Linux on Laptops

Installing [Mandriva 2006] on [ASUS & A3H]

Last updated: [8 March 2006]

General Hardware Specifications of [ASUS A3H]:

Hardware Components	Status under Linux	Notes
Pentium M Processor, 1.6 GHz	Works	Works
15" SXGA+ TFT Display	Works	Select Generic LCD Display in Installer, suprisingly only does 1024x768
Onboard i915	Works	Use i810 or vesa driver, VESA framebuffer
Webcam	Does not work	There is now way to get this working
Harddrive	Works with DMA enabled	Works out of the box
USB	Works	Work OTTB
Integrated Network Card	Works	Works OTOB with reaktek 8139too driver
Internal 56k Modem	Doesn't Work	Might be able to get it to work with the linmodem hsf drivers, but looks doubtful, they installed form me but will not dial. The full speed drivers will set you back US$19.95. You milage may vary.
DVD ROM drive	Works	Works
AIRFORCE ONE	Works	Needed to use NDIS wrapper and windows xp drivers
Keyboard	Works mostly	Cannot get multimedia (fn + Fkey) keys to work, display brightness works, volume controls do not even sent an event to XEV or the kernel
Trackpad	Works	Works
ACPI	Does not work	Will not start up once put to sleep
Frequency scaling	Does not work	Will not work
Inbuilt Sound	Works Mostly	Works with ALSA, although pluggin in headphones does not work, good luck
Card Reader	Not Tested	Also looks doubtful, as it is not recognised at boot or in lspci.

This laptop is operating (just) under Kernel version 2.6.12

Basic Installation of [Linux Distribution]:

Used Mandriva as most thinks work without too much configuring
Free version from their site or any number of mirrors
Installing is straight forward, nothing you need to know here
Most things work that will work straight away.

Unresolved issues

Multimedia Keys
Getting sleep modes to work (suspend to ram or disk, neither work)
Unable to use headphones, which is very annoying on a laptop
Webcam, this will never work
No Frequency scaling means 2 hour battery life if you are lucky
No ACPI means you can't just close the lid to put it to sleep and wake it up, you'll have to shutdown and start up again. It looks like nobody has done this before, and I have read quite a lot and tried to get this working, as it is something every laptop must have, imo. I have given up, as this is impossible to get this to work properly, and it seems nobody else has tried to get this working on one of these laptops, as it just will not work. So if you require a laptop with this functionality, keep looking.
Getting ASUS to answer the phone (impossible)

Configuration Files

Contact Information (Optional)

I don't recommend buying one of these laptops, but if you have already bought one and can't think of a cunning way to get your money back, (you should have done your research better before purchasing!) you can contact me at, although there isn't much more I can tell you, mrgreen@supersynergy.com or better, if you have been able to get some things working.

Links:

Ebay? Maybe you can sell it :)

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