Arch Linux

Daemonjax

Member

Registered: 2009-07-02

Posts: 48

Archlinux Installation Questions for EEE PC ASUS 1001P-PU17 Netbook

Hellos.

I've looked at the Asus Eee PC 701 article on archwiki (http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ins … sus_EEE_PC), and I was wondering if it applies to the 1001 model. 

Mine should arrive via UPS in the next few hours, and I'd love to get archlinux working on it asap with a minimum of frustration.  I've gotten archlinux working successfully in the past on an aging laptop (It time traveled from 1998!),  and I was amazed how well it performed compared to win98 or Debian...  So, I'm thinking it'll outperform Win7 -- as long as all the hardware is supported, of course. 

Well, if anyone has any experience in these, let me know.  I'll document my installation progress in this thread in the hope to help others.

Last edited by Daemonjax (2010-03-31 00:19:27)

Daemonjax

Member

Registered: 2009-07-02

Posts: 48

Re: Archlinux Installation Questions for EEE PC ASUS 1001P-PU17 Netbook

After playing with it, I've come to realize that linux support for these aren't very good right now.

Since it uses Atheros AR2427 Wireless and Atheros AR8132 Ethernet hardware, neither is usable from the Arch installation USB.  This problem isn't limited to Archlinux, however.  There doesn't seem to be any distribution out there right now that'll work out of the box with this hardware.  So, I'm sticking with Archlinux because it's my favorite flavor of linux (with tinycore being a close second).

I've tried manually loading the Atheros Ath9k... the module loads, but iwconfig reports no wireless interfaces.

ifconfig shows an eth0 interface (which is nice), but it's not usable... dhcpd times out (edit: it may have been a problem with my router.  I had the same problem when using ndiswrapper with my wireless connection, but unplugging the router and plugging it back in fixed it).

Updates:

ndiswrapper with xp32 drivers for the wireless works.  I got the drivers here: http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=5AH8HAdGuhiQIXgg
I used the NE785H_GE112H driver.

After installation, in addition to setting up ndiswrapper again, I had to add the following two lines to /etc/rd.d/network in order to get wireless after boot:

iwconfig wlan0 essid any
dhcpcd -b wlan0

Those two lines were added to the end of the "start" section.  The network daemon script looks complicated, so I don't know why it didn't do this automatically.

Last edited by Daemonjax (2010-04-01 08:16:26)

Zerimas

Member

From: Waterloo, Ontario

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 21

Re: Archlinux Installation Questions for EEE PC ASUS 1001P-PU17 Netbook

Is there any way to build an Arch installation image with a new version of the kernel than the one supplied on the ISO?  I feel like this would get the wired ethernet working and then allow the installation of compat-wireless from the AUR.  I really hope this is possible, as I don't really want to use Ubuntu Netbook Remix, which appears to working better of the box than Arch was.

Gen2ly

Member

From: Sevierville, TN

Registered: 2009-03-06

Posts: 1,529

Website

Re: Archlinux Installation Questions for EEE PC ASUS 1001P-PU17 Netbook

Zerimas, well if you got enough memory you could update the packages on the ISO.  I'm not sure about this though but it might work, seems to me that some ISOs limit the amount of memory that can be used.  But to try it, create the database 'pacman -Sy' then install the new kernel, and whatever else you need.

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Daemonjax

Member

Registered: 2009-07-02

Posts: 48

Re: Archlinux Installation Questions for EEE PC ASUS 1001P-PU17 Netbook

Is there any way to build an Arch installation image with a new version of the kernel than the one supplied on the ISO?  I feel like this would get the wired ethernet working and then allow the installation of compat-wireless from the AUR.  I really hope this is possible, as I don't really want to use Ubuntu Netbook Remix, which appears to working better of the box than Arch was.

I'll try compat wireless to try and get it working without ndiswrapper and report back.

EDIT: I compiled a new ath9k module from compat-wireless (the one for the 2.6.33.2 kernel, last updated in march) and it doesn't work.  It lists the device in iwconfig, but it's in the off state and is unresponsive to commands (including iwconfig wlan0 essid on).   So, it's back to ndiswrapper for me.  It should have support for this wifi chipset since february, but I've had no success with it. 

Ndiswrapper works without problems, however, as expected.

Last edited by Daemonjax (2010-04-15 03:05:05)

Zerimas

Member

From: Waterloo, Ontario

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 21

Re: Archlinux Installation Questions for EEE PC ASUS 1001P-PU17 Netbook

The wireless works after a kernel update.  See this thread for how to so without Internet access: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=95203.  Has anyone had any luck getting the multitouch working?  I tried to so via the xorg.conf file by telling the touchpad to emulate two and three finger touches by way of width values.  However, I was unsuccessful. If anyone has two finger scrolling/tapping working, please post your xorg.conf.