Arch Linux

zodmaner

Member

Registered: 2007-07-11

Posts: 653

Re: Arch on Eee PC

Also, elbecko used to post about Eee 900 here.

Hi guys, this is a brief report about Archeee 900 (kernel-eee 2.6.25.3-1 / acpi-eee 9-4 / EeePC 900).

After walking through default Xandros, I installed Archeee onto 900 using 701's disk image as is. With some modifications to xorg.conf, it worked. Although there're some problems, not bad overall.

touchpad: Mouse and tap functioin works. No edge-scroll nor multi-tap. Not recognized as Synaptics. (Actually it's Elantech?)
sound: OK on boot, but no sound after suspend/resume. "hda_codec unknown" error in dmesg. (And doesn't work with kernel-eee 2.6.24?)
wifi: OK
lan: OK
webcam: OK (checked using luvcview only)
fn+f1: OK
fn+f2: OK (except for a retry)
fn+f3-f4: OK
fn+f5: OK
fn+f6: OK
fn+f7-f9: OK, with modifications to scripts. (amixer shows different control names on 900.)
power: OK

Here's link to some logs and confs:
http://archeee.depot.googlepages.com/eeepc900-info

Revised: Read my post below for sound workaround.
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php? … 45#p371745
Revised: Edge-scroll works now!!
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php? … 71#p375971
Revised: Volumu-mute doesn't work actually.
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php? … 39#p380439

I'm not sure how different 900 is from 901, but it might worth a look.

Last edited by zodmaner (2008-07-25 14:25:37)

JazzplayerL9

Member

Registered: 2006-03-31

Posts: 109

Re: Arch on Eee PC

@zodmaner,

Sorry my post was unclear.  I had an Eee 701 with Arch running on it fine.  I was in a previous discussion about the new 901's and whether or not they were well supported.  The new RaLink wireless and the microphone have been giving other distros a few fits.

EDIT:

lsmod and lspci of new Eee PC 901 20G Linux version is on the wiki for anyone interested.

Last edited by JazzplayerL9 (2008-07-25 15:36:34)

Heresyte

Member

Registered: 2008-07-10

Posts: 19

Re: Arch on Eee PC

Someone mentioned in an Ubuntu thread that putting Ubuntu on the 901 appeared to significally reduce the battery life.  Does anybody know anything about this?  The longer battery life was one of the most important factors in my choosing the 901 over alternatives.

djolk

Member

Registered: 2008-03-07

Posts: 59

Re: Arch on Eee PC

Has anyone ever had problems getting an eee 701 4g non-surf to boot off a usb stick? 
It's a Sandisk U3 Cruzer 8gig with an install image on it. 
I am sure I have booted off of this stick on the same computer before, only using the 'deprecated' method.
My other computer will boot just fine so I am wondering if there is something wrong?

JazzplayerL9

Member

Registered: 2006-03-31

Posts: 109

Re: Arch on Eee PC

djolk,

Are you pressing the ESC key during the ASUS boot screen to be able to choose which device you boot from?

djolk

Member

Registered: 2008-03-07

Posts: 59

Re: Arch on Eee PC

Yes, it goes straight to my usual grub install.
Or of I tell it not to boot off of the internal SSD it just gives a cannot read boot media error.

Is it possible to use grub to tell it to boot an install image off of the USB stick?
Or should I go back, download an .iso image and try that?  Seems to me like the instructions on the wiki for this are no long applicable though and my satellite internet is so, so slow and leaving the computer on drains the house batteries pretty quick.  Boo.

Last edited by djolk (2008-07-27 00:48:57)

Heresyte

Member

Registered: 2008-07-10

Posts: 19

Re: Arch on Eee PC

I am pretty sure you can use GRUB to boot from a USB stick, but I'm not sure if you have to do anything special.  If you research it on google it will probably be easy to figure out.

delcake

Member

Registered: 2008-07-28

Posts: 62

Re: Arch on Eee PC

I got an eee 1000H, and unfortunately neither the wired or wireless modules are included in the Arch install!

I made a PKGBUILD for compiling the wired ethernel modules for anyone else who got a 1000H (I'm told the 901 has the same chipset? Not sure on that) although the wireless does not work yet.

Apparently, people have the wireless modules working on kernel 2.6.24 and earlier, but I have yet to give that a shot. They compile under 2.6.25 but don't create the wireless device, and they don't even compile under 2.6.26. Good news is that ralink is apparently working on a new version to be release sometime (hopefully) in early August.

Here's the link to my PKGBUILD for anyone that needs it: http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=18663

JazzplayerL9

Member

Registered: 2006-03-31

Posts: 109

Re: Arch on Eee PC

@delcake,

Thanks for the AUR package.  I'll edit this and let you know for sure if it works with an Eee 901 in a few.  I guess we're stuck with ndiswrapper until RaLink updates.

Question though, are you using toofishes' repo for your Eee 1000H?  And...does your microphone work?

jbooth

Member

Registered: 2006-12-29

Posts: 34

Re: Arch on Eee PC

Your AUR package at least sees my white 901's wired ethernet, giving me eth0. I haven't plugged it in yet. I should login to AUR and upload my wireless PKGBUILD probably...

JazzplayerL9

Member

Registered: 2006-03-31

Posts: 109

Re: Arch on Eee PC

The AUR package made by delcake does indeed work with the stock Arch kernel on the Eee 901.

KERNEL-EEE:

Toofishes repository does NOT work with the Eee 901.  Wired, Wireless, video, and sound do not work...I haven't gotten much further than that with it to test what else doesn't work...but bascally, if you have a 901 right now you are on your own to figure out how to get things working. 

STOCK KERNEL:

The GREAT news is that shutdown scripts "just work."  I didn't test standby...and really I need to reinstall Arch again because I missed some minor things during setup. 

What is working:
-Sound (thanks jbooth)
-keyboard
-mouse (don't need synaptic, thanks delcake)
-X, using VESA and xf86-video-intel
-External Microphone Port (internal isn't working yet)
-Ethernet

NOTE: The ethernet only works if you use delcake's AUR package: http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=18663
               Make sure to look at the PKGBUILD and download the zip file it's looking for before you just try to make the package...no connection, no goodies.

What isn't working:
-Wireless (works with ndiswrapper and the source works with 2.6.24 kernels but not newer ones)

What hasn't been tested:
-Microphone
-Webcam

I'll update this more as soon as I get a chance.

Last edited by JazzplayerL9 (2008-07-29 15:24:21)

jbooth

Member

Registered: 2006-12-29

Posts: 34

Re: Arch on Eee PC

Stock kernel's sound worked fine for me once I turned the volume up on the unelpfully labeled "Front" channel -- aka the Eee PC's front speakers.

Uploaded to AUR as eeert2860. There's already a rt2860, but it is version 1.6.1 not 1.7.0.0

2nd edit: I'm messing with kernel-eee to get 901 support there. It is pretty cranky though, I'm thinking maybe starting with a stock kernel and modifying it from there would be easier.

Also: mouse/trackpad. 2-finger vertical scroll works in X just fine out of the box (using xandros xorg.conf -- perhaps I should post it to the wiki?)

Last edited by jbooth (2008-07-29 05:26:02)

JazzplayerL9

Member

Registered: 2006-03-31

Posts: 109

Re: Arch on Eee PC

@jbooth,

thanks for the update, I edited my post.  Do you have X running yet?  I had it running this modeline with vesa:

 Modeline "1024x600_60.00" 48.96 1024 1064 1168 1312 600 601 604 622 -HSync +Vsync

jbooth

Member

Registered: 2006-12-29

Posts: 34

Re: Arch on Eee PC

Edited my previous post with the 1.7.0.0 build of the rt2860 driver.

I copied my xorg from a backup of the original install I made to an 8 gig usb key.

The mic plug works, the internal mics don't work. I'm not yet sure why.

delcake

Member

Registered: 2008-07-28

Posts: 62

Re: Arch on Eee PC

I'm just using a stock kernel. I havent tested toofishes' packes on my 1000H, but I'm pretty sure it won't be giving necessary module support. I have not tested the internel or external mic yet, but the sound is correctly detected by udev. I have not tested my webcam.

The touchpad multitouch scrolling works just fine, and synaptics is unnecessary. For X, I was able to use the xorg.conf thats designed for 701s more or less verbatim. I just took out the portion for synaptics, and replaced the modeline. The xf86-video-intel package works on the 1000H as well as the 701, and I have direct rendering.

As has been mentioned earlier, you do need to grab the LinuxDrivers.zip file for my PKGBUILD, as well as a copy of the unrar and unzip packages in order to move them over to your Eee and run 'makepkg' with the zip and the PKGBUILD in the same folder. I've not been able to test the PKGBUILD on a 64-bit system, but it *should* work. If anyone is able to test this, let me know.

As far as wireless goes, I still have to test ndiswrapper under kernel 2.6.26, as well as jbooth's PKGBUILD. Don't have much hope for the PKGBUILD on this kernel though, since when I tried to make the drivers myself, some pretty nasty errors were thrown in regards to the kernel itself.

If neither of the above work, I'll see about backing up to kernel 2.6.24 and testing everything again with that.

Besides that, if anyone has any questions on getting X to work, or anything, feel free to PM me, or catch me on IRC.

Edit: Confirmed using jbooth's wireless PKGBUILD. Cannot compile on kernel 2.6.26.

Last edited by delcake (2008-07-29 13:36:16)

jbooth

Member

Registered: 2006-12-29

Posts: 34

Re: Arch on Eee PC

My PKGBUILD compiles on a stock 2.6.25, I didn't try it against 2.6.26. Well actually I did, but it spits up because kernel-eee doesn't install the src tree for you to compile modules against.

delcake

Member

Registered: 2008-07-28

Posts: 62

Re: Arch on Eee PC

Yeah, I expect the compile to work without a hitch, since I've gotten that for on 2.6.25 before. My issue on 2.6.25 came when the driver didn't create the ra0 device, and ndiswrapper didn't help either.

I plan to do more testing on this likely tonight and tomorrow.

jbooth

Member

Registered: 2006-12-29

Posts: 34

Re: Arch on Eee PC

http://ciaranm.wordpress.com/2008/07/14 … inux-2626/

Updating my PKGBUILD (cheaply with sed rather than with patch, but meh I'm at work), compiles against 2.6.26 in testing, uploaded to AUR.

Last edited by jbooth (2008-07-29 17:44:42)

delcake

Member

Registered: 2008-07-28

Posts: 62

Re: Arch on Eee PC

Good find, jbooth. Your PKGBUILD works perfectly. Unfortunately, I still don't have any new network devices, so I'll have to give ndiswrapper a shot.

jbooth

Member

Registered: 2006-12-29

Posts: 34

Re: Arch on Eee PC

Maybe the 1000H doesn't actually have the same chipset. What's your lspci look like? Is it just like the 901 in the arch wiki?

delcake

Member

Registered: 2008-07-28

Posts: 62

Re: Arch on Eee PC

It's likely a difference with the 1000H versions. My lspci doesn't show any wireless devices at all, and the Atheros lan is showing up as Attansic Technology Corp. Unknown Device.

I know it's still a ralink 2860, though since that's what I've been able to dig up around the ubuntu forums, and such. I'll have to double check that again, I suppose. Always the possibility that they're wrong.

Edit: A friend of mine that picked up a 1000H as well was able to use the other rt2860 PKGBUILD available in the AUR (the 1.6.1.0 drivers version) against kernel 2.6.25, and his ra0 device shows up. I tried it when I had 2.6.25 too, but it seems something went  wrong on my end. I'll mess with this more later and let you guys know if I get it working.

Last edited by delcake (2008-07-29 20:31:41)

mastapsi

Member

Registered: 2008-07-27

Posts: 14

Re: Arch on Eee PC

jbooth, I just tried to compile your PKGBUILD against the 2.6.25 kernel and got a compiling error.  The error was in something about an implicitly defined function.

Was there anything that you changed to make it 2.6.26 compatible that might have broke 2.6.25 support?

Also, for reference, I am delcake's friend above that got the 1.6.1.0 drivers working.  News on that is that while I have a device, I cannot detect or connect to any access points.

My lspci for the wireless is:

01:00.0 Network controller: RaLink Unknown device 0781

delcake

Member

Registered: 2008-07-28

Posts: 62

Re: Arch on Eee PC

Update on my wireless situation. I rolled back to 2.6.25 after mastapsi got it working. Long story short, it turns out that my BIOS didn't save my changes when I enabled WLAN in them. ra0 now successfully shows up in my ifconfig list. I'm going to try your unpatched PKGBUILD since I'm on 2.6.25 now, jbooth, to see if the newer drivers make any difference.

mastapsi

Member

Registered: 2008-07-27

Posts: 14

Re: Arch on Eee PC

I now have wireless working with jbooth's PKGBUILD under 2.6.25.  The first sed line has to be removed, or the build will fail.

Thanks for the PKGBUILD!!

delcake

Member

Registered: 2008-07-28

Posts: 62

Re: Arch on Eee PC

jbooth: Yup, your PKGBUILD gives both mastapsi and I the ability to scan networks with iwlist whereas the 1.6.1.0 drivers would not.

I've also started putting this information on the new central Eee PC wiki page that Mr. Elendig recently created. It still needs to be fleshed out, and refined though. What's up there so far is my first real wiki entry.

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Asus_Eee_PC is the page, for those interested.

I hope to get my xorg.conf posted up there soon too, but any help is always appreciated.