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#1 2016-04-15 14:44:52

RankoKohime
Member
Registered: 2014-01-08
Posts: 87
Website

Asus X205TA

This is intended to be a general topic on this laptop, covering the entire gamut of getting Arch to run on it properly.  Any input from other users of this laptop is welcome, and I'll try to add it to the linked doc below.

I've been working on getting this into a usable state for a while, compiling quite a few notes along the way that have left me with a semi-usable machine, but not a daily mobile worker.

My main itch is getting suspend working correctly.  As mentioned in the Ubuntu Forum thread, "intel_idle.max_cstate=x" in GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT in /etc/default/grub does one of two things in Arch:

Setting x to 0 results in the laptop appearing to shutdown (power LED goes off and stays off) but the system successfully resumes (IF a touchpad button is used, power and keyboard buttons have no effect), albeit without the touchpad working, (though this can be fixed by unloading and reloading elan_i2c) BUT, very shortly thereafter, and only sometimes, the screen goes blank and the system cannot be pinged. (wired connection through USB ethernet adapter)

When the system does stay up after a successful resume, though, I lose the battery monitoring that I have in Gkrellm and Byobu.  (I'm not sure where they are getting their data from, as Upower doesn't report anything, and ACPI is not installed)

Setting x to 1 results in pm-suspend exiting with error code 1 with nothing occurring after that, and when the lid is closed, the laptop freezes, with display off and power LED on, requiring a hard power off.

Last edited by RankoKohime (2016-04-15 14:45:13)

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#2 2016-06-09 16:49:16

grandtheftjiujitsu
Member
Registered: 2013-07-27
Posts: 91

Re: Asus X205TA

Hey there, thanks for starting this thread!  I've done a good bit of work on this machine as well.  I have a GitHub repo set up for this machine which covers tweaking the install USB / ISO, an installation page, and a bugs page with assorted fixes and statuses.  Most of the bugs, including suspend (touchpad and wifi related issues) have been addressed there.  I also have some machine specific blog posts detailing some various tweaks and mods.

Most recently I've compiled a 201606 version of the stock Arch ISO (download) that includes:

  • A bootia32.efi file to boot the ISO (version ARCH_201606)

  • The wireless drivers for both i686 and x86 architectures

  • A kernel module tweak to enable wifi on boot

You should just have to make sure the partition of the USB is labeled ARCH_<YEAR><MONTH> (in the case of my ISO, that's ARCH_201606) boot up the USB).  Then connect to wifi with wifi-menu, and install as usual.  I'm working on adding the ISO's decompressed files to GitHub as well so that there can be an opportunity for collaboration (I'm not an IT professional by trade or training so sometimes I'm slow to get to things).

Things still not working:

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#3 2016-06-11 04:43:09

grandtheftjiujitsu
Member
Registered: 2013-07-27
Posts: 91

Re: Asus X205TA

Here is bluetooth fix I wrote about, using a composite of sources.

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#4 2016-06-11 16:21:43

RankoKohime
Member
Registered: 2014-01-08
Posts: 87
Website

Re: Asus X205TA

Nifty.  Having not been able to sell this thing on Craigslist, I keep looking at it from time to time.  Your work is giving me some optimism that it might be usable at some point in the future.

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#5 2016-06-17 03:44:46

grandtheftjiujitsu
Member
Registered: 2013-07-27
Posts: 91

Re: Asus X205TA

Everything is usable now except sound.  It has been my daily driver since I bought it last July.  The machine's sound card (realtek rt5648)  does not have a Linux / ALSA driver compiled yet.  For a summary of that, see this post on Ubuntu Forums.

As for your OP:

  • Battery Information - Woks fine with conky if you specify BAT0.  Gkrellm (v2.3.7-1) works after suspend as well (kernel 4.6.2-1) out of the box, I didn't tweak anything.

  • Suspend - works for me with systemd's

    # systemctl suspend

    .  I use it with a keyboard shortcut.  I did notice though, that closing the lid causes it to get glitchy and I had to hard reboot.  Although...

  • Wifi and touchpad do work after resuming (described on my GitHub repo), but sometimes it takes a second or two to kick in.

  • I use systemd-boot, but have the max cstate set to 1.  Using systemd rather than ps-suspend though.

To Do:

  • Investigate lid switch freezing

  • Keep eyes pealed for developments on sound

Last edited by grandtheftjiujitsu (2016-06-17 04:24:13)

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#6 2016-06-18 16:53:09

grandtheftjiujitsu
Member
Registered: 2013-07-27
Posts: 91

Re: Asus X205TA

As a workaround for the laptop lid/suspend issue, you can disable systemd's control over the lid and use a keyboard shortcut to manually suspend the machine before closing the lid.

Disable systemd's lid control:

# nano /etc/systemd/logind.conf
----------------------------------------------
[Login]
#NAutoVTs=6
#ReserveVT=6
#KillUserProcesses=no
#KillOnlyUsers=
#KillExcludeUsers=root
#InhibitDelayMaxSec=5
#HandlePowerKey=poweroff
#HandleSuspendKey=suspend
#HandleHibernateKey=hibernate
HandleLidSwitch=ignore          #suspend
#HandleLidSwitchDocked=ignore
#PowerKeyIgnoreInhibited=no
#SuspendKeyIgnoreInhibited=no
#HibernateKeyIgnoreInhibited=no
#LidSwitchIgnoreInhibited=yes
#HoldoffTimeoutSec=30s
#IdleAction=ignore
#IdleActionSec=30min
#RuntimeDirectorySize=10%
#RemoveIPC=yes
#InhibitorsMax=8192
#SessionsMax=8192
#UserTasksMax=12288

Restart the service:

# systemctl restart systemd-login

Configure your DE / WM to map a keyboard shortcut to execute:

systemctl suspend

If a better / complete solution is found, please contribute by adding to the issue's discussion on GitHub.

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#7 2016-07-14 08:41:50

Sf
Member
Registered: 2016-07-14
Posts: 2

Re: Asus X205TA

Does suspend to RAM aka mem actually work on your x205ta reliably?

Mine only does suspend to idle aka freeze (power led stays on during suspend) reliably and therefore consumes quite a bit of power during suspend.

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#8 2016-07-18 01:30:33

grandtheftjiujitsu
Member
Registered: 2013-07-27
Posts: 91

Re: Asus X205TA

Sf wrote:

Does suspend to RAM aka mem actually work on your x205ta reliably?

Mine only does suspend to idle aka freeze (power led stays on during suspend) reliably and therefore consumes quite a bit of power during suspend.

I did some checking and it looks like it only freezes.  That was using systemd.  Not sure about pam-utils.  My machine used about 19% of battery overnight while "suspended."  This might have to do with the cstate that is set on the kernel line (to prevent random freezing) altering some things.  The power light stayed on for me in both cases.  I didn't check w/o the max_cstate option.

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#9 2016-07-18 15:34:39

Sf
Member
Registered: 2016-07-14
Posts: 2

Re: Asus X205TA

I'd say it's not the max_cstate, since I'm running a custom built kernel with intel-idle driver patched to avoid the (supposedly) problematic c-states (C6-N, C6-S and C7-S) and I only get freeze. There's also a suggestion floating around to use relative_sleep_states=1 which, as far as I understand it, only helps to map "mem" to "freeze" if actual "mem" isn't supported.

So far, this is my most missed hardware-feature of the machine.

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