There is an excellent description on how to setup Linux on notebooks of the Acer Aspire 1300 series: The Unoffical Support Page by NERvOus. I can really recommend the steps described there, as they work like a dream.

In order to use the volume control keys on the Aspire it is necessary to map them. I use the following lines in my ~/.xmodmaprc (I used xev to figure out the keycodes to use)

! Volume control on the Acer Aspire 1304LC
keycode 176 = F17
keycode 174 = F18
keycode 160 = F19

F17 is volume up (Fn+Page↑), F18 is volume down (Fn+Page↓), F19 is the mute/unmute button (Fn+Home). Use the keygrabber functions of your windowmanager to map the keys to useful commands. In my Fluxbox keys file (~/.fluxbox/keys) for example I added this lines in order to use it with my small volumecontrol script:

None F17 :ExecCommand ~/bin/volcontrol.sh volup
None F18 :ExecCommand ~/bin/volcontrol.sh voldown
None F19 :ExecCommand ~/bin/volcontrol.sh mute

The Acer comes with a S3 Savage Twister-K chipset, which caused me quite a headache while trying to get DRI to work with it. Here is what finally worked…

First I had to configure some stuff in my kernel:

• “Device Drivers > Character Devices > /dev/agpgart (AGP support)” as module (CONFIG_AGP=m)
• “Device Drivers > Character Devices > /dev/agpgart (AGP support) > VIA chipset support” as module (CONFIG_AGP_VIA=m)
• “Device Drivers > Character Devices > Direct Rendering Manager Support” as module (CONFIG_DRM=m)

After building, installing and modprobing (modprobe agpgart and modprobe via_agp)the new modules I made sure to load the agp stuff at every boot my adding this to /etc/modules

agpgart
via_agp

After that, if not already available, install the x.org X-Server: apt-get install xserver-xorg

Get the DRI snapshot from here. You'll need the latest common and savage (at the time of writing: common-20050718-linux.i386.tar.bz2 and savage-20050718-linux.i386.tar.bz2).

Install (as root) what you just downloaded:

tar xfj common-20050718-linux.i386.tar.bz2
cd dripkg
./install.sh
cd ..
rm -r dripkg
tar xfj savage-20050718-linux.i386.tar.bz2
cd dripkg
./install.sh

The module should now be installed and ready to use: modprobe savage. dmesg should output something like

mtrr: 0x90000000,0x8000000 overlaps existing 0x90000000,0x1000000
mtrr: 0x90000000,0x2000000 overlaps existing 0x90000000,0x1000000
mtrr: base(0x92000000) is not aligned on a size(0x5000000) boundary
[drm] Initialized savage 2.4.1 20050313 on minor 0: S3 Inc. VT8636A [ProSavage KN133] AGP4X VGA Controller (TwisterK)

Add savage to your /etc/modules as well, it needs to be loaded on every startup as well.

Now we come to your /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Edit Section “Module”:

Section "Module"
	Load	"GLcore"
	Load	"bitmap"
	Load	"dbe"
	Load	"ddc"
	Load	"dri"
	Load	"extmod"
	Load	"freetype"
	Load	"glx"
	Load	"int10"
	Load	"record"
	Load	"speedo"
	Load	"type1"
	Load	"vbe"
EndSection

Edit Section “Device”:

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"Generic Video Card"
	Driver		"savage"
EndSection

Add Section “DRI”:

Section "DRI"
	Mode	0666
EndSection

Restart your X-Server. DRI should now be working:

gina@nostromo:~$ glxinfo | grep "direct rendering"
Direct Rendering: yes

Framerates suck nevertheless

0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8363/8365 [KT133/KM133] (rev 80)
0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8363/8365 [KT133/KM133 AGP]
0000:00:0a.0 CardBus bridge: O2 Micro, Inc. OZ6912 Cardbus Controller
0000:00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8231 [PCI-to-ISA Bridge] (rev 10)
0000:00:11.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06)
0000:00:11.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 1e)
0000:00:11.4 Bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8235 ACPI (rev 10)
0000:00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 40)
0000:00:11.6 Communication controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. Intel 537 [AC97 Modem] (rev 20)
0000:00:12.0 Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6102 [Rhine-II] (rev 51)
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: S3 Inc. VT8636A [ProSavage KN133] AGP4X VGA Controller (TwisterK) (rev 01)