Ubuntu Jaunty on the Asus EeePC 1000HE

From David Darts Wiki

UPDATE (May 2010): Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 runs flawlessly on the Asus EeePC 1000HE out of the box and I recommend installing this version (rather than Jaunty 9.10). To date I have only had to make one small modification to fix a bug with the gnome-power-manager (it goes into hibernate rather than suspend on idle while running on battery). Fortunately there's an easy workaround:

Open the Configuration Editor by opening a terminal (or pressing Alt+F2) and typing:

gconf-editor

Navigate to apps > gnome-power-manager > actions sleep_type_battery

Click on "hibernate" and replace the text with "suspend"

A bug report has been filed on Launchpad - thanks to James Adney for the workaround.

In June of 2009 I installed Ubuntu 9.04 (Kernel 2.6.28-13) on my Asus EeePC 1000HE and almost everything (suspend, function keys, etc) worked OOTB, with the exception of wireless which required a patch to establish connections with WPA2 networks. Fortunately, there is a patch to make this work (see Patching the Wireless Driver section below).

Installation Notes

Installing Ubuntu on the Eee is pretty simple. I went with the standard desktop edition of Ubuntu though some prefer to use the Ubuntu Netbook Remix edition. If you decide to install the latter option, you can follow these directions for installing the image file on a USB drive.

Install from USB

Download the Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop (the latest version) ISO file and then use Unetbootin to install the ISO file on a USB drive.

Note that in order to install Ubuntu on the Eee using USB, you will first need to disable “Boot Booster” and/or “Quick Boot” in the BIOS. Otherwise the system will likely launch you directly into Windows XP before you have time to press ESC for the boot device menu or F2 to enter the BIOS.

Once that is done, plug in your USB drive and restart the computer pressing the ESC button. Select your USB drive from the boot menu and hit enter.

Partitioning

You'll want to select the Advanced Partition option during installation in order to format your drive as Ext4. This will give you faster boot times.

For my setup, I resized the main XP partition to 15GB (I don't plan to use Windows but have left it on the system in the off case I need to run a specific app and/or test something). I then created a 2GB swap partition and installed the root directory "/" on the remaining disk space using Ext4.

Post-Installation

Outside of patching the wireless driver for use with WPA2 encryption, the other post-install instructions are specific to my own needs and tastes. Feel free to use or ignore as you see fit.

Patching the Wireless Driver

Upon installation, my wireless card could only connect to open and WEP networks (not WPA2). A bug in the driver prevented my wireless card from connecting to WPA2 networks (it could "see" them but would not establish a connection). I was able to connect to open and WEP networks. As a test, I installed the Karmic Koala daily build (June 20-09) and wireless worked perfectly so apparently this bug has been fixed in 9.10. Based on the numerous bug reports filed on Launchpad and the fact that a reliable patch has been created, I'm assuming a revised driver will be released soon. Thus before applying this patch, I recommend updating your software and then testing your wireless to see if you can connect to WPA2 networks.

Note: I compiled these instructions from here and here.

First, go to a terminal and type the following to determine what modules are active begining with the letters "rt."

cat /proc/modules|grep rt

If it is the rt2860sta module then get rid of whatever rt2860 driver you have (1.8 or 1.7) - I moved mine to backup.

sudo mv /lib/modules/2.6.28-13-generic/kernel/drivers/staging/rt2860/rt2860sta.ko /lib/modules/2.6.28-13-generic/kernel/drivers/staging/rt2860/rt2860sta.ko.bak

Note: to see all the drivers in use on your system, use lsmod.

sudo lsmod

Note: to find additional information about your network interfaces, use the following:

sudo lshw -C network

My computer came equiped with the RaLink RT2860.

Next, download the patch.

wget http://launchpadlibrarian.net/26192677/Patch%20for%20rt2860sta%20driver%20for%20WPA1-2%20connection%20v1.8.0.0%2B.patch

Then download this file.

wget http://www.ralinktech.com.tw/data/drivers/2009_0424_RT2860_Linux_STA_V2.1.1.0.tgz

Untar it.

tar xzf 2009_0424_RT2860_Linux_STA_V2.1.1.0.tgz

Change directories.

cd 2009_0424_RT2860_Linux_STA_V2.1.1.0/

Apply the patch.

patch -p1 < ../"Patch for rt2860sta driver for WPA1-2 connection v1.8.0.0+.patch"

sed -i 's/^HAS_WPA_SUPPLICANT=n/HAS_WPA_SUPPLICANT=y/;s/^HAS_NATIVE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_SUPPORT=n/HAS_NATIVE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_SUPPORT=y/' os/linux/config.mk

And rebuild.

sudo make

sudo make install

Take down the interface.

sudo ifconfig ra0 down

sudo rmmod rt2860sta

sudo modprobe rt2860sta

And bring it back up using the new driver.

sudo ifconfig ra0 up

You should now be connected!

To test the quality of your connection (Bit Rate, Link Quality, Signal Level), you can use iwconfig.

sudo iwconfig

Power Management

I installed eee-control: from here. eee-control gives you three power settings (performance, normal, powersave) and allows you to easily turn off/on unused modules that consume battery power (bluetooth, wifi, camera, and card reader).

You can monitor your power consumption by using Powertop.

 sudo apt-get install powertop

You should run it as root.

sudo powertop

Powertop will display software components that are preventing optimal usage of your hardware power savings offer tuning suggestions to achieve low power consumption.

Ubuntu-restricted-extras

To play proprietary file formats (.mp3, etc), you'll need to install the ubuntu-restricted-extras codecs - you can download them directly from here.

Medibuntu

To get skype working correctly, you will need to install the Medibuntu (Multimedia, Entertainment & Distractions In Ubuntu) repository of packages from here.

sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/jaunty.list --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list

Then, add the GPG Key:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get update

For good measure, I also suggest installing the libdvdcss2 package to play encrypted DVDs.

sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2

And also the w32codecs package for playing the few formats such as certain Windows formats, Real, and Apple Quicktime which do not have native codecs under Linux.

sudo apt-get install w32codecs

Skype

It was important to install Skype from the Medibuntu repository (rather than directly from the Skype website) as this was the only way to get video to work. Once you've installed the Medibuntu repos, you can install skype directly from the terminal.

sudo apt-get install skype

Compiz-fusion

To enable Compiz-fusion (cool desktop effects), you must first install the Compiz Config Settings Manager.

sudo apt-get install compiz compizconfig-settings-manager compiz-fusion-plugins-main compiz-fusion-plugins-extra emerald librsvg2-common

Now enable advanced desktop effects by going to System > Preferences > Visual Effects and selecting "Extra."
To configure Compiz Fusion, go to System > Preferences > CompizConfig Settings Manager
To stop the windows from wobbling, select the Wobbly Windows plugin and uncheck the box.
Now open the Move Window plugin and uncheck “Constrain Y” - this will allow you to grab and move windows beyond the top and bottom of the screen using alt+right mouse click. You may also want to adjust the opacity to around 80 which will allow you to see through window boxes as you move them.
Now setup the Cube by enabling the following plugins (by checking the box next to them): Cube plugin, Desktop Cube, Rotate Cube
Now Increase the number of the virtual desktops to 4 by going to General Options → Desktop Size → Horizontal Virtual Size. This will allow you to switch desktops via [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Left]/[Right] and spin the cube via [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Left Mousebutton] – hold the mousebutton clicked, then move the mouse around.
Enable the Scale plugin and select the “Bindings” Tab. Under “Initiate Window Picker for All Windows” line press the “None” button and choose a corner.
To add transparency to the GNOME-Terminal, open the terminal and go to Edit > Profile Preferences > Background and select Transparent background. Adjust to taste.

GnomeDo

I love GnomeDo and installed the GnomeDo PPA Repository following these easy instructions.

VLC 1.0

I decided to install VLC 1.0.0 rather than the current version in the repos (0.9.x) because the older version would not show a controller in full-screen mode.

First add the following to software source:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kow/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Then install the public key.

sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 0x0e494dbb2f021ac1

Now update the repos list.

sudo apt-get update

And lastly, install vlc.

sudo apt-get install vlc mozilla-plugin-vlc

Songbird

To install Songbird (1.2.0), I downloaded the deb file directly from GedDeb.

Conduit

I use Conduit to sync my home folder to an external hard drive. You can install it by adding the PPA repos.

Unison

If you also have an Ubuntu desktop (or second Ubuntu desktop) on your network, Unison can be a fast and easy way to keep your key folders and documents in sync.

sudo apt-get install unison-gtk

Instructions to follow...