Asus Eee PC 1201n

evhan · 2010-02-09 17:28:23

I'm wondering if anyone has gotten a solid Arch system up and running on the 1201n. I've gotten the basics running (had to compile & install wifi drivers manually, though), but I'm looking for tips as to how to get the things like the special keys, super hybrid engine, etc. working. I've tried the eee-control and acpi-eeepc-generic packages, neither of which seemed to support the hardware very well. Is there a package out there that supports the 1201n or am I better off rolling my own, so to speak?

Let's hear your experiences.

dr.zentech · 2010-02-10 01:35:01

I'm an Archer, and have recently picked up an Asus 1201n - so far I'm very happy with it. It's a nice little unit!

I have a feeling I am quite a bit less experienced in Linux admin than you are, so unfortunately I don't have much to contribute in terms of the things you are asking. I've still got Win7 on the HD, and currently am running Arch off of a USB stick as I wanted to tinker and get everything working before I formatted the drive - the wife-lady wouldn't be terribly pleased if I had wiped the drive, installed Arch, and only gotten halfway to making it useable. I'm running a pretty light setup so far, Arch with LXDE, XBMC, and Chrome for my browsing. Other than that, there isn't a whole lot on it yet. I do want to get wireless working n ext, as it's really the only piece that is preventing me from installing and running "full time" off the HD rather than flipping back and forth between arch and win7 depending on if there is plug-in ethernet available where I happen to be sitting in the home.

Would you be able to provide me with a rundown of what you did to get the wireless working? I heard people talking in forums for other distros about the wireless support being spotty for this laptop, how have your experiences been so far?

Thanks! And if there are things that you think I might be able to help you with (like testing configurations of stuff or whatever) by all means I'd be happy to do so.

evhan · 2010-02-10 03:40:19

The wifi took a bit of finagling, but the working solution ended up going like this (and it works fine after installation, not spotty at all):

1.) Grab the driver source from here
2.) extract & make
3.) move <build directory>/firmware/RTL8192SE to /lib/firmware
4.) move <build directory>/HAL/rtl8192/r8192se_pci.ko to /lib/modules/<your kernel>/kernel/drivers/net/wireless
5.) depmod -a
6.) modprobe r8192se_pci

At this point, wifi worked for me. Mind you, I'm running 64 bit, so you may not get the same results, but if you do let me know and I may package this driver for the AUR. If you need any extra help let me know.

I've had a few other issues. The synaptics touchpad didn't take settings from HAL, which turned out to be a bug in HAL itself (so I guess it's not a 1201n-specific problem, but you may have to fix it nonetheless). Downgrading to hal 0.5.13-3 fixed that problem. Suspend and hibernate are totally broken; the machine resumes to a blinking cursor and a hard reboot is the only way out. I haven't gotten all the special keys working, like I said above -- the brightness up/down buttons work, the sleep button suspends the machine, and the wifi toggle works, but I can't be sure which of these work out of the box or because of all of the packages I've installed/removed trying to get things running.

Any solutions to these issues would be great, if anyone has them working. Suspend/resume are the big issues for me.

Last edited by evhan (2010-02-13 02:10:41)

dr.zentech · 2010-02-20 02:24:33

I've downloaded, compiled, and copied the files as you've indicated, and when I do a scan of networks, I do see my network. I'm unable to connect though. I've installed newlan and configured it as per the directions here (http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wir … 8newlan.29) but I'm running into an error when I try to connect

[bill@lappy /]$ sudo newlan -u home
ArchLinux netcfg Easy Wireless LAN

Connecting home...ioctl[SIOCSIWPMKSA]: Invalid argument
ioctl[SIOCSIWPMKSA]: Invalid argument
[ FAIL ]
ERROR: Cannot connect to home,
netcfg output:
:: home up    [BUSY] 
 > WPA Authentication/Association Failed 
   [FAIL] 


[bill@lappy /]$

I'm not really sure off the top of my head what other info I can contribute that might serve as a clue here, I haven't yet tried connecting to unsecured wireless (though WEP is pretty close to unsecured), I suppose that might be what I do next.

Any thoughts?

dr.zentech · 2010-02-20 02:29:16

Running into the exact same issue when attempting to connect with WEP disabled.

bangkok_manouel · 2010-02-20 07:20:52

evhan wrote:

The synaptics touchpad didn't take settings from HAL, which turned out to be a bug in HAL itself (so I guess it's not a 1201n-specific problem, but you may have to fix it nonetheless). Downgrading to hal 0.5.13-3 fixed that problem.

Looks exactly like the problem I got with a asus a8e, solved, thanks to Jan:

JGC wrote:

What happens here is that hal doesn't assign the input.touchpad property anymore. I don't know if this is a bug in hal or something not reported correctly to hal. You can fix this by assigning input.touchpad yourself using an extra ruleset. This is also done for ETPS/2 touchpads in the fdi file included in the synaptics driver. You might want to duplicate the rule for now and change the ETPS/2 string to something that matches your touchpad.

dr.zentech · 2010-02-20 17:31:39

I'll give that a try a little later when I have some time and see what I get for results. THanks for the info!

Sann · 2010-02-26 16:04:31

is anybody able to suspend to ram with s2ram? Unfortunately I am not. The screen stays dark after resume, although I can type in commands like "reboot" *gg*

Any Ideas? Thanks in advance

linuxtypi · 2010-02-27 16:42:36

Are there any plans of one of our 1201N users to do a special 1201N kernel? Since there are many kernels for normal eees.
I own a 1201N too. I'm running Fluxbox on it. The Last thing that don't work are:
- Wireless Lan (Which will work with 2.6.33)
- Mounting Usbdrives with Thunar. (Just some fiddling needed.)
- Eclipse Visual Editor..."VM could not be created"...maybe I missed something.
- Oh, and I have to tell my eee to change to standby mode, as soon as I close it.

Besides that. The 1201N has to be the best netbook right now. (If not also the best notebook, you can get for that price.)

Sann · 2010-03-07 10:20:32

@linuxtypi

Are you able to suspend to disk? Which backend do you use? uswsusp, tuxonice? Which parameters?

greetings
Sann

Last edited by Sann (2010-03-07 10:22:39)

linuxtypi · 2010-03-07 13:33:21

No, I didn't figure out how to suspend until now.
but usually i shutdown the laptop if I carry it around.
booting only takes 20seconds.
though it would be nice to have suspend to disk working.

pielgrzym · 2010-03-20 02:07:30

Hi

I'm using eeepc 1201NL which happens to be a similar model I guess. I've managed to get suspend2ram working after installing acpi-eeepc-generic and running the script from /etc/acpi/eeepc/acpi-eeepc-generic-suspend2ram
I haven't tested hibernation but due to LUKS full drive crypting my netbook might not be capable of dehibernating
Hope I've helped

pielgrzym · 2010-03-21 21:02:05

Unfortunately it does not work (again). Anyone had success with suspend2ram at all?

Devcon · 2010-03-27 02:41:21

Has anyone managed to compile the rtl8192se driver with kernel 2.6.33? Is there a patch available that I cannot find?

hbweb500 · 2010-03-27 04:49:46

I just installed Arch on the 1201n. Thanks, evhan, for the tips regarding the wireless drivers. Everything went relatively smoothly, except that the trackpad was incredibly touchy. I modified the hal synaptics policies, as shown on the Wiki, but the settings didn't take effect. I installed the xf86-input-synaptics-git package from the AUR, and the problem was fixed. I haven't yet tried to mess with suspend2ram; the thing boots up fast enough that I might not even bother.

Devcon: I thought that the 2.6.33 kernel would have the necessary wireless drivers included. Oh well. One thing I ran into was that I initially compiled the wireless drivers under the 2.6.30 kernel. After I did a system update, I had to recompile the drivers for the 2.6.32 kernel, but I kept getting a build error. The fix was to install kernel26-headers from the repositories, but this only worked after I removed /lib/modules/build and reinstalled the headers. There was some sort of conflict, I suppose.

Last edited by hbweb500 (2010-03-27 04:56:03)

Devcon · 2010-03-28 18:26:20

I'm using a vanilla kernel. In any case, looking through the staging drivers with the kernel, the rtl8192e and rtl8192u are supported but no 8192se. I'm going to compile an rc of .34 real quick to see if there are any changes. With 2.6.33.1, I received the following compile error:

make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.33.1'
  CC [M]  /home/devon/Drivers/rtl8192se_linux_2.6.0015.0127.2010/HAL/rtl8192/rtl_core.o
/home/devon/Drivers/rtl8192se_linux_2.6.0015.0127.2010/HAL/rtl8192/rtl_core.c: In function 'rtl8192_pci_probe':
/home/devon/Drivers/rtl8192se_linux_2.6.0015.0127.2010/HAL/rtl8192/rtl_core.c:5530: error: 'struct net_device' has no member named 'wireless_handlers'
make[2]: *** [/home/devon/Drivers/rtl8192se_linux_2.6.0015.0127.2010/HAL/rtl8192/rtl_core.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [_module_/home/devon/Drivers/rtl8192se_linux_2.6.0015.0127.2010/HAL/rtl8192] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.33.1'
make: *** [all] Error 2

jikbag · 2010-05-11 06:10:42

You need to be logged in as root to successfully install the rtl8192se_linux drivers. Just using "sudo" will not work. You must do "sudo su -" and then try the make, make install.

sl1pkn07 · 2010-05-20 21:32:37

-

Last edited by sl1pkn07 (2010-05-20 22:33:08)

Singha · 2010-05-27 17:38:01

Hello,
has anyone tried the new eeepc_wmi module in 2.6.34, Is it a replacement of eeepc_laptop?

suspend/resume works in X with nvidia drivers for me, but on console tty, the screen stays black.

ericfinster · 2010-05-27 18:08:19

Singha -

I have a similar situation with the console staying black. But then again, resume under X doesn't work for me either.

Any tips on how you got that working? I have the eeepc_laptop module loaded, and downloaded the acpi-eeepc-generic scripts together with the model configuration file I found here: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-81 … 153a53c43a. I haven't tried using pm-utils yet, but maybe that will be my next step.

ericfinster · 2010-05-27 18:21:25

Scratch that. Using pm-utils seems to get resume working under X. But still a blank console.

tlamer · 2010-08-18 08:25:38

hi, i have 1201n since yesterday... tryed pm-utils but when i waked it up the display stayed blank...
for wifi i have installed this driver and it runs perfectly http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=34281

i have problems with Fn+F2... it do not turn off the wifi... can anyone help?

alexandrite · 2010-08-18 10:37:24

tlamer wrote:

hi, i have 1201n since yesterday... tryed pm-utils but when i waked it up the display stayed blank...
for wifi i have installed this driver and it runs perfectly http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=34281
i have problems with Fn+F2... it do not turn off the wifi... can anyone help?

The s2ram used to work until a few kernel versions ago. Not that it helps much.

As for the function keys, you have to set your driver in /etc/conf.d/acpi-eeepc-generic.conf

The line (119 in the default config file) should look like =:

WIFI_DRIVERS=("r8192se_pci")

tlamer · 2010-08-18 10:50:25

@alexandrite: thank you wery much but i didnt find the file acpi-eeepc-generic.conf, should i install anything at first?

another funny thing, in firefox scrolling with two fingers on touchpad doesnt work but in eclipse it does... how to make it work everywhere?

alexandrite · 2010-08-18 11:02:00

tlamer wrote:

@alexandrite: thank you wery much but i didnt find the file acpi-eeepc-generic.conf, should i install anything at first?

Yes. You should install acpi-eeepc-generic from the AUR. Sorry; it's to early to think about what I say before I say it apparently >.>

another funny thing, in firefox scrolling with two fingers on touchpad doesnt work but in eclipse it does... how to make it work everywhere?

Yeah that is funny. I've not experienced that. What does your touchpad settings file look like?

Arch Linux

#1 2010-02-09 17:28:23

Asus Eee PC 1201n

#2 2010-02-10 01:35:01

Re: Asus Eee PC 1201n

#3 2010-02-10 03:40:19

Re: Asus Eee PC 1201n

#4 2010-02-20 02:24:33

Re: Asus Eee PC 1201n

#5 2010-02-20 02:29:16

Re: Asus Eee PC 1201n

#6 2010-02-20 07:20:52

Re: Asus Eee PC 1201n

#7 2010-02-20 17:31:39

Re: Asus Eee PC 1201n

#8 2010-02-26 16:04:31

Re: Asus Eee PC 1201n

#9 2010-02-27 16:42:36

Re: Asus Eee PC 1201n

#10 2010-03-07 10:20:32

Re: Asus Eee PC 1201n

#11 2010-03-07 13:33:21

Re: Asus Eee PC 1201n

#12 2010-03-20 02:07:30

Re: Asus Eee PC 1201n

#13 2010-03-21 21:02:05

Re: Asus Eee PC 1201n

#14 2010-03-27 02:41:21

Re: Asus Eee PC 1201n

#15 2010-03-27 04:49:46

Re: Asus Eee PC 1201n

#16 2010-03-28 18:26:20

Re: Asus Eee PC 1201n

#17 2010-05-11 06:10:42

Re: Asus Eee PC 1201n

#18 2010-05-20 21:32:37

Re: Asus Eee PC 1201n

#19 2010-05-27 17:38:01

Re: Asus Eee PC 1201n

#20 2010-05-27 18:08:19

Re: Asus Eee PC 1201n

#21 2010-05-27 18:21:25

Re: Asus Eee PC 1201n

#22 2010-08-18 08:25:38

Re: Asus Eee PC 1201n

#23 2010-08-18 10:37:24

Re: Asus Eee PC 1201n

#24 2010-08-18 10:50:25

Re: Asus Eee PC 1201n

#25 2010-08-18 11:02:00

Re: Asus Eee PC 1201n

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