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The Asus A8Jc laptop under Linux![]()
IntroductionThe exact name of the laptop this page is about is Asus A8Jc. If you wonder if this page is also useful for other laptops: it is possible that a similar laptop has some components that are very different: the A8Ja for example has an ATI card (A8Jc has an NVidia card).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 Any information at this page may be incomplete, outdated or even wrong.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
The Linux PartI 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
CD DriveThere is something weird about this CD reader. sometimes my system freezes for two seconds, and dmesg says than:[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 completeWhen there is no CD inserted, this is very rare, but it does happen. I haven't tested yet if this problem also appears when DMA is turned off at boot-time. 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):
UPDATE (30 july 2007): I have taken a few dmesg's for the people who are intrested:
Setting the screen resolutionEven 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(learned from http://petro.tanreisoftware.com/?p=32) We need NVidia drivers, even if you don't need 3DIf 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?Well, it's not really necessary to explain this here, because it's just the same as any other NVidia driver installation on any laptop or desktop.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 installedI don't know with which kernel versions this problem appears, I had the problem with the kernel of Ubuntu 6.06.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 touchpadBy default, Ubuntu configures the touchpad as a wacom tablet. I've used it this way for a few days, so it really works, but there are a few disadvantages:
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. WebcamTechnical informationIt is actually an USB webcam. lsusb says the vendor is "Z-Star Microelectronics Corp." with ID 0x0ac8 and the manufacturer is "Vimicro Corp.". The product ID is 0x0321If 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 LinuxWorks, see Christian's page about exactly the same webcam on a very similar laptop (Asus A8Js).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 16Make sure cups has permissions: chown cupsys /dev/irlpt0And configure cups just the same way as always. If you don't know how to say to cups that /dev/irlpt0 is the device: say it's a network printer of type "Cups Printer (IPP)" and type as URI "parallel:/dev/irlpt0" (without the "" quotes). 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. filesOutput of lspci -vOutput of lsmod
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).
monitoraspect=16:10in the file ~/.mplayer/config to tell MPlayer your screen size is not 4:3 but 16:10 (also called 8:5) Other "Linux on my laptop"-sites about similar laptops
General info (not Linux specific)Some notes:
Interesting things to know when you have this laptop:
Making the display show colours more correctly (also under Windows)IntroductionThis section is not Linux-specific. Windows users are very welcome to this section too :)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?There's an NVidia configuration tool where you can adjust the brightness. This is not the same as the brightness of the backlight! If I set it to like 85%, the colours look a lot more correct.![]() Under the default Windows installation of the laptop, this tool is installed by default. Now the Linux partUnder 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 warrantyThe laptop's plastic went broken: there are two pieces of plastic around the LCD near the rotating joints, and they got seperated. The screen still worked perfectly. I didn't drop the laptop, I just noticed the problem.
![]() 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 CDAfter receiving the laptop back from warranty, I decided to reinstall everything, including Windows. So I used the recovery CD to reinstall Windows, and selected to "recover" the whole harddisk and use two partitions. Everything went fine until he rebooted. The bootloader Grub was still present, but the partition with Grub's data files was of course gone. So grub couldn't load ("GRUB loading, please wait... Error 22"). So I installed Linux with a nice fresh Grub. But when I booted Windows from Grub, the system froze with an empty textmode screen (blinking underline-cursor at left-top of the screen). I reinstalled Windows, but this time I choose to use only one partition. The installer yelled a lot about an incorrect partition table, and I just let it fix it the way he thought it was best. The Windows installation went smooth this time (well yeah... it took ages), and overwrote the MBR this time (read: overwrote Grub with it's own software).I don't know what the problem actually was, maybe the installation only works nice if you select to use only one partition (?). LegalThis text was written by Willem Penninckx, with additions by Christian Rothländer.
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Copyright (C) 2001-2006 Willem Penninckx |