Arch on Asus EEE 901

Robertek · 2008-09-18 18:45:17

adriaan wrote:

Robertek wrote:
I had exactly the same problem. I dont know why it did. And I was afraid that it is some kind of hw problem. That happened in my job office, and I have little bit weaker wifi signal (WPA), and the cracking was in the rythm of the wifi. I think that it was some kind of soundcard buffer overflow, or something like that (I was listening to internet radio). It happened in august, and worked fine when I came home (I also go to my car and test that there and it worked fine). And never had the same problem again. From the time a lot of things changed (new bios 1301, new alsa etc.)
I think I do have the latest alsa, but I haven't updated the bios from stock. Do you think I sshould try that?

You can do that, it is not hard. Of course you have to be careful and have the notebook charged and pluged in. It takes only minute or so. I did a lot of bios flashes and today it is pretty easy, trust me.

But I dont grant you that it solve your problem if it is happening periodicaly. If not try to disable all unnecessary accesories like wifi, bt etc and rebooting. I it continue, then will be time to hack alsa.

Last edited by Robertek (2008-09-18 18:48:03)

tuxfusion · 2008-09-18 20:06:16

Hey guys i'm wondering about the elantech driver/patch specifically what about zoom/pinch function ?

On the installed xandros there was one update and i had zoom /pinch function instantly on the touchpad.
For instance in openoffice, very neat feature if you are reading long scripts .

I followed the gentoo wiki http://lurker.gentoo-wiki.com/Asus_EEE_ … ech_Driver
and recompiled kernel (this one : http://www.ihku.biz/arch/edgy/ ) with this patch http://arjan.opmeer.net/elantech/elante … 26.5.patch

Elantech device gets now correctly loaded , and the settings in the gentoo wikie all work i guess , except tripple finger click is not dragable r-click , for instance to draw mousegestures in firefox but not that important.

My questions are :

Can someone give me any good hint how to start pinching/zooming with this "patched" synaptics driver ?
1. I read this http://linux.die.net/man/5/synaptics the driver doesnt seem to know such a feature
2. google has no idea
3.gsynaptics{-init} fails with : WARNING ** : Using synclient

If you need system info outputs, they are all nearly the same like in the gentoo wiki ,cat /proc etc.

thx guys

legzelda · 2008-09-19 03:24:50

Hey guys, I really appreciate all your hard work in this forum and on the wiki. I noticed Robertek's zeneee kernel does not recognize the 2GB of RAM I have installed in my Eee PC 901. Did I miss something? Are there plans to enable more memory in the kernel? Thanks.

Robertek · 2008-09-19 07:12:38

legzelda wrote:

Hey guys, I really appreciate all your hard work in this forum and on the wiki. I noticed Robertek's zeneee kernel does not recognize the 2GB of RAM I have installed in my Eee PC 901. Did I miss something? Are there plans to enable more memory in the kernel? Thanks.

Maybe I will do some mirror kernel with 2G support. That why I dont want to enable higmem (it is not much perfect) and I use 1G lowmem patch. I also can use 2G lowmem but it is not so nice for these having 1G. Or maybe I will do a higmem version. but dont expect it so early, I have a lot of work to do, in next few days.

legzelda · 2008-09-19 15:39:35

Robertek wrote:

legzelda wrote:
Hey guys, I really appreciate all your hard work in this forum and on the wiki. I noticed Robertek's zeneee kernel does not recognize the 2GB of RAM I have installed in my Eee PC 901. Did I miss something? Are there plans to enable more memory in the kernel? Thanks.
Maybe I will do some mirror kernel with 2G support. That why I dont want to enable higmem (it is not much perfect) and I use 1G lowmem patch. I also can use 2G lowmem but it is not so nice for these having 1G. Or maybe I will do a higmem version. but dont expect it so early, I have a lot of work to do, in next few days.

Thanks Robertek. Your kernel is the best, stablest and fastest for the Eee PC 901 I have found. I understand your reasoning for not enabling highmem support in the kernel, but it would be great to have a 2GB version. Please keep it in your consideration for future releases, and thanks again.

chori · 2008-09-19 15:53:51

A new Robertek zen-eee901 kernel, stable version, is available in his repository: http://robertek.brevnov.net/files/linux … pkg.tar.gz

Changes:

-- included ACPI bluetooth patch, to enable toggle of bluetooth
-- enabled CONFIG_AES_586, for creating encrypted filesystems
-- Added an initrd image file: /boot/zeneee.img

Your new grub menu entry will look something like this:

# (0) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux for EEE 901
root   (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/zeneee root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/... ro
initrd /boot/zeneee.img

I'm working on rewriting a bit of the asusosd source code, and extending the ACPI scripts, to include hotkey toggling of Bluetooth (like the WLAN toggle) and incorporating an (optional) Xandros-like power management hotkey toggle, which will manipulate the FSB frequency. I'm about 60% done, I hope to have that finished and ready to test in Robertek's acpi-eee901 package sometime next week.

Last edited by chori (2008-09-19 15:59:43)

Blind · 2008-09-19 22:57:12

Has anyone tried out nilfs?
That would be a pretty cool filesystem to use. From a conference contribution, I saw that it performs best with SSDs.
Cheers,
Blind

tung · 2008-09-20 02:57:31

IIRC, the SSDs that come with the Eee 901 already have wear-levelling enabled.

far0k · 2008-09-20 11:15:32

Hi I received my eee 1000 yesterday and have got arch up and running on it. The two custom kernel mentioned on the wiki come up fine with all coms working (thanks for sharing them). However I encrypted my home partition using aes-xts-plain and only ighea's kernel can unlock it.

Can the zen-eee kernels be updated to support aes-xts-plain as this is what most people are using as it it the current technology and the one used in the arch wiki for LUKS/dm-crypt?

I think the only addition kernel feature is:
CONFIG_CRYPTO_XTS=y

schuay · 2008-09-20 16:04:08

SOLVED .. partially.

I'm having problems resuming from suspend on the 1000H using the zen-eee901-git kernel..

Symptoms:

a. resume doesn't work/takes a loong time (5-10+ minutes)
b. when resuming from suspend, it immediately suspends a second time, and then has problems resuming from that

Solutions:

a. i think bringing eth0 and ra0 down and unloading atl1e and rt2860sta before suspend solved this part
b. this only happens when suspending with Fn-F1, so I suspect Fn-F1 doesn't use pm-suspend and skips my custom hook in /etc/pm/sleep.d/. i think acpi-eee901 is part of the problem(?) because the Fn key mappings seem wrong (in the config file it says Fn-F5 is "switch display", but it's actually "dim display" on my 1000H keyboard. however, it still doesn't work the way it should after uninstalling acpi-eee901.

Is there any way to modify the actions taken when using the Fn-xx buttons? Is remapping the buttons in the acpi-eee901 package possible?

Last edited by schuay (2008-09-20 17:20:39)

Blind · 2008-09-21 04:33:55

tung wrote:

IIRC, the SSDs that come with the Eee 901 already have wear-levelling enabled.

Mmh, yeah but I am talking read/write performance...

tuxfusion · 2008-09-21 10:52:01

Is there any way to modify the actions taken when using the Fn-xx buttons? Is remapping the buttons in the acpi-eee901 package possible?

Yes sure , at first cheeck /etc/acpi/eee.conf
those custom variables are loaded when acpi event and its function is fired
Those functions are at /etc/acpi/ free to modify , if you just want to call
another function on a event you might want to easly change
for instance in /etc/acpi/events/lid-event the "action" in that event file.
See this thread for another example :

http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?pid=354853

Cool stuff for instance set "aplay file" to the AC cable on/off event in eee.conf
to get a small sound when the power cord is plugged in , i just took pidgins logon/off sounds

Remember to /etc/rc.d/acpid restart after editing , also , asusosd must be reloaded after daemon restart to operate properly.

Last edited by tuxfusion (2008-09-21 11:01:57)

JazzplayerL9 · 2008-09-21 16:54:51

Just an additive suggestion about those using the 4 silver shortcut buttons. They execute any command put into them as root...so if you want it to be a user-issued command, I'd suggest using sudo -u <username> <command> to execute a program as that specified user. Keeps things from having access to your root directory.

tuxfusion · 2008-09-21 22:29:35

JazzplayerL9 wrote:

Just an additive suggestion about those using the 4 silver shortcut buttons. They execute any command put into them as root...so if you want it to be a user-issued command, I'd suggest using sudo -u <username> <command> to execute a program as that specified user. Keeps things from having access to your root directory.

Yeah , thx ! I was wondering stuff would be called as root and wont work.
However
sudo -u <name> <command>
might be extended to
sudo -H -u <name> <command>
which takes the called users home directory into account . That was necessery for Skype or in another case to controll my music player moc which needs to have the right ~/.moc folder to controll the sound server.
thx again , jazzplayer

JazzplayerL9 · 2008-09-22 02:06:01

@tuxfusion,

Ahh, good call. I tried using firefox a little earlier and it didn't allow flash player to load embedded flash objects... sudo -H -u <name> <command> might fix it. Thanks for the improvement!

EDIT: nope...flash still won't load...I'll have to think on that one for a bit. Ahh...perhaps because flashplugin isn't configured for my root user and it still tries to access flashplugin through the root user when firefox wants to load it.

Last edited by JazzplayerL9 (2008-09-22 03:36:41)

schuay · 2008-09-22 10:59:25

schuay wrote:

I'm having problems resuming from suspend on the 1000H using the zen-eee901-git kernel..
Symptoms:
a. resume doesn't work/takes a loong time (5-10+ minutes)
Solutions:
a. i think bringing eth0 and ra0 down and unloading atl1e and rt2860sta before suspend solved this part

Apparently this isn't solved yet.. I can't reproduce it consistently. Sometimes it manages to resume almost immedately and other times it takes 5-10 minutes to wake from suspend to RAM (using sudo pm-suspend). I have a custom hook taking eth0 and ra0 down and unloading the modules rt2860sta, atl1e, pciehp, snd-hda-intel, bluetooth, and bt_usb (and taking them back up during resume). The pm-suspend.log only shows 5 seconds between the "Awake" and "Finished" rows, so something must be freezing the system prior to pm-suspend taking control on resume...

Any ideas? Has anybody seen similar problems? A netbook without working resume sucks

freigeist · 2008-09-22 18:03:46

chori wrote:

A new Robertek zen-eee901 kernel, stable version, is available in his repository: http://robertek.brevnov.net/files/linux … pkg.tar.gz

Site seems to be down...anyone else already hosting or is able to host this package?

Robertek · 2008-09-22 21:06:42

freigeist wrote:

chori wrote:
A new Robertek zen-eee901 kernel, stable version, is available in his repository: http://robertek.brevnov.net/files/linux … pkg.tar.gz
Site seems to be down...anyone else already hosting or is able to host this package?

I did some upgrades on server and thus it was down all the day. It should be running now (I will be once shuting down but not for a long time)

wally · 2008-09-22 22:51:57

Thanks to everyone, especially to Robertek!

I'm total Arch newbie, but somewhat experienced Linux user and distro hopper (found my home at Ubuntu's, maybe Arch could be my "Villa"...)

Suggestion: place zen-eee kernel somewhere available for download without pacman. You know, it's kinda hard to download network-enabled kernel without network connection... (i downloaded another eee-kernel first, then upgraded to zen-eee with pacman)

My first totally no noise -computer ever. You heard right, with (modified) "eeefan" script my 901 is running fanless in normal usage. Only heavy youtube or tuxracer-session gets temps higher so that fan is needed. (I prefer fsb: 75 50 0)

I have had quite lot of issues, but now just about everything works. Even that 3-finger swipe with firegestures. My remaining problems are mostly "general arch-related problems", so I won't post them here.

Two kernel related issues:
-is "1000hz support" in, I just think about realtime solutions like MIDI
-modules snd, snd-pcm, snd-timer, snd-hda-intel (or something like that) etc. are not found, still audio works. I think oss-drivers are used?

uname -a:
Linux eee 2.6.26-zen2eee #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Sep 18 14:21:07 CDT 2008 i686 Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N270 @ 1.60GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

Tips: you never need to use right touchpad button or both buttons to get "wheel button". Just tap with two ("wheel") or three (right) fingers. Touchpad in 901 is so good, in fact best i have tested this far.

Ps, I have fluxbox with (gnome-)nm-applet and gnome-power-manager, and I think this "desktop environment" is nearly an optimal solution for this kind of device. nm-applet is in for obvious reason and power-manager for sleek tray icon to inform about battery state. I wish nm-applet was 0.7 version for better key-management (i hate typing wlan keys when I have already done it before) without stupid gnome-key-rings.

Pps. Yeah, downtime is over and zen-eee repos up and running again.

Last edited by wally (2008-09-22 23:00:11)

freigeist · 2008-09-23 06:17:51

Robertek wrote:

freigeist wrote:
chori wrote:
A new Robertek zen-eee901 kernel, stable version, is available in his repository: http://robertek.brevnov.net/files/linux … pkg.tar.gz
Site seems to be down...anyone else already hosting or is able to host this package?
I did some upgrades on server and thus it was down all the day. It should be running now (I will be once shuting down but not for a long time)

Thank you for this kernel, it's running great (even the WLAN LED turns off if I disable WLAN...nice)! Just two small suggestions:
- Is it possible to include the elantech patch http://arjan.opmeer.net/elantech/ which will allow the synaptics driver to recognize the touchpad and should make gsynaptics work?
- Is it possible to enable 2 GB Memory support?

It would be great if you could publish your kernel config so I can make the modifications on my own.

slappinjohn · 2008-09-23 08:26:01

far0k wrote:

Hi I received my eee 1000 yesterday and have got arch up and running on it. The two custom kernel mentioned on the wiki come up fine with all coms working (thanks for sharing them). However I encrypted my home partition using aes-xts-plain and only ighea's kernel can unlock it.
Can the zen-eee kernels be updated to support aes-xts-plain as this is what most people are using as it it the current technology and the one used in the arch wiki for LUKS/dm-crypt?
I think the only addition kernel feature is:
CONFIG_CRYPTO_XTS=y

Hi,

same problem for me too! Is it possible to change this in the zen-eee kernel config?

Thx

chori · 2008-09-23 12:05:50

I'll try and upload sometime today a new version of the kernel with CONFIG_CRYPTO_XTS set. As far as a kernel with 2GB optimization goes, I was doing some playing around yesterday... it looks like the most stable solution is to set CONFIG_HIGHMEM4GB=y. This entails a little more CPU overhead, but it's more than made up for by the gains in performance with the extra memory. However, I think it's less-than-optimal for machines with only 1GB.

I'll look into making the stable version package source available, so people can make their own changes to the kernel (such as setting CONFIG_HIGHMEM) as they wish.

chori · 2008-09-23 12:07:25

wally wrote:

-modules snd, snd-pcm, snd-timer, snd-hda-intel (or something like that) etc. are not found, still audio works. I think oss-drivers are used?

ALSA is compiled into the zen-eee kernel; no need to load those drivers.

chori · 2008-09-23 12:19:54

schuay wrote:

I'm having problems resuming from suspend on the 1000H using the zen-eee901-git kernel...

I noticed that when I resume after suspend, oftentimes I'll be left at a blank (dark) virtual console; Ctrl-Alt-F7 takes me back to my X session. Is that happening to you?

Here is the ACPI script, straight from acpi-eee901, it's bound to the second silver button:

#!/bin/sh
if [ -e "/etc/acpi/power.lock" ]; then
        exit 0
fi

source /etc/acpi/eee.conf

if grep -q mem /sys/power/state ; then

        # BEGIN SUSPEND SEQUENCE

        # stop network
        $NETWORK_DOWN_COMMAND

        # save the brightness value
        BRN=$(cat /proc/acpi/asus/brn)

        # flush the buffers to disk
        sync

        # change virtual terminal to not screw up X
        chvt 2

        # put us into suspend state
        echo -n "mem" > /sys/power/state

        # BEGIN WAKEUP SEQUENCE

        #Ugly but effective way to restore screen
        /usr/sbin/vbetool post
        chvt $X_CONSOLE_NUMBER #Back to X

        # restore backlight BRN
        sleep 1
        echo $BRN > /proc/acpi/asus/brn
fi

exit 0

The $NETWORK power down command simply stops the WICD daemon.

My /etc/pm/*.d directories are empty.

For debugging purposes, did you comment out the sections of your suspend and resume scripts that load/unload modules, one-by-one, to see if perhaps one of the modules was causing the delay? In particular, if you're using Roberteks kernel, unloading/loading snd-hda-intel might be causing a problem, as that module doesn't exist in his kernel (it's compiled in).

Does /var/log/messages.log have anything suggestive?

Last edited by chori (2008-09-23 13:13:05)

chori · 2008-09-23 12:24:23

There's a confirmed bug in the atl1e ethernet driver that causes the eth0 interface to occasionally get assigned a bogus MAC address. This can play havoc with DHCP, particularly if your DHCP server assigns a fixed IP to your MAC. This bug bites me three or four times a day in my office.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-eee/+bug/271744

I'm eagerly awaiting a fix to the driver.

Last edited by chori (2008-09-23 17:22:32)

Arch Linux

#176 2008-09-18 18:45:17

Re: Arch on Asus EEE 901

#177 2008-09-18 20:06:16

Re: Arch on Asus EEE 901

#178 2008-09-19 03:24:50

Re: Arch on Asus EEE 901

#179 2008-09-19 07:12:38

Re: Arch on Asus EEE 901

#180 2008-09-19 15:39:35

Re: Arch on Asus EEE 901

#181 2008-09-19 15:53:51

Re: Arch on Asus EEE 901

#182 2008-09-19 22:57:12

Re: Arch on Asus EEE 901

#183 2008-09-20 02:57:31

Re: Arch on Asus EEE 901

#184 2008-09-20 11:15:32

Re: Arch on Asus EEE 901

#185 2008-09-20 16:04:08

Re: Arch on Asus EEE 901

#186 2008-09-21 04:33:55

Re: Arch on Asus EEE 901

#187 2008-09-21 10:52:01

Re: Arch on Asus EEE 901

#188 2008-09-21 16:54:51

Re: Arch on Asus EEE 901

#189 2008-09-21 22:29:35

Re: Arch on Asus EEE 901

#190 2008-09-22 02:06:01

Re: Arch on Asus EEE 901

#191 2008-09-22 10:59:25

Re: Arch on Asus EEE 901

#192 2008-09-22 18:03:46

Re: Arch on Asus EEE 901

#193 2008-09-22 21:06:42

Re: Arch on Asus EEE 901

#194 2008-09-22 22:51:57

Re: Arch on Asus EEE 901

#195 2008-09-23 06:17:51

Re: Arch on Asus EEE 901

#196 2008-09-23 08:26:01

Re: Arch on Asus EEE 901

#197 2008-09-23 12:05:50

Re: Arch on Asus EEE 901

#198 2008-09-23 12:07:25

Re: Arch on Asus EEE 901

#199 2008-09-23 12:19:54

Re: Arch on Asus EEE 901

#200 2008-09-23 12:24:23

Re: Arch on Asus EEE 901

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