I have been using this machine for almost a month now. It works great!
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I finally found a notebook to meet my needs. Now I am trying to figure out how to install pclos on it.
I does not have an optical drive, so I downloaded pclinuxos-kde-2012.02.iso on my other machine an used PCLinuxOS Live USB Creator to create a bootable usb.
I also found out that to make the ux31e boot off of the usb, you need to turn it on and immediately press and hold the esc key. You then get a menu that lets you choose between booting off of the ssd or the usb (second option.)
My machine also had a tendency to power off unexpectedly. To fix that I updated the bios to the latest (212) and disabled VT-d in the bios (bios access is the third option in the above menu.)
The os boots off of the usb, I get a splash screen and if I press the esc key I can see various drivers starting ok ... but X fails to start.
The problem is that this machine screen resolution is not listed in the iso's xorg.conf
To fix, you login as root, run XFdrake (it also works in text mode!) and select a 1600x900 monitor and a 1600x900 24bpp display. After that run startx and you get the GUI.
The wireless network also does not work and requires updated drivers and a reboot, so at this point you must install the OS. It goes really fast since the machine has an SSD. After reboot off of the SDD screen resolution is in xorg.conf and the GUI works.
I have tested the machine with 2.6.38.8-bfs (comes with the iso) 2.6.38.8-pae-bfs (machine has 4GB RAM) and 3.2.18-pae-bfs. The order of installation is important or else you may lose sound.
In grub's menu add to the boot options
splash=silent i915.i915_enable_rc6=0 i915.semaphores=1 pcie_aspm=force
for every installed kernel.
To get the wireless to work you need to download the drivers from
Use compat-wireless-3.2.5-1.tar.bz2 for 2.6.38.8 kernels and compat-wireless-3.3-2-n.tar.bz2 for 3.2.18 kernel.
You also will need the rpm's for kernel-3.2.18-pclos1.pae.bfs and kernel-devel-3.2.18-pclos1.pae.bfs.
As root
# tar xvf compat-wireless-3.2.5-1.tar.bz2
# cd compat-wireless-3.2.5-1
# ./scripts/driver-select ath9k
# make
# make install
# make unload
# modprobe ath9k
# reboot
After reboot you should have a working wireless.
Start synaptic and upgrade all packages.
You also must remove dkms-broadcom-wl and dkms-nvidia173 otherwise 3.2.18 won't install.Install the 3.2.18 kernel rpms.
Reboot with the new kernel.
Install compat-wireless-3.3.2-n.tar.bz2. After reboot wireless should work here as well.
[Note: the machine has a function key Fn F2 to toggle the wireless. It seems to work but its light is reversed: when the light is on the wireless is off]
You also need the below script to make the sleep function work. The below script works for both kernels.
In /etc/pm/sleep.d/20_xenbook (make it executable, owned by root)
#!/bin/bash
# file name and location: /etc/pm/sleep.d/20_zenbook
OSVERSION=`echo $(uname -a) | sed "s/[^\ ]\+\ [^\ ]\+\ \([0-9\.]\+\).*/\1/"`
if [ "$1" = "" ] ; then
echo "OSVERSION: ${OSVERSION}"
exit
fi
if [ "$OSVERSION" = "3.2.18" ] ; then
EHCI_BUSES="0000:00:1a.0 0000:00:1d.0"
case "${1}" in
hibernate|suspend)
# Switch USB buses off
for bus in $EHCI_BUSES; do
echo -n $bus > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ehci_hcd/unbind
done
;;
resume|thaw)
# Switch USB buses back on
for bus in $EHCI_BUSES; do
echo -n $bus > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ehci_hcd/bind
done
;;
esac
fi
if [ "$OSVERSION" = "2.6.38.8" ] ; then
EHCI_BUSES="0000:00:1a.0 0000:00:1d.0"
XHCI_BUSES="0000:03:00.0"
case "${1}" in
hibernate|suspend)
# Switch USB buses off
for bus in $EHCI_BUSES; do
echo -n $bus > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ehci_hcd/unbind
done
for bus in $XHCI_BUSES; do
echo -n $bus > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/xhci_hcd/unbind
done
;;
resume|thaw)
# Switch USB buses back on
for bus in $EHCI_BUSES; do
echo -n $bus > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ehci_hcd/bind
done
for bus in $XHCI_BUSES; do
echo -n $bus > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/xhci_hcd/bind
done
# Hacky workaround to fix display after suspend, not needed for kernels 3.1 or newer
export DISPLAY=":0"
export XAUTHORITY=`ps aux | grep X | grep auth | awk '{sub( /^.*-auth / ,""); sub( / .*/,"");print }'`
xset dpms force off
xset dpms force on
;;
esac
fi
I tend to touch the tracpad as I type, which causes a tap and move the cursor to random places. It seems that running
syndaemon -i 2.0 -k -t -d
helps with this problem.
To make it start on boot add this script to /etc/init.d (executable, owned by root)
#! /bin/sh
#
# syndaemon
#
# chkconfig: 345 50 50
# description: Disable touchpad tapping while typing
#
# Source function library.
. /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions
# See how we were called.
case "$1" in
start)
gprintf "Starting syndaemon: "
status syndaemon > /dev/null 2>&1
[ $? -ne 0 ] && daemon syndaemon -i 2.0 -k -t -d
success "start"
echo
touch /var/lock/subsys/syndaemon
;;
stop)
gprintf "Stopping syndaemon: "
killproc syndaemon
echo
rm -f /var/lock/subsys/syndaemon
;;
status)
status syndaemon
;;
restart)
$0 stop
$0 start
;;
*)
gprintf "Usage: $(basename %s) {start|stop|status|restart}\n" "$0"
exit 1
esac
exit 0
