you ever end up reading this page). Go to /usr/X11R6/lib/modules, make a copy of the sis_drv.o into another name, and put the sis_drv.o you got from the above page there. Actually you should keep a copy of this driver with another name, that can come in very handy if you use Debian like myself, and a apt-get upgrade wipe out your X11 directory.

modem:I put a lot of effort into this but couldn't get it working. I have seen people on the net claiming that they had it running, but I personally never got anywhere. Moreover, after some discussion on the linmodem.org mailing list, it seems that the modem chip is a Lucent AMR, that has no information and therefore no driver for it (as of May 2002). I will look into that again when I have time, and will update this page. (an lspci -n gives Class 0780: which apparently means it's a Lucent)