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  help)
    echo "$( basename $0 ): Reinitializes wireless (ath_pci module) after a suspend"
    ;;

Translations: [:DebianEeePCGerman/Model/900:German]

?TableOfContents

Asus EEE PC 900

This page is intented to be a central repository of information regarding Debian on this specific model

Fixable items

Volume keys

The package eeepc-acpi-scripts comes with a configuartion for the mixer device at /etc/default/eeepc-acpi-scripts that does not work with 900 model. Change the value to Master mixer:

VOLUME_LABEL='Master'

and it shall work just fine.

Broken things

?Anchor(Touchpad)

Touchpad

The Synaptics device is not recognized by the xorg driver:

(II) Synaptics touchpad driver version 0.14.6 (1406)
Synaptics0 no synaptics event device found
(**) Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
(**) Option "SHMConfig" "true"
(**) Option "HorizEdgeScroll" "1"
Query no Synaptics: 6003C8

It can still be used as it behaves as a standard ImPS/2 mouse; two-finger vertical scrolling works, as do two- and three-finger taps (for the middle and right buttons) and, strangely, drags can be started by holding one finger on the pad and tapping with another finger. However, it is not possible to make any specific device configuration, such as horizontal scrolling.

Asus patched the xorg synaptics driver in order to make this Elantech version work properly. However, the source code is nowhere to be found, both Asus and the Xandros packager of the driver did no reply to emails asking for the source code.

There is a [http://arjan.opmeer.net/elantech/ kernel patch] which provides support for the touchpad, which will be identified as an "ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad". This allows the synaptics driver to be used; both two-finger and circular scrolling work fine, though they are disabled by default, but the above drag method doesn't appear to be supported.

Sample xorg.conf fragment:

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "Configured Mouse"
        Driver          "synaptics"
        Option          "Device"                "/dev/input/mouse0"
        Option          "Protocol"              "auto-dev"
        Option          "SHMConfig"             "true"
        Option          "VertTwoFingerScroll"   "1"
        Option          "HorizTwoFingerScroll"  "1"
        Option          "TapButton1"            "1"
        Option          "TapButton2"            "2"
        Option          "TapButton3"            "3"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
        Identifier      "Default Layout"
        Screen          "Default Screen"
        InputDevice     "Generic Keyboard"      "CoreKeyboard"
        InputDevice     "Configured Mouse"      "CorePointer"
EndSection

Battery

GNOME Power Manager will complain that the battery has only 1% capacity. AFAIK, this is an ACPI driver bug, which returns "bizarre" values. You should not bother about it, since the value is wrong. My EEE PC 900 lasts 3:15 battery life.

GNOME Power Manager won't warn or shutdown when the battery runs out. It might be related to the buggy driver, however, there might be a way to tweak the configuration in order to make it work. Still needs more research.

Sound

The sound driver (ALSA 1.0.17, as described above) exhibits some sound glitches when the system is under moderate load. For example, simply switching the workplace at GNOME will make the sound break for a couple of miliseconds. One major problem of this, is HAL, which will spend high peaks of CPU from time to time (a couple of seconds) and every time that happens, a small sound glitch can he heard. It was also reported that if you use CPU scaling, at low frequencies, it will make the sound to break also. Sometimes such glitches will lead the sound with that "robotic effect", which can only be restored, by pausing / resuming sound playback (mplayer specific).

It still needs to be tested whether Asus patched kernel 2.6.24.1 which came with the Xandros exhibits the same issue in order to try to find a fix for that.

Wireless

After the system is suspended, the wireless won't work (no network is detected, although it seems to be OK). The solution is to disable / enable it via the Ctrl+F2 key combination.

One way to automate this (if using pm-utils) is to configure pm-utils to unload/reload the module when suspending/resuming. Add the following variable to any file in /etc/pm/config.d/ (you may need to create one):  SUSPEND_MODULES="ath_pci" 

This seems to cause a delay while suspending and occasional problems with network-manager. Another way that seems to work better instead is to create a file /etc/pm/sleep.d/66wireless.sh:

case $1 in
  hibernate|suspend)
    ;;
  thaw|resume)
    ifconfig ath0 down
    modprobe -r ath_pci
    modprobe ath_pci
    ifconfig ath0 up
    ;;
  help)
    echo "$( basename $0 ): Reinitializes wireless (ath_pci module) after a suspend"
    ;;
  *)
    echo "$( basename $0 ): called wrong"
    exit 1
    ;;
esac

If you want to live on the edge and install the latest driver available upstream for the Atheros wifi chipset used in this model, see [:DebianEeePC/HowTo/UseUpstreamAtherosModules].