Specs
- CPU: Intel Pentium-M 740
- Chipset: Intel 915GM
- Graphics: Intel 915GM
- Display: 12" TFT @ XGA resolution (1024x768)
- RAM: 512 MB DDR2
- Harddisk: Toshiba MK4004GAH (60 GB)
- Optical: internal CD-RW/DVD-RW (+/-)
- Network: 100 MBit/s LAN (Realtek 8139), 802.11g WLAN (Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG)
- Audio: Intel HDA
- VGA-Out
- SD-Card/Memorystick reader
- PC-Card reader
- Firewire: 1 port (1394a)
- USB: 3 ports (2.0)
- Weight: 1.6 kg
- See the ASUS product page(http://www.asuscom.de/products/notebook/m5series/m5000a/overview.htm).
BIOS
You can reach the BIOS via <F2>.
Hitting <ESC> on startup lets you choose between
several boot devices (optical, removable, hard drive).
It should be possible to flash the BIOS by a utility accessible via the
BIOS itself, no need for Windows. Presumably, the extra partition on the
hard disk contains the flash utility.
Installation
The machine is installed with Debian testing which was a rather painless procedure. Afterwards, a kernel 2.6.13 was installed.
Screen
X.org
X.org
runs out of the box with the driver i810, with
hardware-accelerated 3D.
Console
The standard frambuffer driver vesafb works just fine in
XGA resolution.
TouchPad
The touchpad works fine with the synaptics driver in X and standard PS/2 on the console via GPM.
VGA-Out
When the kernel module asus_acpi is loaded and the hotkeys
are configured, switching of internal and external display works quite
well, even without having to reboot.
Network
LAN
The LAN interface works with the driver 8139too.
WLAN
WLAN works with the driver ipw2200 from
IPW2200's homepage(http://ipw2200.sf.net/). To use it
with 2.6.13, you need these patches:
- ieee80211-for-2.6.13(http://dagobah.ucc.asn.au/patches-2.6.13/ieee80211-1.0.3-2.6.13-rc3.diff)
- ipw2200-for-2.6.13(http://dagobah.ucc.asn.au/patches-2.6.13/ipw2200-1.0.6-2.6.13-rc3.diff)
- ipw2200-suspend2-fix(http://dagobah.ucc.asn.au/patches-2.6.13/ipw2200-suspend2-fix.diff)
But still, there is a problem with the RF-Kill switch. According to
/sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200/0000:01:05.0/rf_kill, it is
hardware-controlled, but Fn+F2 does not do anything. The driver from the
project RFSwitch(http://rfswitch.sf.net/) does not
work either. The only solution found so far, is to boot into Windows and
disable the kill switch. Afterwards, you can use it (the blue LED is on)
in Linux, too. This setting stays even after a shutdown of the system.
Sound
Sound works with Advanced Linux Sound Architecture - ALSA driver snd-hda-intel.
Power and Configuration Management
ACPI
No problems, except for asus_acpi which complains about
being loaded on an unsupported system. But everything seems to work,
though.
CPUFreq
The module speedstep-centrino should be chosen. With the
governor userspace and the package powernowd,
the system scales up and down the frequencies quickly as needed.
Suspend-to-RAM (S3)
The system freezes when waking up, though this was not tested intensively.
Suspend-to-DISK (S4)
Suspend2(http://www.suspend2.net) in version 2.2-rc4
was installed, with hibernate script 1.10.
The resume works when the modules ipw2200 and button are
unloaded before suspend and reloaded afterwards. The latter is necessary
for the power button to work properly after resume.
Hotkeys
Most of the hotkeys are controlled by ACPI and its module
asus_acpi, except for Fn+F2 wich does not work. You can
configure its behaviour in /etc/acpi/ if you are running the
acpid.
Optical Drive
The optical CD-RW/DVD-RW combo poses no problems.
Cards
PC-Card
It works fine: the device is handled by the driver module
yenta_socket as almost every CardBus controller nowadays.
SD/Memorystick
Unsupported. Neither USB nor PC-Card nor the module wbsd
recognise it.
Survey PCI Devices
Output from lspci:
0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. Mobile Memory Controller Hub (rev 04) 0000:00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corp. Mobile Graphics Controller (rev 04) 0000:00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corp. Mobile Graphics Controller (rev 04) 0000:00:1b.0 0403: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) High Definition Audio [..] 0000:00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 04) 0000:00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 04) 0000:00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 04) 0000:00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 04) 0000:00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB2 EHCI [..] 0000:00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801 PCI Bridge (rev d4) 0000:00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82801FBM (ICH6M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 04) 0000:00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) IDE Controller (rev 04) 0000:01:03.0 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev b3) 0000:01:03.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C552 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 08) 0000:01:03.2 0805: Ricoh Co Ltd: Unknown device 0822 (rev 17) 0000:01:03.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd: Unknown device 0592 (rev 08) 0000:01:04.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10) 0000:01:05.0 Network controller: Intel Corp. PRO/Wireless 2200BG (rev 05)
Ressources
- ASUS@tuxmobil(/asus.html)
- ASUS
Credits
- Sebastian Henschel
