Debian Linux on the Asus EEEPC 1001P
I recently acquired an Asus EEEPC 1001P-MU17 netbook and replaced the marginal crippled operating system it included with Debian GNU/Linux.
Let’s go!
There were a few hiccups during the install… but with the replacement of Debian’s default 2.6.32 kernel with a more recent release (currently running kernel 2.6.37) most of the 1001P’s hardware is supported by default. Adding a few configuration tweaks makes this one nifty little device!
0. Start
Asus 1001P-MU17 Hardware specifications
- Processor: Intel Atom N450
- Chipset: Intel NM10<
- Memory: 1GB DDR2-667
- Graphics: Intel GMA 3150 (kernel driver: i915)
- Display: 10.1” LED Matte 1024x600
- Hard Drive: 160GB 5400RPM Western Digital WD1600BEVT-2
- Ethernet: Atheros AR8132 (kernel driver: atl1c)
- Wireless: Atheros AR2427 802.11g (kernel driver: ath9k)
- Audio: Realtek AL269 2-Channel HD Audio
- Webcam: 0.3MP UVC Camera (kernel driver: uvcvideo)
- Battery: 6-Cell, 4400mAh, 48Wh (~7 hours runtime)
- Ports: 3 x USB 2.0, VGA, SD Reader, 100Mb Ethernet, Microphone/Headphone Jacks
Device status
- Graphics: Works
- Ethernet: Works
- Wireless: Works
- Audio: Works
- Webcam: Works
- SD reader: Works
- Touchpad: Works
Function keys
- Fn+F1 (Suspend-to-RAM): Works
- Fn+F2 (Toggle wireless): Not used
- Fn+F3: Not used
- Fn+F4: Not used
- Fn+F5 (Brightness down): Works
- Fn+F6 (Brightness up): Works
- Fn+F7: Not used
- Fn+F8: Use xrandr in the terminal
- Fn+F9: Not used
- Fn+F10 (Volume mute): Works
- Fn+F11 (Volume down): Works
- Fn+F12 (Volume up): Works
1. Install
My Debian install notes. Specific details concerning the Asus 1001P are noted below.
Configure BIOS and boot Debian installer
Power up and enter the Asus BIOS by pressing the F2
key. Configure for a USB install:
- under
Advanced
… ensure that both onboard camera and WLAN areEnabled
- under
Boot
… ensure that 1st boot device is set toRemovable Device
- under
Boot
… ensure that boot booster isDisabled
Prepare the Debian installer on a USB stick, attach, and reboot. At the BIOS screen hit Esc
and select USB as boot device.
2. Configuration
Ethernet
Auto-detection probing of the ethernet interface during the install can result in device disappearing from the system and network configuration to fail (Update: Appears problem has been resolved with the stable release of Debian squeeze
). If the ethernet device was knocked out during installation:
- ensure that
/etc/network/interfaces
contains no hotplug entry foreth0
orwlan0
- shutdown netbook and remove the power cord
- remove battery and let sit for a minute or so
- restore power to netbook and startup
lspci -v | grep net
reveals the ethernet device (Atheros Communications AR8132 Fast Ethernet)- bring up the interface…
ifconfig eth0 up
anddhclient eth0
Wireless
Works “out-of-box”. Interface is identified as wlan0
.
EEEPC
Install the eeepc-acpi-scripts
to enable the function keys and the ability to suspend-to-RAM (sleep) …
$ sudo apt-get install eeepc-acpi-scripts
Power management
$ sudo apt-get install acpid acpi cpufrequtils pm-utils
Verify acpi-cpufreq
module is loaded… otherwise sudo modprobe acpi-cpufreq
.
Output detailed information about the CPU(s) by running cpufreq-info
.
Settings are in /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq
. CPU speed can be monitored in real-time by running …
$ watch grep \"cpu MHz\" /proc/cpuinfo
Default scaling governor is ondemand
.
Screen brightness
Post-install the display brightness is extremely low and the assigned function keys for adjusting the brightness level cause the setting to jump all over the place. This can be fixed by editing /etc/default/grub
and modifying GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT
…
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet acpi_osi=Linux acpi_backlight=vendor"
Save your changes and run sudo update-grub2
. Reboot… login… and run …
$ sudo `echo 15 > /sys/class/backlight/eeepc/brightness`
Touchpad
By default the touchpad is limited to finger-tap=left-mouse-click. HAL
and fdi
files were previously used to enable more mouse-click and scrolling functions but their use is now deprecated… udev
is the way to go now.
Determine type of touchpad used in the 1001P …
$ egrep -i 'synap|alps|etps' /proc/bus/input/devices
N: Name="SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad"
Use xinput
to determine the properties of the touchpad and add new functions …
$ sudo apt-get install xinput
$ xinput --list | grep Synaptic # determine *DEVICE_ID* of the touchpad ... on the 1001P its *id=13*)
$ xinput --list-props 13
Create a shell script using xinput to configure the touchpad for left-middle-right mouse clicks with finger taps and two-finger scrolling, save it in ~/bin
and source it to run at login. On my 1001P running Fluxbox window manager I add the line touchpad_config &
to ~/.fluxbox/startup
.
Suspend-to-RAM
Using the eeepc-acpi-scripts
and key combo Fn + F1
to put the netbook to sleep “just works”.
Microphone
Muted by default. Need to enable capture in alsamixer
.
Hard drive management
I noticed a frequent clicking noise from the drive heads on my netbook. Digging online reveals discussion about over-aggressive power management settings on hard drives that rapidly mount/unmount/remount and gradually wear out the drive. Feedback suggests that laptop drives are good for roughly ~600000 load_cycles.
To check the drive and alter management settings …
$ sudo apt-get install smartmontools hdparm
$ sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda | egrep -i 'Power_On_Hours|Load_Cycle_Count'
In my situation I felt Load_Cycle_Count
was increasing too rapidly and I found the click-click-click of the drive every few seconds a nuisance. I use hdparm
to set powersaving mode to less aggressive tactics… which eliminated the clicking hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda
.
To make the change permanent edit /etc/hdparm.conf
by adding to the end of the file …
command_line {
hdparm -q -B 254 /dev/sda