Revision 1 as of 2012-01-24 22:15:51

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Introduction

How to get your W150HRM laptop running under Ubuntu GNU/Linux.

Compatibility

Please check for now: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Asus_U36SD

Tweaking

Discrete NVIDIA High end graphics card (dGPU)

Since the laptop uses the so called Optimus technology, support for the high end graphics card is a bit limited. However, it is still possible to use it, by offloading a certain application (such as a game) to the NVIDIA card and then copying the content onto the Intel graphics buffer using VirtualGL.

One simple way of doing this is by installing Bumblebee 3.0. Simply call the following commands to install: 

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bumblebee/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install bumblebee bumblebee-nvidia
sudo usermod -a -G bumblebee $USER

Now log out, and then log in again.

To run programs making them use the NVIDIA card you need to use the command "optirun". For example to run "openarena" open a terminal and type "optirun openarena".

Fn-keys

Brightness controls and monitor switch doesn't work (yet). However sound buttons and de rest does work.

Bluetooth

Bluetooth works out-of-the-box.

USB 3.0

In Ubuntu 11.10 USB 3.0 works out of the box.

Battery time

There are two easy things that can double your battery time.

Intel integrated graphics card power management

Note: not fully tested yet

Open the file /etc/default/grub with super user privileges (See here for instructions).

Find this line: 

  • GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

and change it into this: 

  • GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash i915.i915_enable_rc6=1"

then run the following command in a terminal: 

sudo update-grub

OR You can change the frequently of the Intel chip manually (only works with Ubuntu Unity). Install indicator-cpufreq: 

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:artfwo/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install indicator-cpufreq

There will appears a new chip icon in Unity. You can know click on the icon and change from 'Ondemand' to 'Powersave' to save power. You can also switch it to 'Performance' for maximal performances in the overall usage of the Intel chip.

Discrete High end graphics card (NVIDIA) power management

You can use the Bumblebee Project to disable the NVIDIA card if it's not used. Via optirun command it's even possible to use the NVIDIA card (dGPU).

By default bbswitch turn off your dGPU when it is not used completely out-of-the-box, just install Bumblebee.

Webcam issue

Works out-of-the-box, no problems detected.

Other issues

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.

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