Difference between revisions of "ASUS Zenbook UX31E"

Revision as of 04:18, 1 May 2013

This page contains instructions, tips, pointers, and links for installing and configuring Arch Linux on the ASUS Zenbook UX31E Ultrabook. (There is probably little/no difference with his 11" little brother, the UX21E)

Installation issues

If you get an error trying to format partitions when installing Arch try adding this line to the kernel parameters

libata.dma=0

Compatibility

Touch Pad

There are different versions of the UX31, some have Sentelic and some have Elantec - Touch pads.

Elantec Touch pads

Touch & Scroll works out of the box. Clickpad functionality does not. (However, using two and three finger touches for right an middle click works fine).

If higher pressure must be applied to your touchpad in order to function properly, tweak the following properties according to your needs [1]

synclient FingerLow=5
synclient FingerHigh=15

Alternatively, edit your /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-synaptics.conf

Section "InputClass"
       Identifier "touchpad catchall"
       Driver "synaptics"
       MatchIsTouchpad "on"
       MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
       Option "TapButton1" "1"
       Option "TapButton2" "3"
       Option "TapButton3" "2"
       Option "VertTwoFingerScroll" "1"
       Option "HorizTwoFingerScroll" "1"
       Option "FingerLow" "5"
       Option "FingerHigh" "15"
EndSection

Tip: Multifinger taps: Two finger for middle click; three fingers for right click.

Sentelic Touchpads

The Sentelic Touchpad drivers have been added to the 3.2 kernel, so it should work out of the box by now. Since 3.4 this supports scrolling and multi-touch features. (In case of problems with the touchpad after resume see Suspend to RAM.) However it seems that two finger tapping and two finger scrolling are incompatible. To have both working you must use one of the following two patches.

ReubenBond

ReubenBond has made contact with a sentelic representative who has provided him with official documentation on putting the device into absolute positioning mode. The latter can be accessed here: http://fsp-lnxdrv.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/fsp-lnxdrv/trunk/doc/fsp_packet.txt?revision=43&view=markup

This looks very promising and ReubenBond is committed to developing a driver in the next few weeks. This is all referenced in the forum https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=125262&p=2

Saaros

Saaros's driver works well for two finger and side scrolling and is fairly straight forward to apply and build. Unfortunately however, it does slightly impede normal functionality, pointing does not seem quite as accurate, tapping does not seem quite as sensitive and tapping and dragging/selecting can be quite tricky. This code should eventually be accepted into the official kernel: https://github.com/saaros/sentelic/issues/2.

Graphics

Works out of the box

HDMI Out

There seems to be an issue whereby having an HDMI device plugged in at boot results in the screens being switched and also the laptop screen not coming on. To make this more bearable you can automate switching HDMI on with the following udev rule and script:

ACTION=="change", SUBSYSTEM=="drm", RUN+="/usr/sbin/hdmi-plugged"

#!/bin/bash

export XAUTHORITY=/home/$USER/.Xauthority
export DISPLAY=:0

/usr/bin/xrandr -display :0 --output eDP1 --auto --output HDMI1 --auto --above eDP1

Colour Profiles

Colour accuracy on the Zenbook is not very good. There is a UX31E ICC profile on the Noteboocheck review. However, I find that too green using xcalib and so use the UX21E version.

Networking

Warning: NetworkManager generally fails to work for one reason or another on the UX31E. Consider using an alternative such as netctl.

Wireless

Works fine with the ath9k driver, included in the kernel since 2.6.27.

Warning: Do not forget to install the wireless_tools and wpa_supplicant packages during the installation since you will get stuck with no internet access if you do not!

Unstable Wireless when using Network Manager

Some users experience connection drops when using wireless. For some users this can be fixed by setting the wireless connection's BSSID (usually the router's MAC address). This only works if your wireless connection only has one access point as the BSSID is unique for each access point.

An alternative solution is to disable the ath9k driver ani feature, to do this use the following : echo 1 > /sys/kernel/debug/ieee80211/phy0/ath9k/disable_ani

Ethernet - Asix AX88772 USB Ethernet

The Asix AX887722 USB Ethernet drivers are included in the kernel, so it should work out of the box.

Solid State Drive

Check Solid_State_Drives

Power Management

Suspend to RAM

The USB modules must be unloaded or the laptop will not come out of sleep mode.

Put

SUSPEND_MODULES="xhci_hcd ehci_hcd uhci_hcd"

in

/etc/pm/config.d/unload_module

If you have patched the kernel to enable multitouch with the Sentelic touchpad, the touchpad may stop working after resume. In this case add the psmouse module to the list.

SUSPEND_MODULES="xhci_hcd ehci_hcd uhci_hcd psmouse"

PCIe ASPM

Do not add the following option to the kernel line

pcie_aspm=force

if

dmesg | grep -i "acpi fadt"

outputs

ACPI FADT declares the system does not support PCIe ASPM, so disable it.

i915

Enabling i915_enable_rc6 will improve battery performance significantly. To enable it, add the following option to your kernel line.

i915.i915_enable_rc6=1

To check the current state of all i915 parameters execute as root (bash)

for i in /sys/module/i915/parameters/*;do echo ${i}=`cat $i`;done

Module parameter details

modinfo i915

Additional powersavings

Configure Laptop_Mode_Tools and do not forget to check CPU_Frequency_Scaling

Additional resources

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-[[Category:ASUS (English)]]
+[[Category:ASUS]]
-{{i18n|Asus Ux31}}
 This page contains instructions, tips, pointers, and links for installing and configuring Arch Linux on the ASUS Zenbook UX31E Ultrabook.
 ''(There is probably little/no difference with his 11" little brother, the UX21E)
@@ Line 9: / Line 7: @@
 If you get an error trying to format partitions when installing Arch try adding this line to the kernel parameters
   libata.dma=0
-=== UEFI Booting ===
-As of 21-Feb-2012 Grub2 seems to disagree with Asus UEFI, halting at "Loading inital ramdisk", use BIOS instead.
 == Compatibility ==
 === Touch Pad ===
-There are different versions of the UX31, some have Sentelic and some have Elenatec - Touch pads.
+There are different versions of the UX31, some have Sentelic and some have Elantec - Touch pads.
-==== Elenatec Touch pads ====
+==== Elantec Touch pads ====
 Touch & Scroll works out of the box. Clickpad functionality does not. (However, using two and three finger touches for right an middle click works fine).
@@ Line 40: / Line 34: @@
   EndSection
-'''Tip : ''' Multifinger taps; two finger for middle click, three fingers for right click.
+{{Tip|Multifinger taps: Two finger for middle click; three fingers for right click.}}
 ==== Sentelic Touchpads ====
-The Sentelic Touchpad drivers have been added to the 3.2 kernel, so it should work out of the box by now. However this only supports basic functionality, for scrolling and other features one of the following two patches must be used. [In case of problems with the touchpad after resume see [[#Suspend to RAM|Suspend to RAM]]]
+The Sentelic Touchpad drivers have been added to the 3.2 kernel, so it should work out of the box by now. Since 3.4 this supports scrolling and multi-touch features. (In case of problems with the touchpad after resume see [[#Suspend to RAM|Suspend to RAM]].) However it seems that [https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51403 two finger tapping and two finger scrolling are incompatible]. To have both working you must use one of the following two patches.
 ===== ReubenBond =====
@@ Line 56: / Line 50: @@
 ===== Saaros =====
-[https://github.com/saaros/sentelic Saaros's driver] works well for two finger and side scrolling and is fairly straight forward to apply and build. Unfortunately however, it does slightly impede normal functionality, pointing doesn't seem quite as accurate, tapping doesn't seem quite as sensitive and tapping and dragging/selecting can be quite tricky. This code should eventually be accepted into the official kernel: https://github.com/saaros/sentelic/issues/2.
+[https://github.com/saaros/sentelic Saaros's driver] works well for two finger and side scrolling and is fairly straight forward to apply and build. Unfortunately however, it does slightly impede normal functionality, pointing does not seem quite as accurate, tapping does not seem quite as sensitive and tapping and dragging/selecting can be quite tricky. This code should eventually be accepted into the official kernel: https://github.com/saaros/sentelic/issues/2.
 === Graphics ===
@@ Line 77: / Line 71: @@
 Colour accuracy on the Zenbook is not very good. There is a [http://www.notebookcheck.net/uploads/tx_nbc2/UX31.icc UX31E ICC profile] on the [http://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-Zenbook-UX31E-DH52B-Laptop-Review.65718.0.html Noteboocheck review]. However, I find that too green using xcalib and so use [http://www.notebookcheck.net/uploads/tx_nbc2/Asus_UX21E_1366x768_glare__P116NWR1_R2_.icc the UX21E version].
-=== Wireless ===
+=== Networking ===
+{{Warning|[[NetworkManager]] generally fails to work for one reason or another on the UX31E. Consider using an alternative such as [[netctl]].}}
+==== Wireless ====
 Works fine with the ath9k driver, included in the kernel since 2.6.27.
-Edit [[rc.conf]] as root and add {{ic|ath9k}} to the {{ic|MODULES}} array.
-{{Warning|Do not forget to install the wireless_tools and wpa_suppliant packages during the installation since you will get stuck with no internet access if you don't!}}
+{{Warning|Do not forget to install the wireless_tools and wpa_supplicant packages during the installation since you will get stuck with no internet access if you do not!}}
-==== Unstable Wireless when using Network Manager ====
+===== Unstable Wireless when using Network Manager =====
 Some users experience connection drops when using wireless. For some users this can be fixed by setting the wireless connection's BSSID (usually the router's MAC address). This only works if your wireless connection only has one access point as the BSSID is unique for each access point.
-==== Kernel Panics ====
+An alternative solution is to disable the ath9k driver ani feature, to do this use the following :
-There is an issue with the ath9k driver that causes the laptop to completely freeze and forcing you to hard reboot. The patch for it is included in 3.3-rc6.
+<code>echo 1 > /sys/kernel/debug/ieee80211/phy0/ath9k/disable_ani</code>
-=== Bluetooth ===
+==== Ethernet - Asix AX88772 USB Ethernet ====
-In order for the bluetooth device to be recognized properly you need this patch: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.bluez.kernel/18801
+The Asix AX887722 USB Ethernet drivers are included in the kernel, so it should work out of the box.
-There is also a kernel in the AUR which includes this: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=57197
-=== Ethernet - USB adapter ===
-{{Note|The Asix USB ethernet drivers are included in the current (3.2.2-1) kernel, so it should work out of the box now}}
-The Ethernet USB adapater which comes with the ASUS UX31 and UX21 models is the Asix "USB to Fast Ethernet" adapter, model AX88772B. At the present, the device is not recognized by the currently available kernels. However, the source for the driver for Linux Kernels 2.6.38 and later can be downloaded at the following link: AX88772B Linux Driver v4.2.0: http://www.asix.com.tw/FrootAttach/driver/AX88772B_772A_760_772_178_LINUX_Driver_v4.2.0_Source.zip.
-Once downloaded, the source needs to be compiled. First unzip the file as follows:
- unzip AX88772B_772A_760_772_178_LINUX_Driver_v4.2.0_Source.zip
-Next, go into the unzipped directory and compile the source as follows:
- cd AX88772B_772A_760_772_178_LINUX_Driver_v4.1.0_Source
- make
-Install the just compiled module:
- sudo make install
-Finally load the module:
- sudo modprobe asix
-That's it. You should be able to connect using a wired connection now.
 === Solid State Drive ===
@@ Line 116: / Line 95: @@
 === Suspend to RAM ===
-The USB modules must be unloaded or the laptop won't come out of sleep mode.
+The USB modules must be unloaded or the laptop will not come out of sleep mode.
 Put
@@ Line 132: / Line 111: @@
   dmesg | grep -i "acpi fadt"
 outputs
-  ACPI FADT declares the system doesn't support PCIe ASPM, so disable it.
+  ACPI FADT declares the system does not support PCIe ASPM, so disable it.
 === i915 ===
@@ Line 144: / Line 123: @@
 Module parameter details
   modinfo i915
-You may suffer sudden shutdowns if you run a kernel prior to 3.3.0-rc6. To fix this, you have to upgrade  or patch your kernel (see the bug report on freedesktop: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=44867, patches at the end, read the Eugeni Dodonov's messages).
-Note that kernel 3.3-rc6 shouldn't yield hard-shutdowns any more but that you still have to enable it explicitly by appending i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 to the kernel line.
 === Additional powersavings ===
-Configure [[Laptop_Mode_Tools]] and don't forget to check [[CPU_Frequency_Scaling]]
+Configure [[Laptop_Mode_Tools]] and do not forget to check [[CPU_Frequency_Scaling]]
-== Additional ressources ==
+== Additional resources ==
 *https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AsusZenbook
 *http://www.lesswatts.org/