Asus_L5800C

General

This guide is about how to install Linux on the Asus L5800C laptop. There are a number of L5 editions that will have comparable configurations as well so this guide might be helpfull for them too. Asus does not seem to be actively supporting Linux on their laptops so be carefull!

For decent hardware support on this laptop using a 2.6.xx kernel is recommended. Using a 2.4.xx kernel requires a lot of patches and will even then limit the support. Even the earliest 2.6 kernels do not support all the hardware correctly.

Hardware overview

BIOS

You may reach the Award-BIOS with F2. When hitting ESC you can choose between HD, DVD-ROM, and a floppy to boot.

Video

Relevant hardware:

• Video card: ATI Mobility Radeon 9000
• 15" XGA/SXGA+ TFT screen (default resolution 1400 x 1050, supports resolutions up to 1600 x 1200)

Console

The framebuffer support for radeonfb does not work for kernels from 2.4.22 on, the display switches to blank and never comes back, earlier kernels did not even react to any settings that were tried. This seems to be more of a problem with the display which you can read more about in the section Xorg. Luckily, vesafb works with 1400x1050 (vga=834)

In newer 2.6.x kernels, the new radeonfb driver does work (tested with a 2.6.9-gentoo kernel).

For instructions on installing FrameBuffer and BootSplash read: Fbsplash

Xorg

There appears to be a bug in the BIOS versions previous to 207. This bug will switch the X server to the external display when using the official ATI drivers for linux. A BIOS upgrade from the Asus download section will fix this.

An other option is using Xorg's internal radeon driver or even the vesa driver for general video card support. In the newest XFree86 and Xorg versions the radeon driver works without patching because of the bug noted above. If you have to use an older (4.3.0) version, you are going to have to use the vesa driver. Disadvantage of the radeon and vesa driver is that it does not have 3D support. The AGP support and such is also not as good as the official ati-drivers.

Bescides that, Xorg works fine. Some xorg.conf settings:

# Touchpad - Synaptics driver
Section "InputDevice"
    Driver      "synaptics"
    Identifier  "Touchpad"
    Option      "Device"       "/dev/input/event1"
    Option      "Protocol"     "event"
    Option      "LeftEdge"     "1900"
    Option      "RightEdge"    "5400"
    Option      "BottomEdge"   "1800"
    Option      "TopEdge"      "3900"
    Option      "FingerLow"    "25"
    Option      "FingerHigh"   "30"
    Option      "MaxTapTime"   "180"
    Option      "MaxTapMove"   "220"
    Option      "VertScrollDelta" "100"
    Option      "MinSpeed"     "0.02"
    Option      "MaxSpeed"     "0.18"
    Option      "AccelFactor"  "0.0010"
#    Option      "Repeater"     "/dev/ps2mouse"
#    Option      "SHMConfig"    "on"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier  "LCD"
    HorizSync   31.5 - 91.1
    VertRefresh 50 - 100
    Option "DPMS"
EndSection

#  ATI device section
Section "Device"
    Identifier                          "ATI Graphics Adapter"
    Driver                              "fglrx"
#  generic DRI settings
#  disable PnP Monitor
    #Option                              "NoDDC"
#  disable/enable XAA/DRI
    Option "no_accel"                   "no"
    Option "no_dri"                     "no"
#  misc DRI settings
    Option "mtrr"                       "off" # disable DRI mtrr mapper, driver has its own code for mtrr
#  FireGL DDX driver module specific settings
#  Screen Management
    Option "DesktopSetup"               "0x00000100"
    Option "MonitorLayout"              "LVDS, AUTO"
    #Option "MonitorLayout"              "LVDS, STV"
    Option "IgnoreEDID"                 "off"
    Option "HSync2"                     "31.5"
    Option "VRefresh2"                  "50 - 70"
    #Option "HSync2"                     "unspecified"
    #Option "VRefresh2"                  "unspecified"
    Option "ScreenOverlap"              "0"
#  TV-out Management
    Option "NoTV"                       "no"
    Option "TVStandard"                 "PAL-B"
    Option "TVHSizeAdj"                 "0"
    Option "TVVSizeAdj"                 "0"
    Option "TVHPosAdj"                  "0"
    Option "TVVPosAdj"                  "0"
    Option "TVHStartAdj"                "0"
    Option "TVColorAdj"                 "0"
    Option "GammaCorrectionI"           "0x00000000"
    Option "GammaCorrectionII"          "0x00000000"
#  OpenGL specific profiles/settings
    Option "Capabilities"               "0x00000000"
#  Video Overlay for the Xv extension
    Option "VideoOverlay"               "on"
#  OpenGL Overlay
# Note: When OpenGL Overlay is enabled, Video Overlay
#       will be disabled automatically
    Option "OpenGLOverlay"              "off"
#  Center Mode (Laptops only)
    Option "CenterMode"                 "off"
#  Pseudo Color Visuals (8-bit visuals)
    Option "PseudoColorVisuals"         "off"
#  QBS Management
    Option "Stereo"                     "off"
    Option "StereoSyncEnable"           "1"
#  FSAA Management
    Option "FSAAEnable"                 "no"
    Option "FSAAScale"                  "1"
    Option "FSAADisableGamma"           "no"
    Option "FSAACustomizeMSPos"         "no"
    Option "FSAAMSPosX0"                "0.000000"
    Option "FSAAMSPosY0"                "0.000000"
    Option "FSAAMSPosX1"                "0.000000"
    Option "FSAAMSPosY1"                "0.000000"
    Option "FSAAMSPosX2"                "0.000000"
    Option "FSAAMSPosY2"                "0.000000"
    Option "FSAAMSPosX3"                "0.000000"
    Option "FSAAMSPosY3"                "0.000000"
    Option "FSAAMSPosX4"                "0.000000"
    Option "FSAAMSPosY4"                "0.000000"
    Option "FSAAMSPosX5"                "0.000000"
    Option "FSAAMSPosY5"                "0.000000"
#  Misc Options
    Option "UseFastTLS"                 "2"
    Option "BlockSignalsOnLock"         "on"
    Option "UseInternalAGPGART"         "yes"
    Option "ForceGenericCPU"            "no"
    BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
    Screen 0
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier  "Screen0"
    Device      "ATI Graphics Adapter"
    Monitor     "LCD"
    DefaultDepth 24

    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       24
        Modes       "1400x1050" "1280x1024" "1280x960" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" "1600x1200"
        ViewPort    0 0  # initial origin if mode is smaller than desktop
#        Virtual     1400 1050
    EndSubsection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier  "Server Layout"
    Screen "Screen0"
    InputDevice "Mouse1" "SendCoreEvents"
    InputDevice "Touchpad" "CorePointer"
    InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Audio

Relevant hardware:

• Multimedia audio controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] Sound Controller

The built-in sound card is an AC'97 card. This is supported by the Intel i8x0 driver.

Device Drivers  --->
   Sound  --->
      <*> Sound card support
          Advanced Linux Sound Architecture  --->
             <*> Advanced Linux Sound Architecture
                 PCI devices  --->
                    <*> Intel i8x0

NOTE: the card support using the Microphone jack as additional output, you need to toggle the appropriate control off in order to use the Mic (Mic As Center/LFE)

QUESTION: did anyone handle to make the rear speakers (the one on the bottom/center/rear of the laptop) work ?

Network controller

See this guide.

WiFi

Relevant hardware:

• Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4303 802.11b Wireless LAN Controller

See the Broadcom 43xx article.

Hard disk and DVD

Relevant hardware:

• IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5513 [IDE]
• Hard disk: IDE UDMA-100
• Cd-rom: IDE, DVD 8x of DVD 8x & CD-RW 24/10/24 combo of DVD-RW 1/16/10/8/24

IDE Controller

The IDE controller is a SiS 5513 chipset.

Device Drivers  --->
   ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support  --->
      <*> ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support
      <*>   Enhanced IDE/MFM/RLL disk/cdrom/tape/floppy support
      <*>     Include IDE/ATA-2 DISK support
      [*]       Use multi-mode by default
      <*>     Include IDE/ATAPI CDROM support
      <*>     generic/default IDE chipset support
      [*]     PNP EIDE support
      [*]     PCI IDE chipset support
      [*]       Sharing PCI IDE interrupts support
      [*]       Generic PCI bus-master DMA support
      [*]         Use PCI DMA by default when available
      <*>         SiS5513 chipset support

There seems to be something strange going on with the support of the IDE controller which creates unexplainable I/O errors. This results in a beep and a halt and restart of the hard disk or DVD. This does not appear to do any damage but is quite annoying. Because it happens in irregular intervals (sometimes a couple of times an hour, sometimes it doesn't happen for days) and cannot be linked to a specific application, use or load not much can be done about it, I guess.

Devices

For some strange reason Asus connects the DVD player the the primary IDE controller and the hard disk to the secondary. This means the DVD player will show up as /dev/hda and the hard disk is /dev/hdc.

The optimal hdparm settings to improve data transfer speeds are:

disc0_args="-c1 -d1 -u1 -m16"
cdrom0_args="-c1 -d1 -u1"

Device Drivers --->

  ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support  --->
     <*> ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support
     <*>   Enhanced IDE/MFM/RLL disk/cdrom/tape/floppy support
     <*>     Include IDE/ATA-2 DISK support
     [*]       Use multi-mode by default
     <*>     Include IDE/ATAPI CDROM support
     <*>     generic/default IDE chipset support
     [*]     PNP EIDE support
     [*]     PCI IDE chipset support
     [*]       Sharing PCI IDE interrupts support
     [*]       Generic PCI bus-master DMA support
     [*]         Use PCI DMA by default when available
     <*>         SiS5513 chipset support

USB

Relevant hardware:

• USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller
• USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 2.0 Controller

The five USB ports on the side and back of the laptop support USB 1.0 and 2.0.

Device Drivers  --->
   USB support  --->
      <*> Support for Host-side USB
      <*>   EHCI HCD (USB 2.0) support
      <*>   OHCI HCD support

FireWire

Relevant hardware:

• FireWire (IEEE 1394): Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] FireWire Controller

Device Drivers  --->
   IEEE 1394 (FireWire) support  --->
       <*> IEEE 1394 (FireWire) support
       <*>   OHCI-1394 support

Infrared

Supposedly works. More information needed.

Modem

Relevant hardware:

• Modem: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] AC'97 Modem Controller
• Multimedia audio controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] Sound Controller

The modem seems to work with the driver for the Smart Link modem (slmodem). The slmodem driver also depends on working soudcard support through ALSA. See the Audio section for more information on configuring it.

To install this driver in Gentoo, use the following command:

emerge net-dialup/slmodem

dmesg output:

slamr: SmartLink AMRMO modem.
slamr: probe 1039:7013 SiS630 card...
slamr: mc97 codec is SIL27
slamr: slamr0 is SiS630 card.
devfs_mk_dev: could not append to parent for slamr0

PC Card

See this guide. The Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS961/2 SMBus Controller is yenta-compatable.

Touchpad

Itsdfd is a Synaptics touchpad and the scroll buttons work.

For Xorg the synaptics drivers need to be installed.

In gentoo this can be done with the following command:

emerge x11-misc/synaptics

Memory Card Reader

Relevant hardware:

• 0000:00:0a.0 CardBus bridge: ENE Technology Inc CB-720/2/4 Cardbus Controller (rev 01)
• 0000:00:0a.1 CardBus bridge: ENE Technology Inc CB-720/2/4 Cardbus Controller (rev 01)
• 0000:00:0a.2 FLASH memory: ENE Technology Inc CB710 Memory Card Reader Controller

In the newer kernels this device by Ene Technology Inc seems to be supported. If your lspci sais "unknown device" then you should upgrade your kernel. The above output is made with a 2.6.9 gentoo kernel.

I have not tested it yet though...

Device Drivers  --->
   SCSI device support  --->
      <*>   SCSI generic support
      [*]   Probe all LUNs on each SCSI device

ACPI

The Asus L5800C does not use any APM stuff. It only uses ACPI.

Power management options (ACPI, APM)  --->
   [*] Power Management support
       ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) Support  --->
          [*] ACPI Support
          <*>   AC Adapter
          <*>   Battery
          <*>   Button
          <*>   Fan
          <*>   Processor
          <*>     Thermal Zone
          <*>   ASUS/Medion Laptop Extras
       CPU Frequency scaling  --->
          [*] CPU Frequency scaling
          <*> Intel Pentium 4 clock modulation

CPU Frequency scaling

After activating the CPU Frequency scaling features in the kernel the speedfreq program can be used to set the CPU speed.

To install this program in gentoo:

emerge sys-apps/speedfreq

Stand-by / Software Suspend / Suspend to disk

Official Asus documents say the laptop supports Stand-by, Suspend to Disk and Suspend to RAM.

Software Suspend 2 works. It however does not work with FBsplash (patches are available for this) and the official ATI drivers yet. Use the internal ati drivers for Xorg or shutdown & restart the X server when Software Suspending.

For setting up Software Suspend, read the following:

• Gentoo: HOWTO Software Suspend v2

Battery

The following setting will give you about 5% more battery time:

echo "1" > /proc/sys/vm/laptop_mode

Use only when running on the battery because this will reduce performance.

LED's and buttons

Use these items for the events of acpid:

(1) = These functions are supported directly by the kernel when ASUS/Medion Laptop Extras is enabled. No need to configure them manually

Other powermanagement

Check out these documents:

• Laptop Mode: /usr/src/linux/Documentation/laptop-mode.txt
• Gentoo: Power management guide

Appendix A: lspci

• 0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS 645xx (rev 03)
• 0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] Virtual PCI-to-PCI bridge (AGP)
• 0000:00:02.0 ISA bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS963 [MuTIOL Media IO] (rev 14)
• 0000:00:02.1 SMBus: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS961/2 SMBus Controller
• 0000:00:02.3 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] FireWire Controller
• 0000:00:02.5 IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5513 [IDE]
• 0000:00:02.6 Modem: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] AC'97 Modem Controller (rev a0)
• 0000:00:02.7 Multimedia audio controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] Sound Controller (rev a0)
• 0000:00:03.0 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (rev 0f)
• 0000:00:03.1 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (rev 0f)
• 0000:00:03.2 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (rev 0f)
• 0000:00:03.3 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 2.0 Controller
• 0000:00:0a.0 CardBus bridge: ENE Technology Inc CB-720/2/4 Cardbus Controller (rev 01)
• 0000:00:0a.1 CardBus bridge: ENE Technology Inc CB-720/2/4 Cardbus Controller (rev 01)
• 0000:00:0a.2 FLASH memory: ENE Technology Inc CB710 Memory Card Reader Controller
• 0000:00:0c.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4303 802.11b Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)
• 0000:00:0d.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c940 10/100/1000Base-T [Marvell] (rev 12)
• 0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon R250 Lf [FireGL 9000] (rev 01)

Appendix B: kernel configuration

Appendix C: links

• French guide
• French guide updated
• English guide by Pontus Fuchs
• English guide for Debian