Introduction

Contents

Introduction
Ubuntu 11.04
Links

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
Internal microphone
Mic port
HDMI port
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
Bluetooth
USB 3.0 port with USB 3.0 hardware
Hard drive power management is too aggressive

What works after tweaking

Desktop effects
Volume control (Fn+F10/F11/F12)
Multimedia controls (Fn+Up/Down/Left/Right)
Suspend (for some)
Bluetooth
USB 3.0 port with USB 3.0 hardware

What haven't been tested (yet)

Hibernate

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

Disabling the touchpad (key work, setting don't)

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. To fix the problems 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"

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
        ;;
    resume|thaw)
        # Switch USB buses back on
        for bus in $BUSES; do
            echo -n $bus | tee /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ehci_hcd/bind
        done
        ;;
esac

Make it executable:

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

This will make the suspending the computer work. Resume, however, will only work if you wait to trigger it around half a minute after suspending was completed. If you resume too early, the computer will do a hard reboot instead.

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

Bluetooth

The ath3k module doesn't manage to detect the Bluetooth device, so one need specify it manually. To do so do the following.

Get a super user shell.

sudo -s -H

Enter the following commands. Ignore the errors from rmmod if any.

service bluetooth stop
rmmod btusb
rmmod ath3k
modprobe -a ath3k
echo "13d3 3304" > /sys/bus/usb/drivers/ath3k/new_id
modprobe btusb
service bluetooth start
exit

USB 3.0

edit the startup options:

gksu gedit /etc/default/grub

Find the line: GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT

and add the following within the quotation marks, being sure to separate it with a space from any other entries:

pci=nomsi,noaer

at last run

sudo update-grub

and on the next reboot the USB 3.0 port should work.

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.

Disable touchpad while typing

The default version of xserver-xorg-input-synaptics does not include the functionality needed for automatic disabling of the touchpad while typing. If this is something you would like to have, you can follow the instructions below (taken from here).

mkdir tmpbuild
cd tmpbuild
wget http://david.hardeman.nu/synaptics-suse-patches.tar.bz2
apt-get source xserver-xorg-input-synaptics
cd xserver-xorg-input-synaptics-<version>
cd debian/patches
tar xfvj ../../../synaptics-suse-patches.tar.bz2
ls -1 2*.patch >> series
cd ../..
sudo apt-get build-dep xserver-xorg-input-synaptics
dpkg-buildpackage -us -uc -rfakeroot
sudo dpkg -i ../xserver-xorg-input-synaptics_<version>_<arch>.deb

Change <version> and <arch> depending on the current version available and what architecture you are running on.

After you restarted X the option "Mouse Preferences - Touchpad - Disable touchpad while typing" should work.

Hard Drive Power Management

When running on battery, the default hard drive power saving setting causes the drive heads to continuously park and then ramp up again. This results in a quiet "clicking" sound approximately every five seconds. You can adjust this setting by using hdparm to disable power management or to set it to the least aggressive setting (in the latter case, it will still park the heads though far less often). To do so, open a terminal and type:

sudo gedit /etc/hdparm.conf

Add the following lines (Note: use 255 to disable or 254 to set to the least aggressive setting):

/dev/sda {
    apm = 254
    apm_battery = 254
}

For this to apply after resuming from suspend:

sudo gedit /etc/pm/sleep.d/51_hdparm-settings

Enter this in the empty text file:

case $1 in
    hibernate)
        echo "A hook to restore hdparm value on resume"
        ;;
    suspend)
        echo "A hook to restore hdparm settings at resume."
        ;;
    thaw)
        hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda
        ;;
    resume)
        hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda
        ;;
    *)  echo "somebody is calling me totally wrong."
        ;;
esac

Save and quit. Reboot to apply.

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

Ubuntu Documentation

Asus_U36SD