Which linux distro on new ASUS 1215N?

[burrellbuzzman]

Hey all,

After much googling, I couldn't find much info on what distros people have got successfully working on an ASUS 1215N.

I have mine coming tomorrow and want a heads up, on which distos should work straight out of the box. I plan on dual booting my new machine so, I'm not to bothered if when I boot into linux the ION2 is always on - I don't think optimus is supported in linux yet? My biggest concern, as a linux novice is whether the wifi and lan drivers will work straight out of the box, on my older laptop running linux mint 9 the internet worked fine, however when using kde I couldn't get it too work and this is a problem I am afraid of facing again. I have read that ubuntu has had wifi driver issues with the 1215n, so I just wondered if this has been solved? I really like linux mint, and am also looking at jolicloud, I have seen jolicloud supports ION, but not sure about ION2 support. Any other suggestions are welcome 🙂

Another question I have, is that I plan to install a distro on the free space of the windows partition (I think this is what happens when you go through the install menu, and install side by side but not sure if my description is accurate for what i mean.) I have read a useful guide on lifehacker, saying to have 3 partitions one for windows, one for linux and one for data which is accessible to both operating systems. In all honesty, I just want a seperate windows partition and a seperate linux partition. However, I just wondered if the two partitions are able to interact with eachother? because I don't really want them too... for example, if I set the two operating systems up on seperate partitions on the same hard disk, and I accidently downloaded a windows virus whilst using the linux os, if I then booted into windows would the file be able to execute on the windows partition or would it be contained within the linux partition?

Sorry for the long post and nooby questions, have never really done dual-booting 🙂

Thanks in advance Rob

 

[Pyroflea]

Generally using one of the most popular distributions will ensure compatibility. I'd try out Ubuntu and/or Fedora personally. Might also want to look into Mint, Mandriva, PCLinuxOS, etc., but I'm not sure how compatible they'll be.

Windows can't even read the EXT format, so you won't have any issues with that. As far as Windows is concerned, your Linux installation won't even exist. Linux will be able to see your Windows partition if you wish though

There are plenty of guides online explaining how to install two OS's, if you're not sure how. A quick Google search yields near infinite results.

Good luck.

 

[burrellbuzzman]

Hey,

Thanks for the reply, I think I read about some issues with ubuntu on my particular model of netbook. I just realised though, that I could spend some time trying the live CD's and see if networking will work and then go from there 🙂

Brilliant about windows not being able to read linux, I think my biggest concern about netbooks in general is the lack of a CD drive, so if anything did go wrong on windows then really you're in trouble. Obviously it can be solved with an external CD drive, but it is a bit more hassle than a notebook/desktop.

So basically windows can't read the linux harddrive format, and wouldn't be able to read, for example a virus written for windows that is saved on the linux partition?

Thanks again for the reply, Rob

 

[Pyroflea]

Windows viruses won't affect your Linux installation in any way anyways, so you really have nothing to worry about

 

[audiovoodoo]

I'm almost reluctant to post this as it might confuse people, but for completeness

Windows can be made to read Linux file formats using drivers, this allows you to then see all your Linux drives if you so choose. It's just not native support out of the box.

Whilst a Windows virus will not execute on Linux it is quite possible to download an infected file and have it sat on your linux hard disk. If you then opened that file in Windows you could infect that system, be that via copying to a pen drive, running over a network or using a driver to read a linux disk under Windows.

Don't forget that while Viri are an issue it's scripting attacks that are really on the rise. Many of the vulnerabilities of Firefox are just the same on Linux. It's better but it's no silver bullet.

Please don't anybody use this as an excuse not to play, in essence the previous posts are all very much correct, but as always with these things 'in general' is a good phrase to have in mind.

 

[schrom]

Hello,

is there in the meantime some experience with installing an ubuntu or another linux on the 1215n?

I dont have the 1215n, yet. Is there a possibility to turn the ion2 on in general, in kind of a bios function?
The worst case would be when the linux would not be able to use any graphics adapter or only the build-in intel.

Thanks,
Matthias

 

[Pyroflea]

I don't have an experience with that particular model personally, but Nvidia tends to have excellent Linux support in terms of drivers. I see no reason why there wouldn't be a driver available for that particular graphics chipset.

EDIT: This driver is compatible with the ION. Doesn't make any mention of the ION2, but it should still work in theory
32-bit: http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux-display-ia32-256.53-driver.html
64-bit: http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux-display-amd64-256.53-driver.html

 

[DJRWolf]

Optimus was introduced with the ION2 and that is what switches between the dedicated and integrated graphics. With the dedicated always "on" it will drain the battery much faster.

The 1215N also (from what I have read) has USB 3.0 on it. How are those drivers going for linux?

 

[TheBrinos]

Hello,

I've got the Asus 1215n and I've been struggling with this for quite some time. I love it to death, but on the Ubuntu side it just drains my battery twice as fast (I dual boot it and windows). This is a problem for me - I really want/need to get as much battery life as possible. Could anyone tell me if there is any way to turn this off (and on), at least manually, so that I can get extended battery life? I just updated to Ubuntu 10.10 hoping it would help. Now I can switch to the "power saving GPU" but I don't think that's the same thing. I'm kind of a novice, so go easy on me.

 

[aghino]

Hi TheBrinos,
A part of the battery issue and GPU, could you tell me more about the rest? which distro? does everything work? Camera with skype, audio, wifi etc?

Thank you...

Alessandro happy new owner of a 1215n that would like to make it dual boot (like all the pcs I have/had)

 

[Guest]

About dissabling the NVIDIA, yes, it is possible, it was discovered just recently (2... 3 weeks ago) on the hybrid linux mailing list, it uses a modified acpi, the good news end here, no optimus support for now You have to learn to live with the integrated intel graphics (witch is not bad at all, you can see 720p movies with that without any struggle, and have CompizFussion working fast, and without consuming the battery a lot).

If you don't disable the NVIDIA gpu it will be wasting energy without interfering with performance (it is still impossible to use the GPU even for CUDA on linux thanks to Nvidia Optimus..) and will get very hot...

 

[ikeluiz]

Don't work in ubuntu 10.10, The sound is cursed with a hiss and the video don't work if you use the xorg.conf that the nvidia make.
I'm really pissed this.

 

[Pyroflea]

Don't work in ubuntu 10.10, The sound is cursed with a hiss and the video don't work if you use the xorg.conf that the nvidia make.
I'm really pissed this.

I've had absolutely zero issues with 10.10. Something must be configured wrong for you, or you just have some bad hardware.

 

[chamaecyparis]

Hello,

is there in the meantime some experience with installing an ubuntu or another linux on the 1215n?. . . Thanks, Matthias

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Begin by downloading an early version (1.3.5) of SystemRescueCD at sourceforge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/systemrescuecd/files/sysresccd-x86/1.3.5/)

Next, get UNetbootin from the same source (http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/). Then make a bootable small USB Flash Drive using UNetbootin and the sysresccd-x86-1.3.5 ISO file, both just downloaded.

Set your system BIOS to boot to USB first, then boot to your new System Rescue CD USB stick.

After it boots, SysRescCD wants you to hit defaults (hit Enter) a couple times. When you end up at the multi-colored prompt on the page asking user to enter either "startx" or "wizard," type in the following command

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=4096 conv=notrunc,sync

This will destroy all trace of any Windows File System, wiping your entire hard drive with zeros. It will take a while, depending on the size of your hard drive, so go make a sandwich or something. When it's done, you'll see some statistics after a statement that there is no "more space on drive" and the size of your hard drive.

Don't bail out yet!

At the same prompt, type in the desired "startx" and Enter
This brings up the XFCE mouse then a yellow-colored terminal.
In the yellow-colored terminal, type the command "gparted".

Partition your hard drive. If you don't know how, use the Slackware basic strategy of
one partition for root ( / ) -- 10GB (or to copy DVDs use 15GB), use ext4 file system;
one partition for swap -- one gig should do; and
one partition for /home -- most or all of the remainder
(keep some unallocated should you desire to expand one or add a partition later).

NOTES: 1) in the OS install, when partition dialog pops up, choose Manual and then either Edit or Modify for each partition created previously with gparted, telling it to yes, use the partition, format it using ext4 file system for / and /home; swap should be okay. [So, write down how you partition, noting /dev/sda1 or sda2 or sda3, size, label (if any), and file system (ext4)]; 2) a person could also download the ISO file and burn it to a CD, but if no CD burner, do as above.

It's easy. When done partitioning, simply enter the command "init 6" in the yellow terminal window and reboot follows.

Use UNetbootin to make the ISO bootable on another USB stick (for a total of three unless one is reused) and install something like the Fedora-14-LXDE spin (or ven the XFCE spin, with your system specs). Get it here: http://spins.fedoraproject.org/lxde/

 

[CsG_kieran_2]

Side note: Look at Meego, Its built to be 100% compatible for Asus eee systems

 

[woiski]

hey,
There's a much easier way - Using Windows, from within unetbootin, download and make any image (iso) file, e.g. a distro, bootable. Follow unetbootin instructions. The advantege over other methods (including Ubuntu's own) is that you still can use your pendrive as storage as usual. On restart, disable Boot Booster first (press <F2> repeteadly on bootup). Then you should recover the POST. Make USB stick the first bootable drive, save and restart pressing <F10>. Presto, you are able to use a Live CD, install Ubuntu or any other distro, whatever. From liveCD you easily install Ubuntu, alone or as dual-boot, just click "install" and follow the instructions. You have to be careful if dealing with manual partiitioning (gparted is awesome...)

 

[heliocentric_0]

For the record - do NOT enable the proprietary drivers for Nvidia. It will fail to boot properly.

The current (Version 260.19.36) through to beta (270.18) Linux drivers all have this problem with the Asus 1215N.

The Nvidia site explains why:

Note that the list of supported GPU products is provided to indicate which GPUs are supported by a particular driver version. Some designs incorporating supported GPUs may not be compatible with the NVIDIA Linux driver: in particular, notebook and all-in-one desktop designs with switchable (hybrid) or Optimus graphics will not work if means to disable the integrated graphics in hardware are not available. Hardware designs will vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, so please consult with a system's manufacturer to determine whether that particular system is compatible.

Personally I am really annoyed about this. I am using dual boot into Ubuntu 10.10 but as others have stated the battery life is terrible in Ubuntu because of this.

Asus really need to assist the community and fix this problem.

Also - FYI, another problem with the 1215N - you can no longer replace the HDD without voiding your warranty! Unless you buy an Asus HDD and get them to install it. B@stards.. </end rant>

 

[bgarr]

I have found this to be true. i tried to enable the nvidia driver and got a black screen and lock up. The only issue that is keeping me from deleting my windoze partition and using Ubuntu exclusively is the laptop lid/suspend/hibernate issue. I have not been able to get this to work. Any ideas? Oh, almost forgot to mention. I am using a VX6 (the cousin of the 1215n). these are basically the same machine. Also, I used the standard Ubuntu 10 for installation and not the netbook edition.

 

[bgarr]

Side note: Look at Meego, Its built to be 100% compatible for Asus eee systems

I have tried Meego with minimal success. No Wlan or ethernet. Can't get online. If there is a workaround I would love to know. Nice OS overall but that is definitely enough to keep me from using it. I have Sabayon installed along side Windoze and Sabayon works nearly perfectly. The main issue with most linux and the 1215n or the VX6 is the suspend with lid close feature and/or hibernate. have not been able to get this to work on any distro. Also, Puppy linux has a few eeePC distros that are quite nice.

 

[bgarr]

Just tested the latest Knoppix. everything but Nvidia Optimus works...even suspend and hibernate! All we need is the hybrid graphics working.

 

[tim8]

I got my 1215N a few days ago. I love it, it's even better than I thought.

I run my 1215N under Debian 6.0 (Squeeze). I left Windows on the machine so that I can boot it just in case something goes wrong (it already happened 😉. Debian runs smoothly, with LAN, WLAN, and sound working perfectly. I don't think that the 3D chip works, I didn't test it since I don't need it. However, installing and setting up Debian for 1215N is not for absolute beginners.

-Tim

 

[moulip]

Don't you face issues with frequent load/unload cycles on the hard drive ?
Mine keep clicking all the time and smartctl shows amazing number of cycles.
I had to fix this with hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda and make a script so it takes effect at boot time.
Has anayone succeeded in making the Hot keys workking ?
For instance the hardware switch for wifi ? On my Debian it doesn't work. I can switch the wlan on or off with that switch, it keeps on working.
Any known workaround ?

 

[tim8]

Don't you face issues with frequent load/unload cycles on the hard drive ?
Mine keep clicking all the time and smartctl shows amazing number of cycles.
I had to fix this with hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda and make a script so it takes effect at boot time.
Has anayone succeeded in making the Hot keys workking ?
For instance the hardware switch for wifi ? On my Debian it doesn't work. I can switch the wlan on or off with that switch, it keeps on working.
Any known workaround ?

The permanent spin downs of the hard disk seem to be "normal" for the Western Digital drive, it completely ignores control commands and decides by itself when to spin down. I also disabled power management, but via hdparm -B255. I didn't make up a special script, there's /etc/hdparm.conf for this purpose.

The hotkey for WLAN does something on my system, but the problem is that the WLAN driver then crashes the whole system so badly that Debian isn't able to boot anymore with WLAN support (the inner state of the Broadcom chip is invalid). At least I assume that the driver is the cause for this. In this case, I had to boot Windows to re-initialize the chip again.

I don't consider these things significant, so I say my system runs "smoothly" 😉

-Tim

 

[tim8]

Don't you face issues with frequent load/unload cycles on the hard drive ?
Mine keep clicking all the time and smartctl shows amazing number of cycles.
I had to fix this with hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda and make a script so it takes effect at boot time.
Has anayone succeeded in making the Hot keys workking ?
For instance the hardware switch for wifi ? On my Debian it doesn't work. I can switch the wlan on or off with that switch, it keeps on working.
Any known workaround ?

The permanent spin downs of the hard disk seem to be "normal" for the Western Digital drive, it completely ignores control commands and decides by itself when to spin down. I also disabled power management, but via hdparm -B255. I didn't make up a special script, there's /etc/hdparm.conf for this purpose.

The hotkey for WLAN does something on my system, but the problem is that the WLAN driver then crashes the whole system so badly that Debian isn't able to boot anymore with WLAN support (the inner state of the Broadcom chip is invalid). At least I assume that the driver is the cause for this. In this case, I had to boot Windows to re-initialize the chip again.

I don't consider these things significant, so I say my system runs "smoothly" 😉

-Tim

 

[moulip]

The permanent spin downs of the hard disk seem to be "normal" for the Western Digital drive, it completely ignores control commands and decides by itself when to spin down. I also disabled power management, but via hdparm -B255. I didn't make up a special script, there's /etc/hdparm.conf for this purpose.

The hotkey for WLAN does something on my system, but the problem is that the WLAN driver then crashes the whole system so badly that Debian isn't able to boot anymore with WLAN support (the inner state of the Broadcom chip is invalid). At least I assume that the driver is the cause for this. In this case, I had to boot Windows to re-initialize the chip again.

I don't consider these things significant, so I say my system runs "smoothly" 😉

-Tim

the disk behavior is normal but not in such ranges.
Mine used to spin off 30 times a minute !!
I don't think that's quite good for it.