Revision 27 as of 2011-09-02 06:30:24

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Introduction

How to get your ASUS U36SD running Ubuntu 11.04.

Ubuntu 11.04

After installing

What works out of the box

  • Audio
  • Audio out port
  • Mic port
  • Internal microphone
  • Video (without desktop effects)
  • USB
  • Wireless Networking

  • WiFi switch (Fn+F2)

  • VGA port
  • Card reader
  • Brightness control (Fn+F5/F6)
  • LCD on/off switch (Fn+F8)
  • Multitouch touchpad (two finger scrolling, activate via System Settings)

  • Intel Turbo Boost (to test, run turbostat from the package acpidump)

What doesn't work out of the box

  • Desktop effects
  • Nvidia card
  • Volume control (Fn+F10/F11/F12)
  • Multimedia controls (Fn+Up/Down/Left/Right)
  • Suspend

What works after tweaking

  • Desktop effects
  • Volume control (Fn+F10/F11/F12)
  • Multimedia controls (Fn+Up/Down/Left/Right)
  • Suspend (for some)

What haven't been tested (yet)

  • HDMI port
  • USB 3.0 port with USB 3.0 hardware
  • Hibernate
  • Bluetooth

What isn't working, and no working method is known yet

  • Disable the touchpad" (Fn+f9)

Tweaking

Desktop effects

Create a new file /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nvidia.conf with the following content. (You need super user privileges. See here for help. 

blacklist nouveau
blacklist nvidia

Remove nvidia drivers (otherwise it's libGL.so will used by default) 

sudo apt-get purge nvidia

Suspend

Suspend doesn’t work out of the box because of a problem with the USB buses. A work around that has been reported working for some is to do the following:

Create a new file /etc/pm/sleep.d/20_custom-asus-u36sd with the following content (you need to have administrative privileges to create it, see here for help.): 

BUSES="0000:00:1a.0 0000:00:1d.0"
BUSES3="0000:07:00.0"

case "${1}" in
    hibernate|suspend)
        # Switch USB buses off
        for bus in $BUSES; do
            echo -n $bus | tee /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ehci_hcd/unbind
        done
        # Switch USB 3.0 buses off
        for bus in $BUSES3; do
            echo -n $bus | tee /sys/bus/pci/drivers/xhci_hcd/unbind
        done
        ;;
    resume|thaw)
        # Switch USB buses back on
        for bus in $BUSES; do
            echo -n $bus | tee /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ehci_hcd/bind
        done
        # Switch USB 3.0 buses back on
        for bus in $BUSES3; do
            echo -n $bus | tee /sys/bus/pci/drivers/xhci_hcd/bind
        done
        ;;
esac

Make it executable: 

sudo chmod +x /etc/pm/sleep.d/20_custom-asus-u36sd

Fn-keys

Download and install asus-nb-wmi driver (included in 2.6.39, but since Natty runs 2.6.38 need to build it ourselves): 

sudo apt-get install git build-essential
git clone git://git.iksaif.net/acpi4asus-dkms.git
cd acpi4asus-dkms
make
sudo make install
sudo modprobe asus-nb-wmi

Other issues

Splash

If you want more consistently looking (but possibly slower) boot, try the following.

Create a new file /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/splash with the following content. You need super user privileges to create it. See here for help. 

FRAMEBUFFER=y

Then run sudo update-initramfs -u in a terminal.

Tips

Creating a file where super user permissions are required

How to edit/create a file /etc/example_file.

Using graphical editor

gksu gedit /etc/example_file

Using a simple console based editor

sudo nano /etc/example_file

Reported minor issues

  • 'Jumpy' two-finger scroll

Links