AsusEEEPC2GS

Revision 11 as of 2008-08-06 16:31:08

Clear message

Tested Feb 22nd 2008

This computer is mostly all Intel chipset. It is light and compact and doesn't use much electricity, but if you think it is completely silent, think again. The HDD is gone, but the CPU fan can be heard in certain acoustic settings. /proc/cpuinfo shows the machine running at 800Mhz, but the specifications from Asus say it is a 900 MHz Intel Celeron-M ULV 353. Personally I think it may even be running slower than 800Mhz. I don't think proper drivers are loaded for the CPU. Except for brightness, and Num Lk, none of the function keys worked in this test. The microphone is located (of all places) at the bottom. THIS IS NOT A RESET BUTTON! It picks up a lot of ambient noise. The space bar is weak on the left side, but works well on the right side. Looking at the computer, you would think it has a one button mouse, but in fact this is a two sided mouse. Works great, just don't try clicking in the middle of the button.

Note: The EEE's are underclocked on the FSB From the factory, presumably as a battery saving measure.

Update March 1st 2008

I think my 16GB SDCH ran out of inodes, or there was an inode reconfiguration in recovery mode before I was able to boot. I was asked to press enter a few times to fix this inode-related issue, then it booted up perfectly. I have to say that I am a little angry that I can't put the machine to sleep, suspend, hibernate and that to change the resolution (ext monitor -> eeepc lcd, or vice versa) I have to reboot the computer entirely.

Update March 18th 2008

Accidentally took out the SD card while the machine was shutting down. The card booted into Ubuntu a few times after that and then the card was declared dead. The Bios screen would freeze if the card was present. Unmountable, unformat-able. Lesson learned, do not remove SD card when machine is still running. Also, the monitor switch (Fn+F5) doesn't work but using the following line will switch to external monitor.

xrandr --auto

Resolution when booting with VGA present is 1024x768 otherwise it is 800x600.

Post-Ubuntu installation set-up

Wifi is Atheros -> install MadWifi Driver (see below) Ethernet is Attansic -> works with linux, just needs a cold boot to be recognized after a new installation (see below)

  • I had to remove the battery and power after the install to get the ethernet working. Bizzare but it worked.
  • There are other tweaks (most important being to load the patched madwifi driver).
  • All instructions on how to tweak the EEEPC can be found at: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EeePC

Experimentation

Trying package http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/e/eeepc-acpi/

Technical Specifications

$ cat /proc/cpuinfo 
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 13
model name      : Intel(R) Celeron(R) M processor          800MHz
stepping        : 8
cpu MHz         : 571.403
cache size      : 64 KB
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 2
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss tm pbe nx up
bogomips        : 1144.16
clflush size    : 64

$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/PM/GMS/910GML Express Processor to DRAM Controller (rev 04)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller (rev 04)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller (rev 04)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 04)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 04)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 04)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 04)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 04)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 04)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 04)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 04)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev d4)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FBM (ICH6M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 04)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801FBM (ICH6M) SATA Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 04)
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5006EG 802.11 b/g Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Attansic Technology Corp. L2 100 Mbit Ethernet Adapter (rev a0)