hello! welcome on my little page about my good, old asus s1300n and gentoo linux.
back, when i bought it, i thought i would buy a system with standard intel
hardware which is supported by linux as well as openbsd. i was wrong. but by now this notebook
is well supported, so i will not focus on what was necessary to get it up and running
back then (i wrote about that here).
!!! - all kernel options refer to gentoo-sources-2.6.15-r1 - !!!
01.) specs
02.) installation
03.) cpu
04.) hd
05.) graphics
06.) wlan
07.) touchpad
08.) modem
09.) acpi/power management
10.) various
11.) the author
01.) specs
cpu: intel mobile p4 1.3ghz (centrino)
ram: 640mb ddr pc266 (128 on board)
hd: 40gb
graphics: integrated intel extreme (855gm)
display: 1024x768 tft
lan: realtek 8139
wlan: ipw2100 (replaced by ipw2200, later by ipw2915)
sound: integrated intel 810
touchpad: synaptics
modem: slmodem
02.) installation
some time ago that was quite a thing, but now it is simple and straight forward. here is my make.conf:
a stage1 took some time but it was worth the waiting.
03.) cpu
that one is a pretty nice thing. low power but high efficiency. the trick is to get the dynamic frequency scaling to work.
activate in kernel config the following:
power management options ->
cpu frequency scaling: ->
performance governor
powersave governor
ondemand governor
intel enhanced speedstep
use acpi tables ....
built-in tables for banias cpus
now simply place a line like: "echo ondemand > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor" into your
/etc/conf.d/local.start and enjoy!
04.) hd
there is only one thing to mention: be sure to have the "noatime" option in your hds fstab-entries! else the harddisk will have activity
around every second. older gentoo installations miss that one.
05.) graphics
works well with the in-kernel intel agpgart and i915 dri driver:
device drivers ->
character devices ->
agpgart
intel ... i8xx chipset support
direct rendering manager ....
intel ... 855gm ... ->
use the i810 driver for xorg, here is my xorg.conf:
06.) wlan
i replaced the ipw2100 by an ipw2915 (for a short time i used an ipw2200), just for speed.
those cards used to be a little tricky but are now well supported with the ipw2100/ipw2200 project
(now integrated into the mainstream kernel!).
edit: the led-problem has been fixed again somewhere around 2.6.20 !!
there is an issue with the wlan-led on this notebook and the acpi4asus project. back in 2.4 kernels
the wled worked, since the project became integrated into the main-kernel-tree it
doesn't work anymore. if you want to make it work again you can do the following:
go to your kernel-sources (usually /usr/src/linux) and enter the drivers/acpi directory.
there edit the asus_acpi.c file on line 350:
then recompile the kernel. after rebooting the wled lights up when the module of the
wireless device is being inserted and stops again when removing.
the only thing that doesn't work is completely deactivating the radio-module.
07.) touchpad
enable ps/2 devices in the kernel, emerge synaptics and then look at my xorg.conf above.
i even have both bottom corners active (the left one as middle-click, the right for right-click).
so i never need the (noisy) buttons at all!
08.) modem
never used that one but it should work with the in-kernel alsa driver:
device drivers ->
sound ->
advanced linux .... ->
pci devices ->
intel/sis/nvidia/.... ac97 controller
intel/sis/nvidia/.... mc97 modem
09.) acpi/power management
that one took longest to be fully supported. here is my kernel config:
power management options ->
legacy power management api
software suspend
(/dev/"yourswappartition") default resume partition
acpi ->
acpi support
sleep states
ac adapter
battery
button
video (though not sure that one does something!)
fan
processor
asus/medion laptop extras (!!!!!!!!!)
power management timer support
be sure to have acpid and sudo emerged!
i wrote myself some scripts to manage power-settings on this notebook. first i made acpid aware of
the powersettings-button (the one with the "running-man" logo). here is a listing of my
/etc/acpi/events/power:
my /usr/local/bin/power looks like this (and is executable):
/etc/sudoers needs an entry like this (use visudo to edit):
and finally my /usr/local/sbin/power looks like that (and is again executable):
so if the powersettings-button is pressed the power-script cycles the power-state.
10.) various
11.) the author
my notebook is a mobile workplace. i manage data/network-security for various companies.
so it is very important to rely on the tools i choose. the s1300n was a very reliable
notebook and is now used by my children. i use linux as primary os and
xorg is just a tool to have several shells at the same time without losing
the scrollback buffer. my preferred windowmanager is wmii (it used to be windowmaker). the
touchpad is rarely needed, i prefer hotkeys.
i wrote a couple of scripts to manage network-profiles (lan and wlan), backup important
settings, manage vpn-connections and much more. at first i wrote that scripts just
for my own notebook, but now all those scripts are also used on all notebooks of my own family as well
as on a couple of my friends computers. if anyone is interested in those scripts
mail me.
this howto was last edited on tuesday, 2007.11.20 (completely rewritten on monday, 2005.11.28).
it is just a quick and dirty howto, but i hope it gets the point.
for any questions, typos, suggestions and whatever simply
mail me.
