Linux on the ASUS N10 N10J

I'll write up how to do the camera patch for current sources, sometime soon when I have time... I also still need to write up the fingerprint reader bit too since that's gone out of date as well...

Sorry I have no idea -- I haven't been able to use HDMI audio myself since I have no gear that uses HDMI

Are you on an N10J? The output from lspci for me is AR928X, not AR242x, which will probably not work with ath9k, I think it needs ath5k.

 

Code:

$ sudo iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

pan0      no wireless extensions.

eth1 didn't help

UPDATE
yes... it is n10j

 

I think you're using the wrong driver, your pci card needs ath5k, not ath9k... are you on an ASUS N10J?

 

yes, im on asus n10j

 

When I installed ubuntu 9 04 beta 24-Mar-2009 it works with standart kernel,
then i update it to 2.6.28-11 and have this trouble
And now it still dosn't work with this 2.6.29.1

 

What is the exact model # of your N10J? It must have a different wireless card than the N10J-A1 or A2.

You need to use ath5k instead of ath9k. You can find this option under make menuconfig:
Device Drivers->Network device support->Wireless LAN->Atheros 5xxx

 

thank you
full model name is asus-n10j-1bhv
ok... i'll try to recompile

 

Make sure to do a make-kpkg clean before you recompile... also delete the two .deb files from /usr/src, and dpkg -r the packages:

Code:

cd /usr/src
rm linux-image-2.6.29.1_2.6.29.1-10.00.Custom_i386.deb
rm linux-headers-2.6.29.1_2.6.29.1-10.00.Custom_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -r linux-image-2.6.29.1
sudo dpkg -r linux-headers-2.6.29.1
sudo rm -rf /lib/modules/2.6.29.1/
cd linux-2.6.29.1
fakeroot make-kpkg clean
make menuconfig

It'll warn you about removing the running kernel, ignore it and continue anyway... Navigate to the ath5k option and make sure it is set to M for module... and then fakeroot make-kpkg --initrd kernel_image kernel_headers and wait an hour...

I'll put ath5k support into my .config for the next kernel, since I didn't know there were models using earlier Atheros chipsets.

 

It works now!

 

By the way, I confirm that N10Js being sold in Russia really have ath5k on board. All other components are the same with american/european versions.

Strange, isn't it? And again, wi-fi works well after recompiling with atheros 5xxx included. Note, that Nvidia drivers should be reinstalled in line with instructions in the first post of this thread.

 

Cool, thanks for confirming the ath5k stuff... I will make a note on the howto guide on page 1 about this in the near future.

New NVIDIA beta drivers out as of yesterday, 185.19

 

Hm, maybe it's just me, but it seems the latest drivers fixed to redraw issues?

regards,
--
LS

 

I can't get the NVIDIA drivers to build on 2.6.30-rc1, I am giving up on it for now...

Edit: Looks like I'm not alone.

Edit #2: I got NVIDIA to install by commenting out the lines, but for some reason ath9k doesn't want to work, so I can't get wifi working on rc1...

 

Hello all N10J fans!! =) This Notebook is really super.

I would like to thanks for very long and deep manual how to install ubuntu on this one. I spend all this day (more than 6 hours) doing so (according to your manual). It's my first Linux as well as first Notebook.

Right now it's 3:00 in the morning in my country and I have enough for today. I'm really too tired to read all the 30 pages of posts, so please apologize if I say something, that was already discussed.

I just wanna say what I found out ...

1) When I switch VGA and restart Notebook I see black screen. I must Turn off and than on my Notebook to switch VGA instead.

I found out that more people have this problem ... Any suggestions?

2) 2 Hot Keys (Zoom and Express Gate) left to the Power do nothing
Fn + C and Fn + V as well as Fn + Space do nothing
Windows key do nothing

Is there any possibility how to add some actions to these keys?

3) When I Hibernate there is some "btusb_intr_complete: ... failed to resubmit" wrote on black screen but hibernation seems to work well ...

Is that normal?

4) Fn + Delete (= Scroll Lock) do nothing.

Am I alone? =)

 

Hi, welcome to the forum! I get the problem you listed in #1, it requires holding the power button and forcing it off... not sure if this is a bug in the kernel or the BIOS or what.

The zoom and expressgate buttons aren't mapped to anything, but you could probably bind them to something if you wanted.

The hibernation errors are no big deal, I get a few too, but it's nothing to worry about unless something doesn't work after resume.

I also can't turn on scroll lock, and I'll admit I have never tried until just now

Edit: Uploaded new xorg.conf.intel

 

Thank you very much for welcoming ALLurGROCERIES.

I'm absolutely fresh user so I'll have one more Question - how to map that keys from 1 to some applications (Music Player, ...)?

The Error is 3364....(some other numbers) btusb intr complete: hci0 urb f4e26e40 failed to resubmit (1)

I'm wondering if it isn't according to bootstrap (loader, feeder, ... I don't know right translation to english from my language) that I have installed default in (hd0).
it's just a Bug?

1) Although My Bluetooth swithcher is switch Off I see Bluetooth in Ubuntu Sys Tray (Upper right coner).

Does it mean that Bluetooth is still on or it's just a Bug?

EDIT: I found out that after each log in Bluetooth turns on although switcher is in Off position.

2) Are there any possibilities how to improve battery performance?

'Cause on Vista I saw 5 hours left here a I see 3 hours ...

3) I have mirrored webcam

Webcam fix doesn't work for me:
cd /trunk/uvcvideo/linux/drivers/media/video/uvc/
bash: cd: /trunk/uvcvideo/linux/drivers/media/video/uvc/: No such file or directory

It seems you have some drivers that I do not have ...
I found out that this path work for me ...

cd /temp/uvcvideo/linux/drivers/media/video/uvc/

But I don't know what to do next ...

"Now place the following patch as say video_fix.patch"
What does this mean? That I should write all that text into Terminal and click ENTER?

4) With new VGA settings my LCD frequency is only 50 Hz instead of natural 60 Hz

Could it be set to natural 60 Hz someway? I have very sensitive eyes O=)

 

Yes, Bluetooth will always turn on automatically, it needs to be switched off manually, regardless of the position of the switch when it starts up.

The webcam fix is out of date... I didn't write the original instructions. I'll try and write up my own method sometime soon.

Battery life for me is about 3 hours on NVIDIA graphics... it's less than Windows, so what you're noticing is normal.

I'm not sure about the refresh rate... you can change your xorg.conf but I'm not sure it'll work above 50Hz.

 

Thanks for great tips! I searched the conf files but I don't know where to set the frequency, there is no "50 Hz" or something like this yet ...

After two days of using Linux (Ubuntu) I absolutely fall in love with it! There are couple of problems still, but I trust that they can be solved with your and others help.

What I really like the most is that whenever I have some problem I simply search forums and I almost always find solution. Now I have only Ubuntu on my N10J no Windows. I like it this way. It's faster and more stable.

My goal now would be - I want help you with this guide. It would be perfect if we could make working as many things as possible. But I do no how could I help ....

Some new suggestions and questions:

1) How is it with that Bluetooth? Is there any possibility to have it always Off unless you turn it On manualy?

2) Where and how could I map hot keys for example that Win key will start some application?

3) Mute, Volume + / - keys (Fn + F10 - 12) work quite strange.
For example: If I press Mute and than Volume + when I'm round 50% and press once more it goes back to 0% instead 60%. If I press it once more it usually jumps forward to 70%.

4) I noticed that when I use Intel integrate graphic card some of 3D screen savers do not work right. There are black squares appearing randomly on monitor.

5) How is it with that Touchpad tuning? In your Guide there are instructions how to enable Touchpad Horizontal scrolling. But I don't know where to put that text lines into my config file, because I don't have any touchpad section in it ..

Some tips you could add to your guide:

Disabling startup sound

If you want to turn Off startup beep sound of your notebook simply go to BIOS (restart and press F2) and there disable startup sound.

Battery management

I found out this application works very well kpowersave. The only problem is, that it doesn't startup automatically when I login. I must turn it on manually.

Too small screen

Some system tabs aren't shown right. You see only piece of them. To move them you must have your appearance effects Off. Than hold Alt and move them across your panels. Without Alt you won't be able to do so.

 

Here are some links for hotkeys:
http://blogarchiv.4momo.de/?id=show_db&ca=other&ct=104
http://www.astahost.com/info.php/Hotkeys-Keyboard-Quick-Launch-Keys-Linux_t1813.html
http://ale.freeshell.org/articles/hotkeys/hotkeys.html

I'm not sure about bluetooth... you could probably block the bluetooth module from loading at startup and then load it manually when you want to use it...

I've noticed the hotkeys for volume actually do their function twice, I've not had time to try and fix it yet, it happened with a recent update. For example when I hit Mute, it mutes and unmutes. When I hit volume up or down, it moves twice.

About your screensavers using intel video... which ones are causing problems? Can you run glxgears without problems?

The touchpad section is at the top of the xorg.conf under the section called 'Synaptics'. If you don't have this section just grab my xorg.conf files from my webserver.

 

Thanks for the heads up on that new driver.....

 

Hey, cool, no problem

My 1111th p0st! w00t!

Edit on 4/15: Massive update to the howto for 2.6.30-rc2, includes new patched files, including an updated fix for the webcam. I also updated Part 2 with the relevant info, since the NVIDIA installer can't be run as-is anymore (it requires a patch as well).

Edit on 4/16: I was playing around with nvidia-settings, looks like it's already set to 60Hz from my xorg.conf.nvidia even though Screen Resolution says 50 or 51Hz, it says 60Hz in nvidia-settings.

 

ever since .30 my sound is really low(can barely hear it, even on maximum) I can only hear it if I put in headphones and turn on the headphones option in the alsa gui control. Any suggestions?

I've tryed uninstalling make clean and recompiling all 3 parts

 

Make sure the levels for 'front' and/or 'speaker' are all the way up. You might have to add them under preferences.

 

I reinstalled whole system today once again using your new instructions ...

What I've noticed:

1) Following part 1 - New kernel

After finishing part one and reboot, I see new kernel getting loaded ...
[ok]
[ok]
[ok]

and on the one row something like:

Setting kernel variables (/etc/sysctl.d/10 ...) ... process-security.conf ...
kernel ... map's protec ... is an unknown key [failed]

(sorry it was moving to fast for me to catch more)

then far more
[ok]
[ok]

2) Graphical fix doesn't work?

wget -O ./usr/src/nv/nv.c http://allurgroceries.is-a-chef.com/public/nv.c
could be downloaded only from GUI in Terminal

but when I reboot make everthing once more use the already dowloaded file
and type /etc/init.d/detectgpu it answer:
ls: cannot acces /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so.1??.??: No such file or directory
ls: cannot acces /usr/lib/libGL.so.1??.??: No such file or directory
Using NVIDIA video.

Than I write:
modprobe nvidia
FATAL: Module nvidia not found.

Well probably I'm doing something wrong or it is normal? O=)

I write sudo reboot and see:
Stopping GNOME displaying manager.

Haven't it to be stopped already??! How's that possible =)) I wrote /etc/init.d/gdm stop at least two times ...

BTW: During NVIDIA isntallation there were errors saying that I' runnig X ...
(I'm sorry 'bout what does it mean? X = Gnome? ... I'm really new to all these things ...)

Well it's pretty late and I spend whole day with Linux time to sleep I'll try once more tommorow.

But I must say:
Harder it is - more I like it. This really going to be a long distance run ...

===
BTW: I'm dual booting with Win XP, my HDD is like this:
WinXP part (ntfs) ... 40 GB (for games or I don't know what)
Linux (ext3) ... 30 GB (for I don't know what ... just in a case)
/home (ext3) ... 178 GB (for films, pictures, documents, ...)
Swap ... 2 GB (I have 2 GB RAM)
All of them Primary partions (I do not even know what Primary or Logical means ... and I found out that there exist some more possibilities like Extended ... ouch! =) )
(As you probably noticed my HDD is 250GB)

Would it be possible to mount /home part under WinXP? For example with Ext2 IFS? Or have I to install my UBUNTU once again and make some different partions? (I wouldn't be against if someone wise help be with better HDD partions ...)

I simply want to have WinXP /Linux + Data (fully accesible from Linux and WinXP) ... O=)

(to be continued)

BTW: Huge thanks to you ALLurGROCERIES! This kernel seems to be better and better ...

 

This is normal for the first reboot, since nvidia hasn't been installed yet... but not normal if you have successfully installed the NVIDIA drivers, which it looks like you haven't yet(?)

You must quit X (stop gdm) in order to run the NVIDIA installer. Gnome runs on top of X, and gdm manages the display. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System.

To stop gdm (thereby stopping X as well) you run:

Code:

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop

Yes.

Edit: Keep these limitations in mind if you use ext2 IFS.

Edit 2: Also if you have a problem with the kernel you can use the dmesg command to see the output... since you don't have the exact error message line in there I can't really diagnose a problem you may have, so try dmesg and copy & paste the line(s) with the error message

 

Hello there,
First of all hats off for this thread. It's awesome!

I'm on an N10-E, so NVIDIA, HDMI, etc. are not issues I am asking about.
With that in mind, I have a few questions:

1) Does adding another Linux distro (to the existing Express Gate one) and hence, installing GRUB in the Master Boot Record take away the Express Gate one-button functionality?
I believe I read earlier in this thread that as long as the recovery partition is left alone and the main partition is resized rather than reformatted from scratch, there is no problem. But does it still respond to the button or do I have to wait for GRUB and select it on the screen?

2) Would it not be possible to obtain all the necessary Linux drivers (for the WiFi and the Sound Card) from the up-and-running Express Gate distro?

Last but most importantly:
3) If the distro I am installing is one of the multimedia distros that has the kernel patched for real-time (RT) performance, it wouldn't be wise for me to re-compile the kernel as you suggest correct? I mean I would be destroying the main reason for choosing a distro like Ubuntu Studio, or Musix or 64Studio, etc... (This laptop will basically be a recording machine when booted into Linux)... Or does your suggested method not affect that functionality of the kernel?
If my assumption of not recompiling the kernel is true, what would be the best advice for me to get the sound and the WiFi working?

Thank you very much indeed!

SoundPro69

 

hmm sound works now... weird(didn't touch a thing)

when i'm launching in verbose mode I'm noticing that AppArmor fails to load on start up. Is this occuring with anyone else?

 

ExpressGate doesn't change in its behavior unless you delete its files (or partition)... it will continue to act the exact same way as from the factory, so you can press the button and boot right into it without the boot menu (it bypasses the normal boot order entirely). Linux doesn't change that unless by installing Linux you delete the Windows partition...

Neat idea but no

Using the kernel configuration I have now would not play nicely with realtime apps. However, it wouldn't be hard at all to take my configuration and tweak it for realtime...

 

Thank you very much!

I'll try to learn more about the kernel and how to tweak it. I never got that far yet. I've partitioned disks, played with GRUB and LILO, installed several distros and configured Debian Sarge and an old multimedia distro called DeMuDi manually, by reading books and postings, but I haven't messed with the kernel yet.

I will have to find out what those RT patches consist of and try to do it myself.

I've seen that you mention having updated the instructions several times and hence reduced the compiling time a lot... Where are those instructions? I've seen many postings with info on how to do this but don't recall a one-stop set of instruction. Is it the one discussed at the beginning of the thread?


Thank you very much for your kindness!

SoundPro69

 

I think you're talking about this post or maybe this one? I was just talking about stripping out unneeded options and modules from the .config file... so what I mean is that using my kernel config, you can save time because there is a lot of fluff cut out of it. When I first compiled a custom kernel the config was bloated with unnecessary options, so it took close to 4 hours to compile. My latest config file is always in Part 1 of the howto guide, so there aren't separate instructions for it. It's all rolled in to the first post. Hope that clears it up.

 

Thanks a million!

Although nowadays I guess I should say a billion or even a trillion...

Anyway, binary is more fun. Thanks a GIG!



SoundPro69

 

ALLurGROCERIES according to video you have on YouTube I guess you have pure Debian Distro on your N10 not the UBUNTU one ... right? If yes, it's there any reason ... it's better for N10 (e.g. 'cause of drivers, ...)? Faster? O=)

 

Yes, I run Debian Sid on my N10 (the unstable distro)

It's mostly because of habit, I've run Debian for many years now. I haven't run Ubuntu on my N10 so I couldn't say which is faster in real life... they are close enough that it is really down to personal preference. Ubuntu is probably friendlier for new users, where Debian is more minimalist. They are exactly the same in terms of driver support.

Edit: Updated howto for 2.6.30-rc3, it has two new steps after installing the kernel image and headers .debs, so make sure to remember that (I marked it in red for now so that it stands out).

 

I've ran both and the only "REAL" difference is that on it's own debian will take a bit more time to start up because of all the server daemons(you can always remove em) . Ubuntu obviously has a lot more packages available(couple thousands more) than debian(still remains they both have 22k+)
Debian, because of slow release cycle... on newer systems it's recommended to install the unstable version

 

Are you guys using external monitors at all? I am trying to get mine working through the HDMI output with xrandr, however, all I ever get when I run xrandr to see if it recognized the connection is:

Code:

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1024 x 600, maximum 2944 x 1200
VGA disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
LVDS connected 1024x600+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 222mm x 130mm
    1024x600    60.0*+
    [ lower resolutions listed ]

(The maximum resolution is what I added as " Virtual" to my xorg.conf, because several xrandr tutorials said that value should be the maximum resolution, i.e. for me 1024x600 + 1920x1200 - max. x is 2944, max. y is 1200 because the two screens will be next to each other.)

If I assume that VGA is actually the analog output, I am still missing the HDMI output in the listing. Anybody here using xrandr and HDMI to connect to an external monitor?

Thanks,
Marek

 

Are you running nvidia-settings as root and detecting displays? It should configure with no problem.

 

Actually so far I am trying to get it working only with the Intel on-board card. Do I need to be using the nVidia card to get HDMI output?

 

Yes, the HDMI output is part of the NVIDIA subsystem and cannot be used with Intel graphics.

Edit: Updated howto for nvidia 185.18.04. The patch is no longer needed for the nvidia installer. There is a new detectgpu script so make sure to first remove the existing one and get the new file from my webserver. Up to this point nvidia version numbers were usually 1xx.xx, so I had to change the detectgpu script because it would match 1xx.xx as the version number before, now it just matches 1xx. so 185.18.04 won't break the pattern in the new script.

Edit: If you used wget to get the new detectgpu script without first deleting the old one from /etc/init.d it would not have been overwritten (the new script would instead download to /etc/init.d/detectgpu.1), so I changed the syntax in the howto to use the -O option which forces overwriting the original file.

Edit: New BIOS version 212: http://dlsvr04.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/N10J/N10j212as.zip

 

How many people here have tried connecting an external screen through the HDMI port? I succeeded (thanks to AllurGroceries' helpful comments) and was able to geta 1920x1200 picture on my external monitor, but the text seems kind of fuzzy.

Red text on white background has a "shadow" around it, but the nvidia-settings window for example looks good. I would not worry about it (or blame it on the crappy console rendering of red text), but the exact same console (red text, white background) looks perfect on the native screen.

I noticed similar "fuzziness" of the image already with the Vista installation, but blamed it then on not-enabled clear type. And it also could be my cables (even though I doubt that). So my question is: anyone notice something similar? Could the GPU/HDMI port be sub-standard and not give me a crystal-clear image? (I don't think it has something to do with Linux specifically, since I noticed it on Vista too.) Or is my HDMI port flawed?

 

Have you applied Subpixel smoothing under System->Preferences->Appearance->Fonts?

I've used the HDMI out on a few TVs and monitors, but the only problem I ever had was changing the DPI setting under System->Preferences->Appearance->Fonts->Details

That and overscan, but that doesn't sound like the problem you're talking about. The screen would be chopped off on all sides by the TV and it just requires changing the display mode of the TV by using it's built in menu (with the remote control).

You can tweak the color settings in nvidia-settings as I'm sure you found out, sometimes that can help if a display is looking strange. It could be gamma or color correction maybe?

 

Wow, kudos for the quick reply

Some more Googling has actually brought me to this [0].

I noticed on my Viewsonic monitor (it's an LCD computer monitor, not a TV) that the input from my other computer was identified as "1920x1200" while from the N10J as "1200p". Searching for that I found the above link which basically has many people with similar problems - the root of it are the nvidia binary drivers that erroneously identify my monitor as an HDTV, not a monitor and apply smoothing or some such.

There is a workaround, but only for the Windows drivers because it requires messing around with the registry [1]. As for overscan, there might be, because currently I have a very minimalistic system with a black background so who knows if there is or isn't overscan.

So, anyone know of a way to either override the EDID info (through xorg.conf) or tell the nvidia binary drivers not to think my monitor is an HDTV?

[0] http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/index.php?t48955.html
[1] http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=58483&pid=330319&mode=threaded&show=&st=&#entry330319

 

There is a UseEDID option, from the latest NVIDIA README:

 

I'm using ext monitor on HDMI most of time with no problems...
the most annoying thing is that FN+F8 is not working and to change monitors I must always use nvidia config...
in fact just yesterday i found nice little soft called "disper"... it's helps to switch monitors from command line...
so i wrote little script to check if external monitor is connected and if it is switch them. now i'm happy cos i can switch monitors with only one mouse click
it is possible to check what kind of monitors is connected to pc and it looks like:

where DFP-0 is internal LCD and DFP-1 is external LCD connected via HDMI

p.s. thanks ALLurGroceries for all how to

 

I moved some things around on my web server during maintenance an hour or so ago, there are new locations for the files. I hope this didn't inconvenience anyone -- the new URLs are in the guide (first post on page 1).

The files have been moved from the /public directory on my server to /n10

Edit: Added tip for disabling the light sensor, I was reminded by another post and realized I hadn't ever mentioned it in the howto, so if anyone has been noticing the screen is dark or constantly changing brightness, check the new tip in Part 3.

 

you could also mention that

will turn off BT on start (of course Fn+F2 will enable it at any time you need)

 

The best way to disable bluetooth from the command line is to run as root:

Code:

/etc/init.d/bluetooth stop

Or just disable the bluetooth daemon from your rc.d (if you don't want it running at startup)

Otherwise it won't unload properly (whether that matters or not in practice, I'm not sure... )

Also Fn+F2 stopped working for me on Debian Sid a while back when I started getting the problem with the volume control moving twice per keystroke. I haven't figured either problem out yet...

 

Unfortunately that does not really work, since the nVidia driver is extremely persistent in applying the monitor's EDID. Anyway, I am on it and will let you know what I can find out / do.

The best bet currently seems to be to get a correct EDID when connected through an analog cable and then force the driver to use it (even though that seems to only make it "fix" the EDID it gets from the monitor).

For this experiment it would be very interesting to know whether the VGA port is Intel only? I assume it is, since it is on the opposite side of the netbook, but I thought I'd make sure first ...

Thanks,

 

The VGA port works with both GPUs... sorry that tweak didn't do the trick...

 

in this way BT will be totaly disabled and Fn+F2 will not enable it again... so you must start ir again by:

Code:

/etc/init.d/bluetooth start

but in my way it will be the same as Fn+F2

 

you can try this: http://analogbit.com/node/23