Arch on Eee PC

vomix · 2008-01-16 16:44:19

zodmaner wrote:

Jacek Poplawski wrote:
I am going to buy eeepc when it will be available in Europe. Could you summarize what exactly is needed to install Arch on it? How do you install base system?
Basically you need:
- USB thumb drive (512MB minimal, 2GB preferable)
- Madwifi driver and Eee patch which you can get from here: http://madwifi.org/attachment/ticket/16 … ormat=raw' and here: http://snapshots.madwifi.org/madwifi-ng … 018.tar.gz
- If you want to use dkite Eee modules package then you should also download them from his website: http://members.shaw.ca/dkite
External CD-ROM drive will make your job easier, but not necessary.
My installation steps:
- Follow this guide: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ins … _USB_stick in order to create a bootable USB to use for installation, using Don't Panic iso. Don't forget to copy Madwifi driver, the patch and dkite's modules package (if you decided to use it) to your USB stick.
- Boot from USB into Arch installer and do a normal installation routine and create partition, etc. use ext2 as file system and don't create any swap on your SSD. You can create any partition you like but I just deleted two Xandros partitions and creates one big 4GB one. I leave the BIOS partition alone (you can delete it if you want to).
- In package selection,install devel & support in addition to the base package. devel is needed to compiled various Eee's modules and support for wireless support. You can leave out all of the wireless drivers, including madwifi one, because we gonna install one just for Eee.
- After those steps, install normally. After boot into your newly installed Arch, you should noticed that the network (both wired and wireless) is not working. We need to install Madwifi driver in order to get the wireless to work (we can't use dkite's package yet because it required kernel 2.6.23-ARCH). mount your usb and change into directory that contains Madwifi driver and do the following:
tar zxvf madwifi-ng-r2756-20071018.tar.gz
cd madwifi-ng-r2756-20071018
patch -p0 < ../madwifi-ng-0933.ar2425.20071130.i386.patch\?format\=raw
make clean
make
sudo make install
Add the wireless interfact (ath0) into your /etc/rc.conf and restart, and now you should have a working wireless connection.
- Update your system and restart. Noticed that after restart your network stop working again. This is because the update also update your kernel (from 2.6.22-ARCH to 2.6.23-ARCH). Change directory into the one that contains dkite Eee modules packages and install it with 'pacman -U' and add 'asus_acpid' to your MODULES=() array in /etc/rc.conf. Restart your system and your network (along with many other things) should now work.
And, well, that's it! Now you have a working Arch Linux base system. You might want to install dkite acpid_eee package for hotkey, suspend and resume support.
PS. Could you guys please give me a feed back on this? I think we should post something similar (but better written, of course ) to Arch Wiki in order to help people install Arch on Eee.

Amazing, thanks! I'm still waiting for my Eeepc, but I'll try this when it'll reach destination. Of course, I'll make a feedback!
Anyway, I've a few questions...:

- With this method (vanilla kernel + patching madwifi), wouldn't the system be broken after each kernel upgrade?
- What about the kernel26eee ? Isn't it easier? Or does this kernel not support all hardware/hotkeys/etc... ?
- I suppose that installing arch on the ssd is pretty similar to install it on a shdc card?

Thanks in advance! (and sorry for my terrible english... )

Last edited by vomix (2008-01-16 16:45:46)

zodmaner · 2008-01-16 16:59:32

vomix wrote:

Anyway, I've a few questions...:
- With this method (vanilla kernel + patching madwifi), wouldn't the system be broken after each kernel upgrade?

Let me try this out and see how it goes ok? I'll get back to you.

vomix wrote:

- What about the kernel26eee ? Isn't it easier? Or does this kernel not support all hardware/hotkeys/etc... ?

Yes, but you still needs working network to download the package form extra. Of course the alternative is to download the kernel26eee package from extra to your USB and then install it using 'pacman -U'.

I haven't use kernel26eee all that much, but from what I've tried wireless works without any problem. Not sure about other things (acpi, webcam, hotkey) though. Perhaps someone who use it could answer your question better than me.

vomix wrote:

- I suppose that installing arch on the ssd is pretty similar to install it on a shdc card?

Yep, in fact it just like installation on any ordinary hard drives. Nothing fancy. Just remember to use ext2 and disable swap space, or you'll risk wearing your SSD out.

vomix wrote:

Thanks in advance! (and sorry for my terrible english... )

Nah, your English is fine, way better then mine actually.

Last edited by zodmaner (2008-01-16 17:02:51)

suadeo · 2008-01-16 17:09:51

suadeo wrote:

Ok, having some trouble getting my wireless up and running. I patched madwifi, got it installed, and then rebooted. I check and ath_pci and ath_hal are up and running. I check iwconfig and ifconfig and I see nothing (just lo). I am not sure what other information you guys will need, but any help will be much appreciated.

Alright, still having problems. Attempting to fix this, I used the kernel26eee package and still no wifi. My ethernet seems to be up but nothing for ath0. I have no idea where to go from here. Any suggestions?

zodmaner · 2008-01-16 17:19:29

suadeo wrote:

suadeo wrote:
Ok, having some trouble getting my wireless up and running. I patched madwifi, got it installed, and then rebooted. I check and ath_pci and ath_hal are up and running. I check iwconfig and ifconfig and I see nothing (just lo). I am not sure what other information you guys will need, but any help will be much appreciated.
Alright, still having problems. Attempting to fix this, I used the kernel26eee package and still no wifi. My ethernet seems to be up but nothing for ath0. I have no idea where to go from here. Any suggestions?

Hm... I'm not sure what's the problem here.

Have you try dkite package? If not that try using it and see if it works for you (install it on vanilla kernel, btw).

Also, check your /etc/rc.conf file to see if there is ath0 in the interface array.

Last edited by zodmaner (2008-01-16 17:19:44)

filoktetes · 2008-01-16 20:41:38

suadeo wrote:

suadeo wrote:
Ok, having some trouble getting my wireless up and running. I patched madwifi, got it installed, and then rebooted. I check and ath_pci and ath_hal are up and running. I check iwconfig and ifconfig and I see nothing (just lo). I am not sure what other information you guys will need, but any help will be much appreciated.
Alright, still having problems. Attempting to fix this, I used the kernel26eee package and still no wifi. My ethernet seems to be up but nothing for ath0. I have no idea where to go from here. Any suggestions?

Are you sure you start up with kernel26eee? If you are and iwconfig doesn't list ath0, I wonder if the wifi works with other distros like the Xandros, and if the wifi card it listed with lspci.

Kitty · 2008-01-16 23:00:56

Zod, good explanation. Only thing I do diff, is ignore wifi until eeemodules are installed, it's easier to get a wired connection up and running. Building atl2 is nice and quick, and you don't have to mess with protocol drivers (madwifi) and network security. I'd guess that most people are able to plug into their router during the install.

And if you use dkite's eeemodules, REMEMBER TO RUN DEPMOD (as root)!!!

I couldn't figure out what I broke until I reinstalled, and it was still broke. I was going to visit his site to re-download the pkg, and saw that. A reboot later and it all worked. /facepalm

Kitty · 2008-01-17 00:48:51

Another quick note, if editing /ect/rc.local.shutdown doesn't fix the shutdown problem, this is what I did:

Edit /etc/rc.shutdown, and search for "modprobe -r" and right below that line add:

modprobe -r snd_hda_intel

the problem is that /ect/rc.local.shutdown is called at the beginning of shutdown, and won't work if the module is busy. It works just fine later in the process.

fusca · 2008-01-17 10:53:24

Kitty wrote:

Another quick note, if editing /ect/rc.local.shutdown doesn't fix the shutdown problem, this is what I did:
Edit /etc/rc.shutdown, and search for "modprobe -r" and right below that line add:
modprobe -r snd_hda_intel
the problem is that /ect/rc.local.shutdown is called at the beginning of shutdown, and won't work if the module is busy. It works just fine later in the process.

OK. I'll test and do it but WHY do I need to kill manually this kernel module to shutdown the system correctly?

Thanks.

zodmaner · 2008-01-17 16:41:10

Kitty wrote:

Zod, good explanation. Only thing I do diff, is ignore wifi until eeemodules are installed, it's easier to get a wired connection up and running. Building atl2 is nice and quick, and you don't have to mess with protocol drivers (madwifi) and network security. I'd guess that most people are able to plug into their router during the install.
And if you use dkite's eeemodules, REMEMBER TO RUN DEPMOD (as root)!!!
I couldn't figure out what I broke until I reinstalled, and it was still broke. I was going to visit his site to re-download the pkg, and saw that. A reboot later and it all worked. /facepalm.

Thanks a lot Kitty. I've forgot about that quite important step

Kitty wrote:

Another quick note, if editing /ect/rc.local.shutdown doesn't fix the shutdown problem, this is what I did:
Edit /etc/rc.shutdown, and search for "modprobe -r" and right below that line add:
modprobe -r snd_hda_intel
the problem is that /ect/rc.local.shutdown is called at the beginning of shutdown, and won't work if the module is busy. It works just fine later in the process.

Actually, that is quite a bad idea because you shouldn't edit /etc/rc.shutdown. That's what /etc/rc.local.shutdown is for. Beside, /etc/rc.shutdown will get update along with kernel update, and you don't want to edit /etc/rc.shutdown every time you update your kernel, right?

The proper solution should be to kill any programs that are using sound module before unload it. For example, on my Eee mpd is hogging the sound module so I kill it first by putting these lines into my /etc/rc.local.shutdown:

/etc/rc.d/mpd stop
rmmod snd_hda_intel

Again, you should NOT be editing /etc/rc.shutdown file in the first place, use /etc/rc.local.shutdown.

Last edited by zodmaner (2008-01-18 01:12:59)

Kitty · 2008-01-18 01:54:16

Hmm. I agree that editing rc.shutdown is not ideal. But it was the only thing that worked for me. I had the problem before I had any sound stuff installed, So I'll have to edit that in each kernel update. Which is no problem because the first failure to shut down will be a 'nice" reminder. >_<

Oh, has anyone installed the new .14-1 kernel? Did the eeemodules PKGBUILD compile correctly and work ok?

zodmaner · 2008-01-18 02:09:51

Kitty wrote:

Hmm. I agree that editing rc.shutdown is not ideal. But it was the only thing that worked for me. I had the problem before I had any sound stuff installed, So I'll have to edit that in each kernel update. Which is no problem because the first failure to shut down will be a 'nice" reminder. >_<
Oh, has anyone installed the new .14-1 kernel? Did the eeemodules PKGBUILD compile correctly and work ok?

I've just install the new .14-1 kernel and to my surprise found out that, after restart, pretty much everything still working. The wireless, webcam and sound works. The only thing that didn't work is the asus_acpi module, which makes asusosd fails to start so you'll get no notification when changing brightness level or sound volume. Recompile and reinstall dkite's eeemodule package using the PKGBUILD fix this problem.

I haven't recompile the acpid_eee package, as it seems to be working fine though.

I guess updating your kernel to .14-1 won't be such a big problem, as it didn't seems to break anything seriously and the problem with the asus_acpi module can be fixes easily enough by just recompile and reinstall the eeemodule package. I wonder if we'd be so lucky with the 2.6.24 kernel update, though.

PS. Oh, I forgot to mentioned that I haven't test the suspend/resume yet, though. Don't know if it will works or not...

Last edited by zodmaner (2008-01-18 03:20:23)

dkite · 2008-01-18 15:51:01

Kitty wrote:

Hmm. I agree that editing rc.shutdown is not ideal. But it was the only thing that worked for me. I had the problem before I had any sound stuff installed, So I'll have to edit that in each kernel update. Which is no problem because the first failure to shut down will be a 'nice" reminder. >_<
Oh, has anyone installed the new .14-1 kernel? Did the eeemodules PKGBUILD compile correctly and work ok?

Yes. They worked. The new pacman changes the release numbers oddly. I haven't had time to update the pkgbuilds or the pkg.tar.gz yet. Possibly tonight.

Derek

faelar · 2008-01-19 17:19:27

I don't have my EEE yet, but I have a question. On my main computer I'm using Arch with JFS. Can I use it if I disable all the logs ? (I believe the answer is yes). And more important, if I do so, will it affect performences ? If you have some advices...
Thank you for your answers (PS : sorry if my english is ugly).

Kitty · 2008-01-19 18:33:33

The filesystem vs. SSD is almost a religious debate.

There's plenty of arguments as to why a journaled FS on SSD is ok, so it's really up to you to tune your system as you see fit. Any FS will work, the debate is about how many writes is too many.

Personally, I went with ext2 with no swap (but 2GB RAM), just for the reason that my SSD isn't removable, and if it fails my Eee is bricked.

Kitty · 2008-01-22 04:18:26

PKGBUILD uploaded to AUR:

http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?d … 1&ID=14774

It's a nice module, seems stable.

Last edited by Kitty (2008-01-22 04:20:47)

saten · 2008-01-22 14:08:00

Hi everyone!

I'm a happy owner of Eee pc from yesterday. I've installed arch following the guide about installing from usb. I used an usb-eth adapter to get the network working, updated everything then installed kernel26eee. i have an external monitor which supports 1440x900 and i got it working with the intel driver and the Virtual option in xorg.conf ( i810 with 915resolution failed to me).

Now i've set up compiz and it works fine if i use xrandr to turn off the internal display first. otherwise i see two different cubes (maybe because of the different form factor of the two displays).

I'd like to ask you if there's a way to fix the cpu throttling. i've installed cpufreqd and it starts defaults with performance governor, and cpufreq-info shows that the frequency range is 900MHz - 900 MHz. I can change this using "cpufreq-set -d 112500". is there a smarter way?

saten

Last edited by saten (2008-01-22 17:57:14)

zodmaner · 2008-01-23 17:18:15

I've made the some changes to the Arch wiki article about Eee PC: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ins … sus_EEE_PC The change is quite substantial and I would love to hear comment/feedback form you guys (I'm thinking of 'cleaning' it up a bit, but I'm hesitant to delete anything before consult with you guys).

All of the stuff that I've posted are the things that I've learn from this thread, so the credits really goes to all of your guys (Hope you don't mind that I've uploaded your xconf.conf to the wiki, Kitty).

Hope you guys will find it useful.

EDIT: I made some further edit to the article, but I still need someone who is currently use filoktetes kernel26eee to contribute. If you're currently use it, then please, please contribute.

Last edited by zodmaner (2008-01-23 19:16:03)

txus · 2008-01-23 19:15:11

For those with the shutdown problem, which persists even putting

rmmod snd_hda_intel

in rc.local.shutdown, is alsa (or your current sound daemon) giving you any errors?

In my case the alsa daemon complained about not being able to save current values because the sound card didn't exist (the eee DID shut down though). In general terms, removing the module makes the system not being able to recognise the sound card, but rc.local.shutdown is always executed before rc.shutdown, so if you do "rmmod" in the rc.local.shutdown file, it causes that the system doesn detect the sound card in it's "normal" shutdown sequence.
What I have done is simply give the system time to stop all daemons before rmmod-ing.

This is the line I have in rc.local.shutdown, which works like charms (is that the correct expression? I'm sorry for my english xD) for me:

sleep 2 && rmmod snd_hda_intel &

I don't have many daemons runnging, so maybe you can increment the "2" with sth. that suits your needs.

This way you don't have to edit rc.shutdown each time you update your system/kernel.

Hope it helps!:)

zodmaner · 2008-01-23 19:18:19

Great tip txus!

May I add it to the Wiki?

Last edited by zodmaner (2008-01-23 19:19:20)

faelar · 2008-01-23 19:45:03

I'm on my EEE, but on the (horrible) xandros desktop...

Maybe I'm asking something stupide, but when I had tried to enter the following command on my main workstation, after booting on the usbstick :

mount /dev/sd[x] /src

It asked me for the filesystem type. Is there something I missed ?

zodmaner · 2008-01-23 19:52:59

faelar wrote:

I'm on my EEE, but on the (horrible) xandros desktop...
Maybe I'm asking something stupide, but when I had tried to enter the following command on my main workstation, after booting on the usbstick :
mount /dev/sd[x] /src
It asked me for the filesystem type. Is there something I missed ?

Are you booting from USB stick containing Arch Linux installation CD image? Then try the following command:

mount -t vfat /dev/sd[x] /src

Last edited by zodmaner (2008-01-23 19:54:03)

faelar · 2008-01-23 20:03:28

I can't test if it works, but I was thinking of something like that...
Another question, can I launch air-crack, kismet & cie with dkites pkg or do I need to install a patched version of madwifi or something else ?

vomix · 2008-01-23 20:06:10

faelar wrote:

I'm on my EEE, but on the (horrible) xandros desktop...
Maybe I'm asking something stupide, but when I had tried to enter the following command on my main workstation, after booting on the usbstick :
mount /dev/sd[x] /src
It asked me for the filesystem type. Is there something I missed ?

I had the same problem this afternoon!

Just mount the correct partition (ex: mount /dev/sb1 /src in my case!), and not the whole disk (sdb!).
I hope this help.

After that, everything went smooth, but I encounter some grub errors: when I'm installing grub on sdb1 (bootable - first partition of the sdhc card - / -), it doesn't boot at all (black screen), and when I'm installing it on "sdb" (according to grub), it launch a weird bash-like with a grub> command!
Any tips? Cause I don't want to touch to the MBR of the ssd...

Another thing: I've put the last kernel package on my usb stick to upgrade my system without any connection (and after that, installing dkites modules, etc.)
Any chances of succes? Or are they some dependencies to include?

Thanks in advance!

Last edited by vomix (2008-01-23 20:07:04)

zodmaner · 2008-01-23 20:11:18

faelar wrote:

I can't test if it works, but I was thinking of something like that...
Another question, can I launch air-crack, kismet & cie with dkites pkg or do I need to install a patched version of madwifi or something else ?

dkite's package already contains a patched version of Madwifi wireless driver, as far as I know.

shrd · 2008-01-23 20:14:35

hello all, i have installed archlinux + fluxbox and all is fine.
I am interested to activate fn+2 button to kill/open wifi.
What is the command to kill wifi : echo 0 >/proc/............... ?
Is the acpi patch can solve this ?

Arch Linux

#176 2008-01-16 16:44:19

Re: Arch on Eee PC

#177 2008-01-16 16:59:32

Re: Arch on Eee PC

#178 2008-01-16 17:09:51

Re: Arch on Eee PC

#179 2008-01-16 17:19:29

Re: Arch on Eee PC

#180 2008-01-16 20:41:38

Re: Arch on Eee PC

#181 2008-01-16 23:00:56

Re: Arch on Eee PC

#182 2008-01-17 00:48:51

Re: Arch on Eee PC

#183 2008-01-17 10:53:24

Re: Arch on Eee PC

#184 2008-01-17 16:41:10

Re: Arch on Eee PC

#185 2008-01-18 01:54:16

Re: Arch on Eee PC

#186 2008-01-18 02:09:51

Re: Arch on Eee PC

#187 2008-01-18 15:51:01

Re: Arch on Eee PC

#188 2008-01-19 17:19:27

Re: Arch on Eee PC

#189 2008-01-19 18:33:33

Re: Arch on Eee PC

#190 2008-01-22 04:18:26

Re: Arch on Eee PC

#191 2008-01-22 14:08:00

Re: Arch on Eee PC

#192 2008-01-23 17:18:15

Re: Arch on Eee PC

#193 2008-01-23 19:15:11

Re: Arch on Eee PC

#194 2008-01-23 19:18:19

Re: Arch on Eee PC

#195 2008-01-23 19:45:03

Re: Arch on Eee PC

#196 2008-01-23 19:52:59

Re: Arch on Eee PC

#197 2008-01-23 20:03:28

Re: Arch on Eee PC

#198 2008-01-23 20:06:10

Re: Arch on Eee PC

#199 2008-01-23 20:11:18

Re: Arch on Eee PC

#200 2008-01-23 20:14:35

Re: Arch on Eee PC

Board footer