EeePC 1001P / 1005P

The EeePC models 1001P and 1005P seem to be the same hardware but sold with different operating systems pre-installed by ASUS. Since we will upgrading to Ubuntu instead, these two models can be regarded as the same thing.

Installation

Overview:

Create a bootable USB-Stick containing the Ubuntu flavor of your choice. See Installation/FromUSBStick for details and note that UNR (Ubuntu Netbook Remix) is especially designed for netbooks such as the EeePC fanmily.
Boot from USB and install.
Reboot. Your netbook is running Ubuntu now.
Apply fixes (especially: make wireless work on 10.04).

Things to think about:

You may want to do a BIOS Update first (using the Windows or DOS Update-Utility supplied by ASUS).
You may want to keep the small "EFI Partition" to take advantage of "Boot-Booster".
You way want to keep the small "EFI Partition" to take advantage of the alternative "Splash" OS.
You may want to keep the "Restore Partition" to be able to easily restore your EeePC back to it's original (factory) state.

Step by step:

Prepare USB-Stick or plug in USB CD/DVD-drive containing your Ubuntu setup medium.
Make sure that "Boot-Booster" is disabled for the setup phase.
- Power off.
- Power on and press [F2]. This should get you into the BIOS settings. (While you're here, you can check, if your BIOS is up to date. Check in the "Main" section and see the ASUS support website.)
- Go to the "Boot" section. Find "Boot Booster" and set it to "Disabled". Press [F10] to save and exit.
Plug in your USB stick
Re-eabling "Boot Booster" is the reverse of disabling it (see above).

Fixes

Wireless

On UNR 10.04 the atheros wireless card can be enabled by installing the backport wireless module

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-wireless-lucid-generic
sudo reboot

Note that this is not needed on UNR 10.10 Or 11.04 Alpha 1.

Screen Brightness

Firstly, update the BIOS.

Get the latest bios for the 1001p from http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx
Rename the file to 1005P.ROM
Format your USB storage device fat16.
Put 1005P.ROM on the USB storage device.
Shut down the netbook.
Turn the netbook back on.
Hold down alt, and press f2 repeatedly.
The ASUS ezflash utility should come up. Allow it to do its work. You CAN destroy your netbook by turning it off or messing with it while it's flashing.
The screen brightness control will now be linear, but it still won't go up to full brightness

Secondly, apply this tweak to the kernel command line:

Edit /etc/default/grub

Change

 GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

 GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi_osi=Linux acpi_backlight=vendor"

Run
```
 sudo update-grub
```
Restart your computer. Brightness issue resolved.

This works on Ubuntu 10.10 and Ubuntu 11.04

multitouch does not work

Set this script up to auto-run. In KDE, this is done by putting it in ~/.kde/Autostart/ In gnome, it can be accomplished in system->preferences->sessions Don't forget to make it executable (chmod +x filename) This does not work on Ubuntu 10.10. Instead, follow the instructions available here.

Also, in Ubuntu 11.04, this is not needed - it works out of the box. Enable it by going to Mouse Settings and enabling two-finger scrolling.

#
# Synaptics TouchPad 2 finger Scrolling
#

# Set multi-touch emulation parameters
xinput set-int-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Synaptics Two-Finger Pressure" 32 8
xinput set-int-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Synaptics Two-Finger Width" 32 8
xinput set-int-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Two-Finger Scrolling" 8 1
xinput set-int-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Synaptics Two-Finger Scrolling" 8 1 1

# Disable edge scrolling
xinput set-int-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Synaptics Edge Scrolling" 8 0 0 0

# This will make cursor not to jump if you have two fingers on the touchpad and you list one
# (which you usually do after two-finger scrolling)
xinput set-int-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Synaptics Jumpy Cursor Threshold" 32 110

Additional info

After install installing UNR 10.04 on a 1001P the screen was blank on the first boot. Turned out the screen brightness (Fn + F5/F6) is a bit messed up. You can cycle through them to find an appropriate one but it is not linear and some are black!

Ubuntu Documentation