After unpleasant experience with Omega/Fedora, I decided it’s time to try new Mandriva, which was released some time ago. I installed it using Unetbootin and Mandriva One KDE cd image. I had some problems booting from flash drive, but fortunately this post was helpful for me.
Although almost everything is working out-of-the-box (including Wifi, Wifi switch, webcam, left card reader and internal mic), there are some hardware problems:
- Plugging-in headphones doesn’t mute speakers. I tried to edit file /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base as suggested in Ubuntu Install guide, but I couldn’t find this file. So I created it and tried with different options, but it didn’t help.
/etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base >> options snd-hda-intel model=acer – I didn’t notice difference
/etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base >> options snd-hda-intel model=auto – mic doesn’t work
/etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base >> options snd-hda-intel model=basic – the same as above
/etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base >> options snd-hda-intel model=toshiba – I got no sound at all.
- Right card reader works only if card is inside during booting. To become fully-functionall, it require some tweaks (also from Ubuntu forum):
download this script, make it executable (chmod 754 jmb38x_d3e.sh), copy it to /usr/local/sbin, edit as a root and modify line 11: ‘modprobe pciehp pciehp_force=1′. Then add ’setpci -d 197b:2381 AE=47′ to /etc/rc.local.
This should make card reader working, but in my case it disabled acerfand script, or increased processor temperature (I’m not sure what exactly but I could hear fan working all the time after I ran the script).
- Wifi led seems to work only with madwifi drivers, not with those included in kernel 2.6.27 (it didn’t work also in Ubuntu
- Also some keyboard shortcuts (with Fn key) don’t work, I had to configure it manually.
I also installed acerfand script – after updating bios to v0.3305, it works again.
About Mandriva itself – in my opinion it’s really fast, maybe even faster than Ubuntu, and booting time can be comparable to XP. However KDE4, despite its nice appearance, is still unstable and lacks usability.
I haven’t tried LXDE yet – the special desktop environment for netbooks. I just didn’t have time. I don’t know if I will try it – now I’m looking forward for tomorrow’s Ubuntu release 
22 December, 2008 at 7:07 am
Hi..
i just installed Mandriva One KDE 2009 on my MSI Wind.
I notice one thing, Amarok just don’t launch on my laptop. Wondering same thing happend to you also.
Otherwise, it seems ok..
But, i still can figure out how to enable webcam and bluetooth.
thx for sharing
11 January, 2009 at 8:03 pm
On my One Amarok was working excellent. Try to delete its settings directory (probably .amarok or ./kde/amarok in your /home directory) and check again. I used to have this problem in Mandriva 2008.1 on my PC and it helped.
I don’t know much about U100, but on Aspire One webcam was working with Mandriva very well. I can’t tell anything about bluetooth since One doesn’t have it.