Linux on ASUS E402MA

Hi, I'm about to buy an ASUS laptop, the model which I found and that fits perfect for my needs is the ASUS EeeBook E402MA. However I really need Linux on that laptop, because I need to do software development for ARM microcontrollers and other stuff which Linux makes very comfortable (sticking with Windows would mean installing a lot of stuff which, on that hardware, will probably run very slow). But I'm a bit worried because I'm not sure if it will be possible to install Linux or not.

I'm saying this because other recently-released ASUS laptops of the EeeBook series (for example the X205TA, which was my previous choice before finding this other model) are known to be not very Linux-friendly. They have something strange with the bootloader (64-bit processor but 32-bit bootloader) and, as some people that managed to install Linux said, there is a lot of hardware which isn't recognized. WiFi, Bluetooth, sound, battery status, special keyboard buttons, and the list goes on...

I initially tought it would be a problem also on the E402MA, because it belongs to the same product series of the X205TA and it also has a Bay-Trail CPU as this "problematic" one, however (searching on Google) I found a page that says the E402MA is fully compatible with Linux... This is the link, but I don't know if I should trust it or not.
http://www.driversfree.org/en/news/asus-eeebook-e402ma-review-and-specs-of-14-inch-ultrabook
(second-last paragraph, last sentence)

I also noticed that other laptops with the same CPU as the one I'm going to buy, the Celeron N2840, seems not to have problems with Linux, but I think it's more related to the peripherals used by the manfacturer (WiFi card, Bluetooth card, Battery controller etc...) and maybe it also depends by the BIOS.

Now I'm wondering... given that no one reported to get Linux running on the E402MA, but also no one reported a failure (I think is related to the the fact that this laptop has been released just some months ago) how much percentage of luck do I have in succeding a Linux installation? What do you think? Should I take the risk?

Thank you all in advance and sorry both for my long post and for my bad English (I'm not a native speaker...)

Giacomo

 

I've run into 32-bit EFI implementations on 64-bit machines and it isn't impossible to get that setup working. In fact some distros have a 32-bit GRUB EFI package (but the one in Debian is broken). I built it by hand using these instructions:
https://github.com/jfwells/linux-asus-t100ta/tree/master/boot

There are two wifi drivers on the support page, Atheros and Realtek, so it's hard to know which card it has:
http://www.asus.com/Notebooks/E402MA/HelpDesk_Download/

The same with Bluetooth, so it probably has a combo card.

ASUS keyboards are generally well supported by the asus-wmi driver in the kernel.

 

First off, thank you very much for your early response.
About what you wrote... So do you think that I'll face the 32-bit EFI bootloader 'thing'? The fact that a computer has only support for 32-bit bootloaders, is CPU dependent? Or does it depend from the manufacturer? Because, searching on the web, I found that there isn't any PC with the same CPU that has the 32-bit EFI issue. Does that mean that for sure I won't face any problem?
By the way, some guys on the Ubuntu forum managed to get the X205TA WiFi card working by the appropriate driver (I don't know the details) so I think, in case the WiFi isn't gonna work right out of the box, it won't be so hard to find a driver.. Maybe it's even the same as the X205TA

 

I am not really sure, I didn't investigate that too much. I think it's a BIOS implementation thing, not related to processors. As far as I can tell if the machine ships with 32-bit windows it will ship with a 32-bit UEFI implementation. Beyond that I don't know why.

The best thing to do would be to try and find a hardware list, or even better, the output of a lspci and lsusb for the machine (or a related one). From there you can start picking away at the driver support.

 

Sadly there's not a lot of information available such as an hardware list... But I think that, in the event that Linux won't recognize a lot of drivers, it will just be a matter of time and as soon as the drivers are incorporated into the kernel, I should have Linux running smoothly. Am I right? I think it works this way... I'm not a Linux expert, just a "user"

 

You can always ask your retailer to give you a hardware list before you buy the machine.

 

Or purchase with the option to return if Linux doesn't work?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I'm writing this post from my new ASUS E402MA which I just bought today. I tried with Linux and it's (almost) totally fine. I first tried with a Live of Elementary OS and it booted even with Secure Boot enabled and all seemed to work perfectly fine. The only issue was that the WiFi stopped working, even if showing to be connected, after some minutes... By the way it was a quite heavy distro for a laptop like this so I tried Lubuntu (I don't think will be the final choice, but I had the ISO laying around so... why not to try) and all seemed to work with no issues at all. So... This laptop seems to run Linux quite well, I'll experiment with some distros in the next days until I make a final choice. Just wanted to say this in case other people want to know about Linux support for this laptop.
By the way, thank you very much for the support. Should I put some tag in the title like [Solved] or maybe [Working]?

 

Nice! Could you post the output of stuff like lspci and lsusb for others who find this thread? Hint: put it in code tags.

I can mark the thread whatever you'd like... but there's no need to unless you want one specifically.

 

Sorry for being late, but I was quite busy these days.
By the way, there's the output of the two commands, from Xubuntu:

Code:

xubuntu@xubuntu:~$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0bda:b721 Realtek Semiconductor Corp.
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0bda:57b5 Realtek Semiconductor Corp.
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0781:5406 SanDisk Corp. Cruzer Micro U3
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
xubuntu@xubuntu:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series SoC Transaction Register (rev 0e)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series Graphics & Display (rev 0e)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series USB xHCI (rev 0e)
00:1a.0 Encryption controller: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series Trusted Execution Engine (rev 0e)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series High Definition Audio Controller (rev 0e)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Atom Processor E3800 Series PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev 0e)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Atom Processor E3800 Series PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev 0e)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Atom Processor E3800 Series PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev 0e)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series Power Control Unit (rev 0e)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation Atom Processor E3800 Series SMBus Controller (rev 0e)
02:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8723BE PCIe Wireless Network Adapter
03:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device 5286 (rev 01)
03:00.2 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101/2/6E PCI Express Fast/Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 06)

Edit: I'm using Xubuntu in live mode because I think it will be my final choice and I noticed that the WiFi still has issues... At the beginning it connects, but after some time the connection gets lost even if it shows to be connected. I figured out that this is a common problem with the RTL8723BE WiFi interface, but I also found a lot of solutions online, so I think it won't be a problem... Just a driver swap or some driver-tweaking with modprobe and it should be fine.
By the way the laptop works really well with Linux, seems that all the hardware is supported and runs very smoothly. Even the touchpad works great, maybe even better than in Windows with the ASUS drivers
The battery life is great, I get around 8 hours with Windows... However Linux seems to draw a bit more power and the battery will probably last less time. Maybe I'll make some experiments to see if there is any way to get a battery life comparable to Windows, but this is not a really big problem

 

You can try forcing the connection speed with:

Code:

sudo iwconfig wlan0 rate 11M

Obviously you could increase that value to something higher, but with certain realtek chipsets I've found that leaving a fixed speed (instead of auto) helps stop dropped connections.

You can also debug by running wpa_supplicant in the foreground, but you first need to stop network manager, run wpa_supplicant in a terminal window, and then restart network manager.

For battery life, try installing laptop mode tools (but you will want to tweak the stock intel_pstate.conf to enable turbo and increase the max clock to 100% on battery). You can monitor your consumption while on battery with

Code:

upower --dump | grep rate

or by installing powertop.

 

I finally installed Xubuntu and it seems like the WiFi is working fine without any tweak. Maybe some kind of update was released and it was fixed. The battery seems better than I thought. I checked with the tools you adviced and I get a power consumption of around 3-4W when "doing nothing". Seems fine. Estimated battery life with Linux is 7.5 hours, with Windows (in the same conditions - full charge, on desktop with no open applications - was around 10 hours). Something that I don't understand is the first line that shows on powertop:

Code:

    Usage     Events/s    Category         Description
100,0%                      Device         Codec audio hwC0D0: Conexant
  1,9 ms/s     119,8        Interrupt      PS/2 Touchpad / Tastiera / Mouse
  6,1 ms/s      49,3        Process        /opt/google/chrome/chrome
30,3 ms/s      30,4        Process        /opt/google/chrome/chrome --type=renderer --lang=it --forc
13,0 ms/s      23,1        Process        /usr/bin/X -core :0 -seat seat0 -auth /var/run/lightdm/roo
  4,8 ms/s      22,8        Process        /usr/bin/xfce4-terminal
  1,6 ms/s      14,8        Process        [mmcqd/0]

What does it mean? Is my "audio" consuming a lot of power?

P.S. about the powertop content I reported, sorry for the Italian language in a couple of rows... and, obviously, there are more lines after that but I didn't copy them

 

I have no idea what 100% usage implies for the audio codec. Maybe it has a power saving option that isn't enabled, or it could mean nothing. There is a more detailed user guide for powertop here:
https://01.org/sites/default/files/page/powertop_users_guide_201412.pdf

Powertop only fully works when you're on battery, do you see a power estimates column in powertop?

 

I'm on battery, but I don't see a power estimation column... By the way I just searched online and I found that on the last tab of powertop, where there are some tweaks, I had to enable the power management of the audio codec and now its power consumption dropped to 0%
Now I'm searching other tweaks on the internet, but by now I think the battery life is fine for me