2006/11/26

Installing Ubuntu on ASUS A6RP-AP069 notebook

There were three problems that me and my girlfriend encountered while installing Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft) on ASUS A6RP-AP069 notebook.
  1. Starting the installation
    There was no problem to boot the laptop from the Ubuntu CD, it showed the available option, but after choosing any of them it... froze after a few seconds.
    We tried 3 or 4 different version of Ubuntu and Mandriva. Every time it hung as soon as Using hpet for high-res timesource message showed. (It is worth noticing that Ubuntu 6.10 does not show such information to the user by default, while its older version do.)
    We found the solution here - adding hpet=disable to the kernel parameters worked like a charm.
  2. Connecting to the wireless network
    Ubuntu correctly detected the wireless card. We entered all necessary configuration parameters (SSID, key, etc.), activated the card and... it couldn't connect to the network no matter how many time we re-checked its configuration and restarted it.
    Finally, we found this post. It's really great! We followed the instructions and the WiFi network was up and running in no time.
  3. Enabling sound
    That was the hardest part. Everything looked fine - Ubuntu detected the sound card, Amarok looked like it was playing a song, but... there was no sound. We tried to play files in different formats, we checked the headphones, we found countless posts telling to uncheck some External Amplifier option in KMix, but we found no such option.
    Late at night after a lot of googling I (my girlfriend went to sleep earlier) found this post. Another great post! I recompiled alsa-driver, alsa-lib and alsa-utils packages and the sound problem was gone.
  4. Headphones
  5. WPA
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24 comments:

  1. Unknown11/28/2006 11:16 PM

    Thank you so much for this blog spot. I've just bought Asus A9rp-ap069, tried ubuntu 6.06, 6.10 and after choosing from the menu, it just had frozen.

    Fortunately, just now, i've found this great article. I hope it will work and my ubuntu will work just fine.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown12/01/2006 6:46 PM

    So, when I booted from Ubuntu 6.10 CD, and after editing the boot sequence (adding acpi=off), it started. It started as Live CD, right. I intalled and everything was fine.

    But! When restarting the notebook, it writes something like "GRUB initialization..." and "GRUB start menu...3 sec".
    After that, it just writes "Starting up" and it freezes. Can you please help me how to fix this problem?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Marek Grzenkowicz12/02/2006 9:42 AM

    Try booting Ubuntu in recovery mode (you can choose such option in GRUB menu). I think that this will allow to see verbose boot messages. Please post the last few lines here.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Unknown12/03/2006 12:06 PM

    Well, I found a way how to boot ubuntu properly - but Im still wondering about better instruction.

    So now, when there is the message sayin "GRUB start menu...3 sec" and I press ESC, there I can choose to boot Ubuntu normally, in recovery mode (this option is not running at all), and some memory test or what. After each turning on the computer, I edit the boot sequences adding to the kernel line "acpi=off hpet=disable". Then boot, system is almost fine. Is there any way how to boot easily? (For instance to put the acpi off stuff in kernel line as default).

    Sorry for these long posts, maybe I should use forum.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Marek Grzenkowicz12/03/2006 7:37 PM

    If you have enough time, install the system one more time, but this time use hpet=disable (not acpi=off). This worked for me.

    Or you can edit /boot/grub/menu.lst file and add hpet=disable. I think this is where GRUB looks for boot parameters.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Unknown12/06/2006 4:46 PM

    Thank you so much chopeen. It's all right now.

    But more difficulties are waiting ahead. Enabling wifi, sound should be the easier part )

    Now I'm troubling with installing web browser Opera on my nb. Tried two "how-to" but did not work. I'm really thinking its because of me ...
    http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Edgy#How_to_install_Opera_web_browser
    http://www.debianadmin.com/install-opera-web-broweser-and-realplayer-10-in-ubuntu.html

    Anyway, thanks for your help, sorry for bothering and for my english as well.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Marek Grzenkowicz12/07/2006 8:14 PM

    I have never used Opera, so I can't help you with this problem. But let me know if you have any problems with WiFi or sound.

    And your English is fine.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Unknown12/12/2006 6:20 PM

    Installing Opera and Gnome commander was easy - just add a universe source to repozitary.

    But enabling sound is a real nightmare. I was just following the steps from http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=251383 but when typing "./configure --with-cards=hda-intel --with-isapnp=no", it returned error like "checking for C compiler default output file name...confgure:error:C compiler cannot create executables".

    I tried it upon alsa-drivers-, version 12, than on version 13 - because a friend advised me to do so. And the same error again and again. That budd thought, the problem is my new compiler - 4.1.2 20060928 (Ubuntu 4.1.1...).

    And now dont know what to do.

    Enabling wifi was also easy - but I haven't tried it yet )

    ReplyDelete
  9. Unknown12/12/2006 7:55 PM

    Sound is enabled, finally. Sorry for posting again and spamming all around. Problem really was somehow related with compiler - I had to install glibc-dev, gcc, libc6-dev and than, everything was great.

    Thanks again to this great article.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Marek Grzenkowicz12/14/2006 9:06 AM

    Great news! :)

    A small tip for you - every time you download a kernel update, you will probably be forced to recompile alsa. That happened to my girlfriend yesterday.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Unknown12/24/2006 5:00 PM

    Hi Chopeen,
    when I thought all problems are sorted out, another turned up. Its connected with enabling sound.

    When I play video or audio from notebook speakers, its allright. But when trying to hear it from external speakers (loudspeakers), everything comes quiet. I would like to add that I've plug it in connector for headphones.

    I wonder, whether I would have to somehow compile new source codes or god knows what.

    Merry christmas )

    ReplyDelete
  12. Marek Grzenkowicz12/27/2006 10:43 AM

    We have exactly the same problem here and we haven't come with any solution yet. We'll post it here as soon as we work it out.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous12/31/2006 1:23 PM

    Try newest Alsa (1.0.14rc1). I wrote a patch for Asus A6Rp-AP002, should work for you too.

    Be sure to remove "options snd-hda-intel model=uniwill-m31" from /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base or it won't work!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous12/31/2006 3:18 PM

    Thank You for a great article!

    I run xubuntu since i prefer speed over icons but found that the synaptic touchpanel isn't configured by default. Tried to add settings to xorg.conf but the mouse went dead. Any with success with this? And settings for enabling the scroll-function on the right of the touchpanel?

    ReplyDelete
  15. Marek Grzenkowicz1/01/2007 9:50 PM

    Problem with the headphones solved! - http://chopeen.blogspot.com/2007/01/installing-ubuntu-on-asus-a6rp-ap069.html

    Thanks mario_7!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Marek Grzenkowicz1/01/2007 9:56 PM

    Anonymous: The touchpanel works out-of-the-box on Ubuntu, but not the scroll-function. And we haven't tried to enable it, so we cannot help you.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Unknown1/03/2007 7:49 PM

    mario_7:
    For an linux-lame like me, does 'try' mean, that I'll have to compile again alsa drivers (just a bit of newer)?

    And than edit a file, right?

    ReplyDelete
  18. Anonymous1/03/2007 9:10 PM

    Ondra:

    Yes - it means that you have to compile newest Alsa and edit file and that should help.

    This is because I made a patch and it has been included into Alsa beginning with version 1.0.14rc1.

    Hope everything is clear now :)

    ReplyDelete
  19. Unknown1/08/2007 4:03 PM

    Thanks Mario_7 and chopeen again.
    I downloaded updates for Ubuntu which included some updates of kernel probably so I had to do all 'editions' in system again.
    Problem with headphones is solved, thanks!

    Have anyone though of some kind of script which will prevent deleting all changes in system when updating kernel? Dunno how to, but I really think it would be useful. Script which will enable wifi/sound/boot GRUB.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Marek Grzenkowicz1/11/2007 7:55 PM

    You will probably have to recompile ALSA (writing a script to do it automatically should be easy - it will only contain configure, make, make install commands that you usually type).
    Networking should be fine.
    I cannot tell what will happen with GRUB.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Unknown1/28/2007 6:54 PM

    I found an tool which could fix the problem with touchpad scrolling.
    Download http://web.telia.com/~u89404340/touchpad/files/ and follow the instructions in INSTALL.

    I haven't tried it, because dunno how to execute step 4: Load the driver by changig the XFree configuration file through adding the line 'Load "synaptics"' in the modul-section.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Marek Grzenkowicz2/04/2007 11:06 PM

    As far as I remember, it means that you have to edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. Don't forget back it up first.

    Let me know if you fix this problem.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Unknown2/06/2007 12:38 PM

    Yep, I fixed that problem with scrolling on touchpad.

    But when it worked, my USB external mouse hadn't worked and also the function on touchpad > double-click .

    It needs someone better to find out whether the scrolling can be enabled and all other functions (mouse, doubleclick) as well.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Anonymous2/06/2007 11:59 PM

    I haven't got problems with synaptics driver (similar notebook - Asus A6Rp-AP002), but if you have and your USB ports just freeze because of this driver you could try to add noapic to boot line in grub. As far as I remember it works for some FS notebooks, maybe it will work for Asus too :)

    By the way...
    If you know how to solve any new problems with Ubuntu and this laptop please update Ubuntu wiki - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LaptopTestingTeam/AsusA6Rp I have already updated few things.

    ReplyDelete

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