Linux on Notebook ASUS 9200G
First Version
posted 27th November 2005
Preview change 21th March 2006
Changes 27th November 2006
Last changes 30th February 2010
The ASUS configuration
program tells that this notebook is compatible to A6G. Exactly it is the ASUS
Z9213G.
Hardware:
- 60 GB HD (4200rpm)
- 512 MB RAM
- Intel Pentium M 715
A
- Burner DVD +/- RW,
CD +/- RW
- Ricoh SD-card reader
(Ricoh R/RL/5C476(II) or compatible CardBus-Controller)
- Conexant AC97 Modem
(AC97 SoftV92 Data Fax Modem with SmartCP)
- Sound AC 97 (Realtek
AC'97 Audio)
- ATI radeon mobile
9700
- 15.4’’ WXGA TFT LCD
1280x800
- 4 USB ports
- 1 parallel port (for
printer, with an adaptor as one serial port useable)
- IR (infrared port)
- firewire port
- built in micro
- plugs for micro,
speaker and line
- plug for external
vga monitor (anaolog, no DVI)
- plug for external TV
(plug size like PS2)
- WLAN (Intel 2200BG)
- Ethernet
- PCMI III port (Ricoh
R/RL/5C476(II) or compatible CardBus-Controller)
- Windows
preinstalled, XP recovery CD included
(I could supply
detailed hardware information, which I pulled out with msinfo32)
Software:
SUSE Linux Version 9.3
Installation of Linux
Hard disk
I bought the notebook
in August and Installed Suse 9.2/9.3 German (therefore my English is not the
best) from a Linux Magazin version on the notebook. Later I installed SUSE 9.3
(partial as update, English) from Linux magazine October 2005 on the Notebook.
The configuration of the harddisk was
- first partition: a
little less than 2 GB, hidden under Windows XP, FAT32
- second partition:
rest of the HD with Windows XP on it as drive “C:” and FAT32 (not NTFS)
So it was easy to
shrink the second partition. I did more partitions on it. 13GB for Win XP (FAT,
second partition, following are logical partitions), 10GB for Linux (reiserfs),
2GB for swap, 16GB for data (FAT32), 8GB for data (FAT32, later changed to NTFS
for testing), 6GB for data or others.
I installed GRUB (in
the Linux partition) for selecting the working system. Win XP is “windows 2”,
“windows 1” is the hidden partition.
Graphic
For the graphic card
and LCD display I had to do it more often, till I succeeded in getting 1280x800
(60Hz) resolution on screen. Before I had 1024x768 or 800x600 and not very
sharp. For LCD displays sharp letters you only get for exact this resolution or
half (640x400!, that means 640x480 is not sharp too on two sides of the
letters).
Later, November 2005 I
downloaded the new ATI graphic driver for Linux from their homepage. With this
driver the graphic acceleration for the ATI radeon mobile 9700 is now working,
also the doc file says (ATI Driver Installer Version 8.19 ca. 60-70 MB) not
included now. I checked it with glxgears and glxinfo (direct rendering: yes,
later in the list you see some “none”, that means that some modes and functions
are not realized now). So tuxracer is now working well.
You should download
the file with, which has the longest size of ATI and follow the instructions.
You should use their config tool for the xorg.config and save your xorg.config
build by Suse before.Don`t use sax or
yast. ATI supports not all possible monitor description methods. Unfortunately
they forgot the resolution 1280x800 in their config file, so that you have to
add this manually. And you have to copy the list of fonts of SUSEs xorg.config
file in the xorg.config file created by ATI. Without it, you will have not
convenient small letters in KDE.
With glxgears (open
terminal and type “glxgears” then a window with three turning gears opens) and
working with battery (powersave, dynamic) you read on the terminal as output:
8598 frames in 5.0
seconds = 1719.600 FPS (with the small window, size ca ¼ length and ¼ high of
the screen)
1047 frames in 5.0
seconds = 209.400 FPS (with enlarged the window, so that the turning gears fill
the full 1280x800 screen)
see glxinfo051201.txt for output of glxinfo (third line is ).
name of display: :0.0
display: :0 screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes
server glx vendor
string: SGI
server glx version
string: 1.2
…..
After my Suse update
(patches and soft ware) by internet the acceleration was gone. I had to install
the ATI driver again. Then the acceleration worked well again. Therefore I
recommend keeping the ATI driver on your hard disk. And save your xorg.config
too before you do this. So you can copy it back too.
At http://www.suse.de/~sndirsch/ati-installer-HOWTO.html
“Unfortunately you need to recompile the "fglrx" kernel module
right after any kernel (security) update. Use "fglrx-kernel-build.sh"
for this.” I installed the ATI driver completely. Whether only “fglx
recompiling” is sufficient I have not tested.
About the Hardware
Sound
Sound is working. You
can change the levels of volume of all types. But the tone manipulation –
equalizer of xmms and other tools is not working.
DVD Burner
DVD burner is working
well. With KDE nearly to 8x standard speed, average is about 4x for this you
should check the log-file of K3b burn program.
Power Management
Power Management is
working. battery status is correct. With windows you are able to work 5.5 hours
with Linux more than 4.5 hours. My experiences are the same. With Linux it is
less, because the graphic card power save functions are not supported.
Modem
Unfortunately the AC97
modem is not working (Therefore I have to use very often Windows to create,
change this is page and to upload it. See html side with an editor, first
lines).
(May be somebody help
these links, that I have found by www search:
http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/archive-fifth/msg02715.html,
http://www.linuxant.com/drivers/;
Follow this chain of
Links to the driver for 2.6.x kernels:
http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/archive-fourth/msg02073.html
http://cmb.phys.cwru.edu/kisner/linux/compaq-r3000/
http://www.heby.de/ltmodem http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/packages/ltmodem/kernel-2.6/;
I have not tried
because I have DSL, and no analog phone now)
Ethernet/LAN
Is working. Surfing
with DSL I have successful tested.
WLAN
WLAN is working.
Surfing with WLAN I have successful tested. Sometimes the DCHP has problems. It
is better working if you select that kinternet started always. Before kinternet
is started be aware that netapplet (in the KDE menu it is named different) is
started and that you have selected there WLAN before. But then it will go in
the first WLAN net in your surrounding that is available. The control light of
the WLAN below the keyboard is not switched on or off. The status of your WLAN
is independent from the status of this control light. Although it says/shows
“connected” your kinternet, you have to go into kinternet menu “Wireless
connection…”, go into “Menu Scan for Wireless Networks”, mark there your access
point, klick “Connect” and then you are be able to surf in the www.
Suse 9.3: Terminal or
in the Menue
netapplet = / Internet
/ Administration / Network Selector
kinternet = / Internet / Dial Up / Kinternet
Touch Pad / USB Mouse
Touch Pad with 2 keys
(3rd emulation) is working. If you use a simple three keys or wheel
mouse then with both working parallel is possible. If you are booting up in
battery mode, sometimes your USB Mouse is not recognized and the power of USB
ports is disabled. Same problem occurs under Windows.
USB
USB is working. USB
memory stick SanDisk 512MB und Vivanci 128MB is working. See USB Mouse too.
Short keys, function keys
The keys for notebook
special functions (ASUS short keys, with the blue “Fn” key) for switching
on/off touch pad or WLAN are not working. But that doesn’t matter.
See at http://tuxmobil.org/asus.html for ASUS
hotkeys projects. I have not tried this.
SD-Card Adapter
Is not working with
Linux. If you plug in there a 128MB SD card my Linux hangs up. I cannot access
any console so I had to switch the power off (pressing many seconds on power
off). If you change in bios options the behavior of the on switch you will have
to pull out the battery. Please take then care that the notebook is in the
right position and do it without a push to your notebook because the hard disk
head is hanging somewhere in the linux partition. Reiserfs then had to repair
this partition.
Build in Micro
Is working. It is
switched off by plugging a plug into the 3.5 port. So you are able to phone (IP
phone).
IR, Firewire, PCMI III, Parallel Port, TV out, VGA out
Not tested because I
don’t have equipment for it (IR, Firewire, PCMIA, TV out).
Parallel port is
recognized and installed by Linux. I need parallel port for my old parallel
port Zip drive 100MB and for my Multiportcase 5.1/4 IDE+SCSI (maintenance
tool).
An external USB hard
drive (from CP, USB 2.0) is recognized and handled by the BIOS as an HD, not as
a USB changeable drive. That has advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantage
is, that you can forget all tips how to boot from an external hard drive. The
only way is going into the Bios. There you will find the hard drive listed
together with the internal hard drive as second drive. There you can change it
to the first hard drive. Then it is booting, without any tricks, as known by
CD/DVD boot. But this is forgotten after you had booted one times without the
external hard drive. Then you have do it in the Bios again. The advantage is,
that you can boot all operation systems, which use Bios access without changing
anything (as you pulled off from IDE).
I tried to install
Knoppix 4.02 DVD Version on the external hard disk with “sudo
knoppix-installer”, which installed Knoppix Debian 3.1a. Installation was
1h30min to 2h with my USB 2.0 drive of a little more than 6 GB. Asus uses
internal some universal chip sets. One chip is used for SCSI too and there is
an SCSI drive active (external USB HD as sda, sda1, usw), and therefore it
starts some of the SCSI acceleration – direct access. That causes a crash in
the end of booting (runlevel console is reached). I have not figured out, which parts I have to deactivate in the
script and options. This will be able to occur only if you install Linux
on the external HD and you will boot from it.
If you will put your
Knoppix with knoppix tohd=/dev/sda6 on the external hard disk then it boots up
without any problems with the cheatcode knoppix fromhd=/dev/sda6. Then you can
remove your CD/DVD as mentioned in Knopper’s book. Installation was nearly
30min with my USB 2.0 drive of a little more than 2 GB.
If you boot from your
local hard disk or CD/DVD all will work well. You have your ext HD connected
and switched on while booting and you can access your HD without any trouble. But you have to put before on your hard
drive one formatted primary partition. Then you can change this partition
or/and add further partitions with your Linux tools as you want. In /media the
mounted partitions are added as folders, which are named like the labels of the
partitions (FAT Partitions).
If you connect your HD
after booted Linux then you have to start the process manually. I don’t know
how to do this. That is different to using an USB Stick. Now I have solved this
problem with a little workaround. I added into the /etc/fstab:
/dev/sda1 /media/USB_SDA1 auto
noauto,user,rw,exec,sync, 0 0
/dev/sda2 /media/USB_SDA2 subfs
noauto,user,rw,nosuid,nodev,sync,rw,exec,sync,
fs=floppyfss,procuid
These trigger on the
common auto-mounting process. Then all partitions (sda1…9) of the HD getting
mounted independent whether there is an entry in the fstab. In /media the
mounted partitions are added as folders, which are named like the labels of the
partitions (FAT Partitions).
So external hard disk
is working in most cases well. With my USB 2.0 case I didn`t remark any
differences in speed compared to an internal drive (With cheatcode knoppix
fromhd=/dev/sda6 you can test this best).
Suspend to disk
There the Linux is writing
the contents of the memory (and a little more) into a file on hard disk. During
booting Linux looks after this file and you could start exactly where you
stopped. It is not working. PC shuts down but booting up fails. Windows its own
suspend will fail too if you only change a little on the status. Examples:
suspend to disk with external USB mouse and resume without external mouse or
putted on the other USB port; suspend to disk in battery mode and resume with
110-240V power.
Configurations
You could download my
xorg.config file at
(remember with windows
line breaks are not correctly viewed – because of other line end characters)
With the command dmesg
in a terminal session you will get all booting information, which was printed
on screen.
(you should not forget
to delete in such files your MAC address of your Ethernet card and changing
your IP to something as 192.168.0.1…3 before publishing. Because this detail
could help to go into your network)
Conclusion
All important
functions for office use are working. But only the analog modem for www surfing
is not working. That could be deranging on travels. For simple fun games is now
the graphic acceleration working. Generally for games a desktop is the better
solution than a notebook. Home user will criticize that the SD card reader is
not working. They have to buy a reader for the USB port, which is supported by
Linux and is not expensive. Another thing is the limit to change tone of the
sound is not working now. But you can now listen and look your videos. Without
the graphic card accelerations some codecs, which use many processor resources
could only be viewed in a small window.
With Linux you may
seldom to switch to Windows. The notebook is only sold with Windows XP. So I
would recommend you to keep what you have paid for a time and use GRUB for
selecting which system you want to start. I bought the notebook in August 2005
when it was new. Generally drivers for Linux are available a little later for a
many of new hardware. Problems will decrease dramatically if notebook
manufacturers take more care in using standard hardware, chip sets and so on.
You could support Linux if you asked before buying about Linux compatibility of
every product. If their certification (ISO 9000 qualification) was working (not
only bought) than this new increase of demands should be remarked.
If you were absolutely
convinced Windows user you should do this too. Your advantages should be more
common hardware and less to install/update by Internet if you had to reinstall
all again. Generally it seems, that Windows is running on computers with Linux
compatible hardware more stable too, so reinstallation could be later (after
you sell your notebook to buy a new one).
I use my notebook now
mostly with Linux!
Have Fun !
If there are any
changes – more hardware is supported – I will update this page. If you know a
solution (not now running hardware).
Comments, tips and
corrections you could send to the owner of this page by email. The name (part
before @) you can pick from the link to this page, then you have to add the
yahoo, a dot and then com. So some automatic mail sending programs cannot parse
it out of this site so easy.
Appendix
Knoppix 3.3 Live CD:
-
not working - boot
failure of kernel (not many options of cheatcodes tested) because of
unsupported chip sets
Knoppix 4.02 Live DVD:
-
60 GB HD: working
-
512 MB RAM:
working
-
Intel Pentium M
715 A: working
-
Burner DVD +/-
RW, CD +/- RW: reading is working, writing not tested;
-
Ricoh SD-card
reader: not working
-
Conexant AC97
Modem: not tested
-
Sound AC 97
(Realtek AC'97 Audio): working, but equalizer of xmms is not working
-
ATI radeon mobile
9700: working, but only 1024x768 (therefore not very sharp) and no acceleration
for 3D and some Video codecs are only jumping from pic to pic or only half of
the lines/pics is displayed (processor use for decompressing and frame
buffering).
-
15.4’’ WXGA TFT
LCD 1280x800: working, see above
-
4 USB ports:
working USB Mouse, external USB sticks
-
1 parallel port
(for printer, with an adaptor as one serial port useable): not tested
-
IR (infrared
port): not tested
-
firewire port:
not tested
-
built in micro:
working
-
plugs for micro,
speaker and line: working
-
plug for external
vga monitor (anaolog, no DVI): not tested
-
plug for external
TV (plug size like PS2): not tested
-
WLAN (Intel
2200BG): working (started with KWiFi Manager, finds only access points on last
used channel (here 6) with Suse 9.3 or Win XP)
-
Ethernet: working
-
PCMI III port (Ricoh
R/RL/5C476(II) or compatible CardBus-Controller):
Ubuntu 5.10 live CD
-
60 GB HD: working
-
512 MB RAM:
working
-
Intel Pentium M
715 A: working
-
Burner DVD +/-
RW, CD +/- RW: reading is working, writing not tested;
-
Ricoh SD-card
reader: not working
-
Conexant AC97
Modem: not tested
-
Sound AC 97
(Realtek AC'97 Audio): working, but equalizer of xmms is not working
-
ATI radeon mobile
9700: working, but only 1024x768 (therefore not very sharp) and no acceleration
for 3D and some Video codecs are only jumping from pic to pic or only half of
the lines/pics is displayed (processor use for decompressing and frame
buffering).
-
15.4’’ WXGA TFT
LCD 1280x800: working, see above
-
4 USB ports:
working USB Mouse
-
1 parallel port
(for printer, with an adaptor as one serial port useable): not tested
-
IR (infrared
port): not tested
-
firewire port:
not tested
-
built in micro:
working
-
plugs for micro,
speaker and line: working
-
plug for external
vga monitor (anaolog, no DVI): not tested
-
plug for external
TV (plug size like PS2): not tested
-
WLAN (Intel
2200BG): working (started with KWiFi Manager)
-
Ethernet: working
-
PCMI III port
(Ricoh R/RL/5C476(II) or compatible CardBus-Controller): not tested PCMI III