Linux on an ASUS M3N
Update: I have a new notebook, an ASUS M6BNe. It runs great, and as soon as I stop being lazy I’ll tell everyone what I did. Here’s a tip, though: run Ubuntu.
quick overview to keep you from wasting your time… clickable!
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Site update
I’ve ditched RedHat in favor of Gentoo. Film at 11.
In the meantime, check out my linux blog for up-to-the-whenever breaking news.
New Notebook
So, I finally traded in my old Sony VAIO for a new notbook, and it just so happend to be an ASUS M3000N, bought whitebox-style from our distributor. The best part of buying it in peices is that aside from getting to assemble it myself, I didn’t have to pay the Microsoft Tax. Go me. Anyway, I’ll still be happy to answer any questions regarding my VAIO, but from here on in, it’s all new.
what works out of the box
- X
- NIC (intel eepro100)
- usb
- touchpad
- suspend / hibernate
- external monitor port
- cd-rom / dvd-rom / cd-rw
- usb mouse
- brightness control / battery meter
what needs a little help to work right
- haven’t really gotten very far yet… will be updated
- sound
- wireless NIC (Intel 2100)
- asus ACPI buttons
what almost works…
installation
The installation was actually pretty painless
DVD drive, and booted into the install program. X was no problem at all.
Intel eepro100 NIC
Same as with the video, the nic just works. Hence the ‘works out of the box’ category…
USB
All of the ports work, and work at the same time. Plug in a mouse, use the mouse. Bonus.
Sound
Works. Installed Gentoo, and the sound worked immedietly. I think I’m using the alsa drivers.
Touchpad
Now wouldn’t it REALLY suck if this didn’t work? Good thing it does. It’s not an ALPS Touchpad, but if you tell Linux that it is, it works fine. In fact, it works fine whatever you say. Makes you wonder what those dialog boxes actually do, dosen’t it?
External Monitor Port
The buttons work. You can switch to/from LCD/CRT anytime you want. I think that this video card supports dual-head displays, but I haven’t really verified this yet. News at 10.
DVD Player
Works out of the box. Beautiful. Even installs from cd. I haven’t tried burning a cd yet, but I’m gonna have to assume this works. RedHat even sets up ide-scsi translation for you. I can dig it.
USB Mousage
As of RedHat 9, the mouse works in X by default. Hot-plug, scroll wheel, etc. Now if only I could get the side buttons to work…
Brightness
Brightness control buttons work. They appear to use APM instead of ACPI, and work more like they’re hard-wired rather than software controlled. In any case, they work.
Modem
I haven’t gotton around to setting up the modem yet, as I never use it, but I hear that there is now a linmodem driver for it,
and it’s supposed to work fairly well. Here is a link to the driver for the modem.
If you are using a stock RedHat kernel, there are RPM packages waiting for you. Otherwise, you’ll have to compile it yourself.
Suspend / Hibernate
Ok, once again, I haven’t had much time to work with this, but here’s what I know. The suspend button works. If you close the lid, the machine suspends. Haven’t figured out how to turn this off yet. If you push the power button, the machine shuts off immediately. No 5-second wait, no prompt. Just off. So don’t push it unless you really, really mean it. The machine appears to come out of suspend fine most of the time, but I have had some problems. More on this when I have more on this.
asus ACPI Buttons
The little buttons near the screen can finally be put to some use. With the acpid daemon running, you can bin them to pretty much any command you like, using /etc/acpid/events/default. I set the mail button to pause XMMS, for example. You’ll need to patch your kernel with the latest ACPI patch, and enable the asus extras.