InstallConfigHistoryAsusZ53F

Installing ASUS Z53F laptop #

Dutch version / Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon experiences

Table of Contents

What's in the box ?#

Thee laptop is shipped with Vista, the hard disk has 3 partitions:

It has a nice Ultrabright 1200x800 screen, Intel chipset, Intel Core Duo T2350 processor (no Virtualizaton :-( ) .

First the Windows shit.#

During the first boot, the Vista installation has to be finished, things like timezone , keyboard, language etc....
Then it takes a veeeeeery long time to login for the first time (with an account created in the previous step). If you're finally logged on to Vista, McAfee starts nagging, you have to go through a dialog, and when that's finished, it again takes a veeeeery long time before McAfee installation is finished
Shutting down Vista also takes a long time.

Linux install#

We start with the installation of Ubuntu Feisty Fawn (7.04) from the Live-CD. Sound works, wireless lan Intel Pro Wireless 3945abg is recognized (but, later more...). The screen only offers resolution 1024x768, and is not very sharp. Then first with gparted, the last DATA partition divided in 3 parts, Linux Root 1, Linux Root 2, swap (1G). Then the Ubuntu install started. This works smoothless (as expected). The GRUB menu now shows 2 additional options beside Ubuntu, 2 (twee) Vista boot options. I just choose the first one, but I get a lot of error messages and on the next reboot, GRUB even doesn't start anymore ?!
Rebooted from Ubuntu Live-Cd, start gparted and then it appears that the 3 linux partitions are completely gone !! Recreated the 3 partitions again and installed Ubuntu again. Boot again, and now choose the second GRUB option, now Vista boots normally. Then rebooted, and choose the Ubuntu option in GRUB, works fine .


So the first thing I did was edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and commented out the "fatal" first option.
Now we have a basic Ubuntu system, let's start the customization.

Ubuntu customization #

Hardware listing (lshw)#

For all the hardware details, here is the lshw output

Screen #

As mentioned earlier you don't get out-of-the-box 1280x800 resolution, it really looks awful. I first started to play a little with xorg.conf, but that didn't help (I'm an not a X goeroe). The changes didn't give me a better resolution. So Googling.... There I found the package 915 resolution, (which appeared to part of the standard Ubuntu distribution) : 
915resolution is a tool to modify the video BIOS of the 800 and 900 series Intel graphics chipsets. 
This includes the 830, 845G, 855G, and 865G chipsets, as well as 915G, 915GM, 945G, 946GZ, G965, and Q965 chipsets. 
This modification is necessary to allow the display of certain graphics resolutions for an Xorg or XFree86 graphics server.

Installed this, and also made it start at boot time by editing /etc/init.d/bootmisc.sh 

#
# setup the Intel graphics card (replace entry 38) :
915resolution 38 1280 800 > /tmp/915res.stdo 2>/tmp/915res.stde
915resolution 3a 1280 1024 >> /tmp/915res.stdo 2>>/tmp/915res.stde
Booting, and voila a magnificent sharp 1280x800 screen.
Solved

Wireless Card#

The wireless card is a: 
metskem@asus:~$ lspci|grep ireless
02:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02)

Well, in Ubuntu Feisty there is a native driver shipped for this card, the card is also properly recognized : 

metskem@asus:~$ sudo iwconfig 
Password:
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

eth1      IEEE 802.11b  ESSID:"DirtyHarryWifiNet"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: 00:04:E2:A3:AC:F8   
          Bit Rate:11 Mb/s   Tx-Power:15 dBm   
          Retry limit:15   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=95/100  Signal level=-33 dBm  Noise level=-34 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:550  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:23968   Missed beacon:0

But the bandwidth is very poor, not more than 20 KB/s, while Vista on the same laptop runs op to the max. I have (250 KB/s).
Googling again, and more people seem to have these symptoms. It has something to do with b en g routers, and since I still have an old 802.11b (11 Mb/s) router ....., I tried my laptop/wireless card with a modem of my brother in law 802.11g (54 Mb/s) modem, and yep, there it works fine.
So I bought myself another 802.11 g modem, and this problem is circumvented.

CPU Frequency scaling#

First, a kernel module has to be loaded: 
sudo modprobe acpi-cpufreq

If you have done that, you can tweak with it like : 

echo ondemand > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor 
echo ondemand > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cpufreq/scaling_governor
You can replace powersave with ondemand or performance . On the task bar you can add a CPU frequency meter (2 x, for each CPU 1). There you can nicely see the frequency changing from for instance 1.8 GHz to 798 MHz. You can also use this to see the voltage history, charge history and also the power consumption, which varies from 18 to 45 Watts (when I run the XMLMark performance test)

To make sure it keeps working after the boot I added the following to /etc/init.d/bootmisc.sh : 

#
#  insert the cpufreq kernel module:
modprobe acpi-cpufreq

Webcam#

The following webcam is on board: 
metskem@asus:~$ lsusb
Bus 005 Device 003: ID 05e1:0501 Syntek Semiconductor Co., Ltd 
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 046d:c03e Logitech, Inc. Premium Optical Wheel Mouse
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Googling brings me to sourceforge site dedicated to the Syntek webcams :-)
Downloaded from there stk11xx-1.0.0.tar.gz en : Installed camora, and wow it works just fine !

This also has to be made bootsafe, so I again added some lines to /etc/init.d/bootmisc.sh : 

#
#  make arrangements for the Syntek webcam:
modprobe videodev
insmod /usr/local/stk11xx-1.0.0/stk11xx.ko

SD card reader#

Sticked in the SD card from my Photo Camera, and this also works fine, it is properly recognized and I can (un)load pictures.

Installation of miscellaneous pieces of software:#

The following packages have been installed in the usual way (Synaptic) :

Install powertop#

What does not work ?#

The only thing that fails is sound after a hibernate or suspend. Sound does not work when you power on the laptop.
If you reboot, sound is back again. (This problem is fixed in Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon)

If you have questions#

please mail me : harry.metske@gmail.com