Acer Aspire 1 A114-61 (acer-aspire1)

WARNING: The bootloader chain of the device is located in the same eMMC as the OS, damaging internal partition layout may make the laptop into an unrecoverable brick. See more details below.

Acer Aspire 1

Aspire 1 running GNOME
Manufacturer	Acer
Name	Aspire 1
Codename	acer-aspire1
Released	2021
Type	laptop
Hardware
Chipset	Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c
CPU	2x Kryo 468 Gold + 6x Kryo 468 Silver
GPU	Adreno 618
Display	1920x1080 IPS
Storage	64 GB
Memory	4 GB
Architecture	aarch64
Software
Original software	Windows
Original version	10
postmarketOS
Category	testing
Pre-built images	no
Mainline	yes
postmarketOS kernel	mainline
Unixbench Whet/Dhry score	5668.0

Features

Internal storage	Works
Battery	Works
Screen	Works
Keyboard	Works
Touchpad	Works
Multimedia
3D Acceleration	Works
Audio	Partial
Camera	Works
Connectivity
WiFi	Works
Bluetooth	Works
Miscellaneous
FDE	Works
USB-A	Works
HDMI/DP	Works
Sensors
Hall Effect	Partial

Acer Aspire 1 is a low-end Windows on ARM laptop, based on Snapdragon 7c Gen1, a platform that has great mainline Linux support due to some Chromebooks sharing the same platform.

Variant differences

While the most common version of the device seems to be the "WiFi" variant, an "LTE" version with 8GB ram seem to also exist.

Contributors

• travmurav

Users owning this device

• TravMurav (Notes: wifi, A114-61-S45P, daily use)

Installation

Disabling UEFI Secure-Boot

This device uses the standard UEFI secure-boot. The initial configuration seem to contain the keys for some Linux distributors (i.e. Canonical or Debian) but for now it's probably easiest to just disable it.

Note that the following actions may cause Windows to fail decryption if the Bitlocker was enabled.

1. Power on the device and press F2 to enter UEFI setup.
2. Go to the Security tab and set the maintenance password. Write it down.
3. Go to the Boot tab and disable the Secure Boot. This option is only available if the password is set.
4. Go back to the Security tab and remove the password by changing it to the empty string.

Installing pmOS on an external storage

You should be able to perform sdcard installation with some usb-stick as the target. Note that the laptop has no SD slot.

Highly consider making a backup of the internal storage, it seems like the recovery media is not available for this laptop.

Installing pmOS on the internal eMMC

WARNING: The bootloader chain of the device is located in the same eMMC as the OS, damaging internal partition layout may make the laptop into an unrecoverable brick.

See Windows on ARM devices page for generic suggestions.

Known Issues

Work-In-Progress Issues

Kernel package in pmOS follows upstream Linux and only contains the changes that were accepted there.

Here are some differences between pmOS and WIP branch:

Feature	pmOS	WIP	Notes
Hall Effect/Lid sensor	Partial	Partial	The sensor is reported, but can't be used for wakeup yet.
Audio	Partial	Partial	Internal mic is not implemented yet.

Other issues

• The keyboard FN switch in the firmware settings is not effective. By default the media keys will be on top (press Fn to input F1, F2...) and Fn behavior can be swapped via sysfs.
• Using DisplayPort/HDMI audio requires restarting PulseAudio (run pulseaudio -k after the cable is plugged for the sound output to be detected.
• There may be issues with using PipeWire.

See also

• WIP kernel tree
• Device package