Linux on ASUS X51RL-AP025D

• TuxMobil/Asus
• German report on a similar X51R

I installed OpenSUSE-10.3 and OpenSUSE-11.0 32-bit edition on the ASUS X51RL-AP025D that I just got for 500 Euro.
lspci output is here

What works out-of-the-box:
Ethernet, USB, Audio, DVD, HDD, Keyboard, Touchpad, external USB-Mouse, CardBus/PCMCIA, Graphics(2D), suspend-to-Disk with Fn+F1

what does not work at all after taking a few hours for this setup: nothing that I am aware of.




added in community repositories: ATI, Packman

installed fglrx kernel driver and X11 driver

(after a reboot?) sax2 -r found and enabled it
-> /etc/X11/xorg.conf


10.3 found some bluetooth. untested. Maybe it is not even in there.



The soft-modem was not autodetected and getting it to work takes some effort.
aplay -l lists it as part of the HDA-Intel sound chip as software modems are just a DAC/ADC like a soundcard.
You need alsa-devel. 
The easy way is to download slmodem-2.9.11-20080417-bmw1.tar.gz, tar xzf it and run ./build.sh

The hard way (that I had to take)
http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/packages/smartlink/slmodem-2.9.11-20080417.tar.gz
and a tiny patch:
http://helllabs.org/patch/20070710_slmodem/slmodem-2.9.11-alsa-period-size.patch

then you do in a shell:
tar xzf slmodem-2.9.11-20080417.tar.gz 
cd slmodem-2.9.11-20080417
patch -p 1 < ../slmodem-2.9.11-alsa-period-size.patch
cd modem
make SUPPORT_ALSA=1
sudo install -m 755 -p -s slmodemd /usr/local/sbin/


to use it later, you do
sudo /usr/local/sbin/slmodemd -c GERMANY -a hw:0,6

and of course, you will have to set up the dialing as with ordinary modems - just on /dev/ttySL0 (I used wvdial, but "yast2 modem" should also get you working)



googled for opensuse subpixel-hinting, recompiled guru's modified freetype2.src.rpm and installed it to have sub-pixel font rendering.
rpmbuild --rebuild `case \`uname -m\` in i*86) echo --target=i586;; esac` --with subpixel freetype2-2.3.5-0.1.guru.suse102.src.rpm 



WLAN (AR5007EG mis-reported as AR5006 or AR242x)
ndiswrapper works with the WinXP/32 driver from asus
 ndiswrapper -i asus-wlan-azurewave/ndis5x/net5211.inf
ath5k fails badly: rm /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ath5k.ko 
I also got it working on 10.3 with madwifi-ng-r2756+ar5007.tar.gz
/etc/modprobe.d/ath_pci:
options ath_pci countrycode=276

but compared to ndiswrapper, ath_pci has the disadvantage of having to recompile after kernel-updates



Attention: OpenSUSE-11.0's Network-Manager breaks wireless configuration for me.
changing /etc/sysconfig/network/config:
NETWORKMANAGER="no"
helped there.



after several tests, I found s2ram working with
s2ram -f -p -s

created /etc/pm/config.d/15s2ram_opts:
S2RAM_OPTS="-f -p -s"

powersave --suspend-to-disk works out of the box, but the WLAN remains offline when the system comes back.

As a work-around I added a file /etc/pm/config.d/10suspend_modules 
SUSPEND_MODULES="ath_pci ndiswrapper"
RESUME_MODULES="ath_pci"

and /etc/pm/sleep.d/01restartnetworkmanager
#!/bin/sh
case "$1" in
        thaw|resume)
                /etc/init.d/network restart
                ;;
        *)
                ;;
esac




Anything else?

playing DVDs works with mplayer

burning works with growisofs

even dialing over a USB-connection to my Siemens/BenQ S88 worked (Modem=/dev/ttyACM0)

The ACPI sleep key (Fn+F1) worked out-of-the-box (except WLAN as noted above).

reading/flashing BIOS with coreboot's flashrom does not work yet (chips are not detected)
  however, as the machine ships with pre-installed FreeDOS and even the BIOS has built-in support for flashing, this is no problem.



Other info:

# s2ram -i
This machine can be identified by:
    sys_vendor   = "ASUSTeK Computer Inc."
    sys_product  = "X51RL               "
    sys_version  = "1.0       "
    bios_version = "202             "


# hdparm -i /dev/sda

/dev/sda:

 Model=Hitachi HTS542512K9SA00                 , FwRev=BB2OC31P, SerialNo=071210BB0200WBC0TKLC
 Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec Fixed DTR>10Mbs }
 RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=4
 BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=7229kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=?0?
 CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=234441648
 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
 PIO modes:  pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4 
 DMA modes:  mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 
 UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6 
 AdvancedPM=yes: mode=0x80 (128) WriteCache=enabled
 Drive conforms to: unknown:  ATA/ATAPI-2,3,4,5,6,7



License:
This text is intended for the information of the widest possible audience and thus may be freely copied, 
licensed under CC by
Copyright 2008 Bernhard M. Wiedemann.