The Asus A8Jc laptop under Linux

Introduction

This page is divided in two parts: a part about linux on this laptop, and a part about this laptop in general.

This page is mostly about hardware, and if there's something I don't know much about, it's probably hardware (well, and a lot of other things :) I do my best to provide accurate information, but I can't guarantee anything. Any information at this page may be incomplete, outdated or even wrong. If you damage your computer by using this page, it's your own fault. The use of this page is at your own risk.

I can't tell whether this is a good laptop, just because it is my first laptop. Some comments I made on this laptop might be true for most laptops.

I'm sorry for poor photo's made by a cheap digicam and the poor photo's because I'm not a good photographer and didn't take the time to make pictures that are a bit pretty.

News

• 2 September 2006: bought the laptop
• 3 September 2006: a hero webpage was born... :)
• (here I didn't maintained the list of new updates... I don't know what I updated here)
• End June / begin July 2007: Linux: wired network has packet loss with one driver (r1000), and doesn't work when booting without UTP plug plugged in with the other driver (r8169). The laptop lid it's plastic got broken.
• 14 July 2007: update about warranty of the broken plastic. Cleanup of the whole page, bit restructured. Added bit info about the recovery CDs. Added few photos.
• 17 july 2007: new NVidia drivers might fix the blank screen when switching to textmode, but not sure
• 30 july 2007: moved back from my desktop PC to the laptop as "machine I use for everything". Wired network problem (network can't get up if not booted with cable connected) can be "fixed" by unloading and loading the r8169 module. Added dmesgs of the system freeze problem with the CD-ROM. Updated lspci and lsmod output. Added my xorg.conf config file + short note about nvidia-settings for configuring external screen + short note about telling mplayer to use 16:10
• 1 Aug 2007: with disk inserted in CD-reader, the system-lock problem is very very rare + short note about laptop = quiet
• 7 Aug 2007: firewire is reported to work.

The Linux Part

I have tested the laptop with Ubuntu 6.06 desktop (32bit version), and Ubuntu 7.04 desktop (also 32-bit). I've tried to remove Ubuntu-specific info, the goal is that this text is usuable for every distro.

Linux compatibility table

root@eusebio:~# hddtemp /dev/hda
WARNING: Drive /dev/hda doesn't appear in the database of supported drives
WARNING: But using a common value, it reports something.
WARNING: Note that the temperature shown could be wrong.
WARNING: See --help, --debug and --drivebase options.
WARNING: And don't forget you can add your drive to hddtemp.db
/dev/hda: ST9100824A:  36°C or °F
root@eusebio:~#

willem@eusebio:~$ acpi -t
     Thermal 1: ok, 34.0 degrees C

CD Drive

[17181078.296000] hdb: status timeout: status=0xd0 { Busy }
[17181078.296000] ide: failed opcode was: unknown
[17181078.296000] hdb: DMA disabled
[17181078.344000] hdb: ATAPI reset complete

UPDATE (July 2007): The problem with system freezes got much worse with Ubuntu 7.04. In my old setup, it only happened every few days or something, certainly not less. With the default config of Ubuntu 7.04, it happens much more often (every 2 hours to every 4 hours?), and the freezes take much longer: a minute is not an exception. There are many reports about similar or the same problem, it's hard to see which are another problem or the same. I think this one [link] is the same problem. Killing hald-addon-storage (sudo killall hald-addon-storage) indeed "fixes" the problem. Things I should try but haven't done (yet):

• unloading/blacklisting kernel modules
• Flashing firmware. I won't do this. The first time I flashed something (an ADSL modem), it went wrong. Don't ask me why it went wrong, I only did exactly what the README said I must do. The firm said the warranty doesn't cover flashing. Then I don't understand why they provide firmware upgrades. Well, the device sucked anyway, so I should have been glad I had an excuse to get rid of it.
• See if it happens if there's a CD-ROM in the CD-ROM-reader. UPDATE 2007-08-01: It happens, but very very rare. I've been using the laptop like that (cd-rom inserted) for a few days, and it only happened once.
• Patch the kernel with existing fixes

UPDATE (30 july 2007): I have taken a few dmesg's for the people who are intrested:

• dmesg-sysfreeze-by-cdrom-1-1.txt: first freeze after a boot
• dmesg-sysfreeze-by-cdrom-1-2.txt: second freeze
• dmesg-sysfreeze-by-cdrom-2-1.txt: first
• dmesg-sysfreeze-by-cdrom-2-2.txt: second
• dmesg-sysfreeze-by-cdrom-2-3.txt: third
• UPDATE 2007-08-01: dmesg-sysfreeze-by-cdrom-disk-present.txt: freeze when disk inserted

Setting the screen resolution

Even if the resolution is wrongly configured, it looks like the screen is already working. It indeed does work, but not as good as we want it. The installation might give you a 1024x768, while the screen has actually a resolution of 1280x800. What actually happens is that your screen resizes the 1024x768 it gets to 1280x800, and that's not nice because your screen is this way not as sharp as it can be, and the scaling is in the horizontal direction not the same as in the vertical direction. Let me make an image for you to visualise it:

You don't need NVidia drivers to configure the right resolution.

Edit, as root, /etc/X11/xorg.conf (watch out for capital-case and non-capital-case)

There will be a part that looks like this:

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Default Screen"
    Device         "NVIDIA Corporation NVIDIA Default Card"
    Monitor        "Generic Monitor"
    DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       1
        Modes      "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       4
        Modes      "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       8
        Modes      "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       15
        Modes      "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       16
        Modes      "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
        Modes      "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Change that part into this:

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Default Screen"
    Device         "NVIDIA Corporation NVIDIA Default Card"
    Monitor        "Generic Monitor"
    DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       1
        Modes      "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       4
        Modes      "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       8
        Modes      "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       15
        Modes      "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       16
        Modes      "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
        Modes      "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Restart your X (close all your applications and press Control + Alt + Backspace) to make him use the new resolution.

You can check what resolution you are using by executing the following command:

xdpyinfo | grep dimensions

We need NVidia drivers, even if you don't need 3D

If you use the normal free nv drivers (not made by NVidia), there's a problem with the number of colours. If you would view this image:

you would normally see almost all kind of grays your laptop screen can show you. But this does not work, you only see a limited number of colours, more like something like the next image:

The NVidia drivers don't have this problem. That's why I suggest to install the NVidia drivers, even if you don't want to use 3D.

How to install the NVidia drivers?

Do not mix distro-installation with manual installation from nvidia.com, because they will conflict with each other. If you want to use drivers from nvidia.com, check first if /etc/init.d/nvidia-kernel does not exist, if it does than you still have the conflicting package installed.

However, you should read the next two topics first before you start installing NVidia drivers.

Screen goes blank when I switch to console when the NVidia drivers are installed

If you can't work with a command-line (or if you don't know what a commandline is) this won't really be a problem for you because you won't know what to do when you're in the console anyway.

The solution is to use framebuffer. It's possible that your distro has framebuffer by default (Ubuntu 7.04 has, I thought Gentoo has it too but I'm not sure).

I won't explain here how to configure framebuffer because it is distro-specific and has nothing to do with this specific laptop. Read the docs about framebuffer (also called fbdev) and grub/lilo.

UPDATE 2007-07-17: I read that NVidia 100.14.11 fixed "console restore problems in several different configurations". This might fix this problem, but I haven't tested it yet. I don't know what the real cause of the problem is.

How to configure the touchpad as a real touchpad

• You can't use the scrollbar
• Some times he thinks you click, while you're just moving the mouse pointer
• Double tapping, but not releasing your finger at the second tap to drag does not work

So, it's interesting to reconfigure this.

There's a good guide about it at http://help.ubuntu.com/community/SynapticsTouchpad#head-771b9659c0e19809759b49f470d568c7d7a36cc3 (not really Ubuntu-specific).

I noticed by accident that Fn+F9 disables/enables the touchpad under Linux (yes I know there's no icon on that key for it). It doesn't work if you still leave it wrongly configured as a Wacom tablet.

Webcam

Technical information

If you want to see what Windows think about it:

That last window ("Select Source") is of the GIMP under Windows, who can access the webcam via a TWAIN interface.

Getting it working under Linux

Infrared (irda)

This works much better than irda

Well, at first I had written here that it works. But it looks like a lot of times it does not work, and I don't know why. The way I get it working is usually rebooting a few times until it works again :(

This is how I got it (sometimes) working:

All low-level irda stuff works out of the box in Ubuntu 6.06 (sry that I can't explain about kernel modules and irattach). To print, I just had to put the printer close enough to the laptop (and remove all the objects between the printer and the laptop so that the infrared ports literary can see each other), make /dev/irlpt0:

mknod /dev/irlpt0 c 161 16

chown cupsys /dev/irlpt0

Note 1 : /dev/irlpt0 will not exist anymore the next reboot. You will have to run the two commands after a reboot, or write the commands in a quick&dirty script or look up the clean way to do this :)

Note 2 : if you play too much with irda config ((un)loading kernel modules, stopping the already running irattach, ...), the chance is high that you stop working what already works. A good idea is to just reboot when you have messed too much.

Note 3 : beware that printing (in fact: sending the data to the printer) can be much slower than you're used to.

Note 4 : You can also use file:///dev/rilpt0 as URI, but than you have to enable file:// URIs in the cups config

Note 5 : Windows autodetects the Irda printer. But, if the connection gets interrupted (e.g. you hold your hand between your laptop and the printer), Windows XP starts printing the whole job again. This means, that if you want to print 200 pages, and the connection gets interrupted at page 199, he will print 198 pages again.

I've solved my printing-problem by just buying a USB to parallel "convertor" (14 Euro in Sept 2006), which works very well.

in fact this all has little to do about the laptop, but because information about irda is so hard to find, I didn't remove this section.

files

Output of lspci -v

• lspci.txt

Output of lsmod

• lsmod-ubuntu6.06.txt: don't remember which kernel version it was (sry)
• lsmod-ubuntu7.04.txt: modules Ubuntu 7.04 loads by default with kernel 2.0.20-16 (plus some modules for an encrypted home partition)

My xorg.conf

"nvidia-settings" can be used to connect a second screen without having to restart the X (just general NVidia, not specific for this laptop).

• xorg.conf. Not something with much tuning. If you plan to use it, don't forget to change the keyboard layout (I use dvorak). For external screens, I use the GUI "nvidia-settings" because than I don't have to restart my X if I want to connect an external monitor.

monitoraspect=16:10

Other "Linux on my laptop"-sites about similar laptops

• Christian's page: Asus A8Js under Gentoo. Very useful page about a very similar laptop

General info (not Linux specific)

Some notes:

• It happens frequently that I touch the touchpad with one of my thumbs. That's not so nice because then you often click somewhere. I still have to learn to keep my thumbs at the spacebar of the keyboard. It would be more useful if the keyboard would be closer to the screen, so that there would be a bigger distance between the keyboard and the touchpad so that you don't touch the touchpad without meaning to do so.
• The screen reflects a lot. Really a lot. If you're outside with your laptop you see more of the clouds than what you should see on your screen. Until now, I've only used the laptop at my sleeping-room and there it does not disturb at all, so for me personally this does not disturb.
  (It is worth mentioning here, that the upside of the screen is that you can see everything even from very small angles. -- Christian 04:06, 23 February 2007 (CET))
  This is indeed the case, but only for the horizontal angles. The vertical angle is very bad (maybe this is a difference between the A8Jc and Christian's A8Js?).
  

  The screen is very reflective. Outside, this laptop is only useful to look at the clouds, but this photo is maybe not so good to illustrate this. Yes, the screen is turned on.
  The two big (imho ugly) stickers, don't stick so well after using the laptop for a while because your wrists are constantly laying on and moving over the stickers. After a while (5 months?) I noticed that I could easily pull them off cleanly. omg, I'm good at talking about details :)

• The Control key is replaced with an "Fn" key. With that Fn key you can use the buttons like the audio volume controll, enable the external screen, scroll lock, etc. Because the "Fn" key is where the control key normally is, I always press the wrong key. That's a bit annoying. This problem occurs on both US QWERTY and Belgian AZERTY keyboards.
  

  The annoying FN-key

• The laptop has an InstantOn button, and the user manual says the laptop has InstantOn, but in fact there is no InstantOn at all (more info about this on a similar laptop model).
• The laptop is very quiet - at least compared to my desktop PC (maybe this is the case for most laptops(?))

Interesting things to know when you have this laptop:

• You can choose where you want to boot from (harddisk, CDROM, USB stick) if you press ESC while booting (while the ASUS logo appears)
• The key to enter the BIOS is F2
• The manual says if you shut down your laptop and put it on again, you should wait 5 seconds before pressing the power-on button. This should be better for the harddisk.
• If you turn on your laptop for the very first time, it asks which version (English, Dutch, ...) you want your Windows XP to be installed with. After you've chosen your language, it takes a long time (I think it was about two hours or more) to install the Windows XP.
  The Windows installer make three partitions on your disk: one very little that is called "RESCUE" and that is hidden in Windows, one 50Gig where Windows is installed, and one 50Gig that is empty (except only a few binary log files). You can remove that third partition and use the space for Linux, but if you want more space than 50Gig you have to resize the partition where Windows is installed. I don't know about automatic partitioning in the Ubuntu installer because I always partition by hand, but the partitioner of the installer is very easy to use (well, when you know how partitions work) and can move and resize filesystems too. On the Desktop of your Windows installation is an icon to convert your filesystem from FAT32 to NTFS (I haven't done this because I was too lazy to look up if it's possible to resize an NTFS partition in the Ubuntu installer).
• The white balance of this screen is with the default configuration under both Linux and Windows really poor compared to what I'm used to. I've managed to improve it a lot (also under Windows). See the section about this for more info :)

Making the display show colours more correctly (also under Windows)

Introduction

Right after the installation I had the feeling the colours were much too blue, and plain white often looked more like yellow.

I thought it was just minor and I would get used to it, until I saw WillemPen.org. The tradition WillemPen.org yellow looked pink in stead of light yellow. I've seen WillemPen.org on different monitors, some displayed it like hard yellow and some like yellow-that-is-so-white-that-you-would-think-it-is-white, but this laptop's TFT was the first one that went so far that it was not even yellow anymore :)

How to make it a bit better?

Under the default Windows installation of the laptop, this tool is installed by default.

Now the Linux part

Under Linux, you can use the "nvidia-settings" program (you can just start it from commandline). I don't think this works if you don't have the NVidia drivers installed. If it seems that this is not installed and if you're really desperate to find it, you can compile the source from ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/nvidia-settings/

The next time you start your X (or just your laptop), the settings will not be loaded again. You can just start nvidia-settings and quit it again to load the settings, or you can add the command "nvidia-settings -l" in the list of the startup programs.

The broken laptop "hinge" and warranty

Left: the problem, before sending it to warranty. Right: after receiving it back from warranty

The top cover isn't so much reflective, there's only a plastic protection on it which I didn't erase yet before taking the photo.

The warranty did a good job, it looks like it's repaired well.

The problem appeared after using the laptop for +/- 10 months. I brought the laptop to the shop on Saturday 30 June 2007, and received it back on Wednesday 11 July 2007.

If your laptop gets broken in the same way, stop using it as quickly as possible (read: make a backup now, and don't use the laptop after making the backup) because if you keep using it, I think the problem only get worse.

The recovery CD

I don't know what the problem actually was, maybe the installation only works nice if you select to use only one partition (?).

Legal

This text was written by Willem Penninckx, with additions by Christian Rothländer.

The text of page is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License.