Table of Contents

Issues Overcome (or in need of fixes)

If you find any other problems, please add a new section (at H2 level).

If you have a solution (or suggestion) for any of the following, please just add the commentary in the section : someone with access to the real code will clear them up into the standard ISO for everyone.

To have a look at the actual code in the eee_tarball rpm, just go over to the Google Code pages (see below).

Wired Ethernet

This now works as eth0 - it's the latest install (2.0.3) from the kernel developer at RedHat.

FYI : The previous eth0/eth1 problem was probably that the wireless 'ath5k' was improperly claiming eth0, and replacing it with a madwifi driver fixed it

Wireless Ethernet

This now works using the Atheros supplier patch that was (briefly) accepted by madwifi.

Hopefully, this gets into the main stream soon, but it's included here precompiled : use at your own risk (because it's based around a closed-source binary blob, essentially)

Hot-plugging USB drives

This works now.

How the Problem was Solved

Password prompting

Scripts that require root privileges should prompt for the root password.

Some of the config-system-XYZ things need a root password, and it doesn't get prompted for. They can be run from a Terminal (after su), but it would be nice for it to work seamlessly.

How the Problem was Solved

Audio

alsamixer seems to work out of the box.

And now the sound system works - based upon the ultra-new pulseaudio

How the Problem was Solved

pulseaudio is rather bleeding-edge at the moment, it seems…

Microphone doesn't work with Skype - Fixed

Microphone is working while speaking in, we can listen sound from speakers, but using skype, it seem to be connected to wrong channel or something. Hope somebody can help.

How to solve the Problem

Apply those settings in skype (menu options while connected, otherwise sound control panel won't be available) :

Uncheck the Skype auto volume adjustment. Then apply settings.

Install gnome-alsamixer (by add-remove software menu using pirut interface, or typing yum install gnome-alsamixer using root account in console).

Launch the Alsa Mixer freshly installed through the menu, Multimédia, then ALSA Audio Mixer (the one with the volume button icon).

gnome alsa mixer - Level settings for skype to work :

At the bottom of the mixer :

It worked great for me ! Having skype 2.0.0.63 working great that way with audio and video using integraded speakers and mic.

Security : Truecrypt

truecrypt is set up to work.

Have a look at this page to see how to make the SD card mount reliably in the same place (particularly for suspend/resume) - note that the Fedora syntax may well differ - I needed to put this in /etc/udev/rules.d/55-eeedora-custom.rules :

SUBSYSTEMS==“usb”, KERNEL==“sd*”, ATTRS{serial}==“146030377350”, SYMLINK+=“sdcard1”, OPTIONS+=“last_rule”, RUN+=”/bin/mount /dev/sdcard1”

(where I got the serial number from /proc/bus/usb/devices and looking for usb-storage).

And into /etc/fstab went the following :

/dev/sdcard1 /mnt/sd vfat uid=500,gid=500,user,exec 0 0

Security : X

It appears that by default the way that X Windows is started it leaves port 6000 open to remote access. This is a potential security problem. (I have made some changes to my set up, but I don't think the changes I made introduced this problem.)

Extra Keys (Vol-up, Vol-down, Zzz, power button, etc)

All working - through the magic of acpi

Note: There is one minor annoyance of the current implementation of the ACPI keys. If the key or a multitude of the ACPI keys are pressed in rapid succession by an annoying individual trying you EeePC then it will often take a long will for it to stop sending you messages. As well it is fairly laggy on the increase and decrease of volume as in comparison to other laptops using the ACPI keys for volume control under Linux. I believe a percent bar would be at least a better implementation for at least the volume.

How the Problem was Solved

Screen Luminosity Extra Keys - Not Working after resume

Since you close the screen of your eee, on resume the screen backlight level Extra keys won't work until reboot. Not found how to fix it for now. So, the key is still working, the value in /proc/acpi/asus/brn is changing, but the back light intensity not changing. So something stop working on suspend…

How to solve the Problem

- To fix that problem, you have to edit the /etc/acpi/actions/eee file (eq with vi editor), finding that line :

 if [ "${acpi}" == "zzz" ]; then

You have to add lines so as to make it look like that :

 if [ "${acpi}" == "zzz" ]; then
  wifi_off
  #echo 0 >/proc/acpi/asus/wlan#Useless make unable to get wifi back, ok without this
  pm-suspend
  pm-hibernate
  echo 1 >/proc/acpi/asus/wlan
  wifi_on
  note='resume'
 fi

Then find that second line (juste under the one above normaly) :

 if [ "${acpi}" == "lid" ]; then

You have to add lines so as to make it look like that :

 if [ "${acpi}" == "lid" ]; then
  wifi_off
  #echo 0 >/proc/acpi/asus/wlan#Useless make unable to get wifi back, ok without this
  pm-suspend
  pm-hibernate
  echo 1 >/proc/acpi/asus/wlan
  wifi_on
  note='resume'
 fi

Juste save it, it should work. Try suspend, and resume, you should be able to set the backlight intensity again without the need of a reboot.

So that make some double use of standby process, but, this way (taking 15 seconds more to wake up) the management of backlight throug Fn+F3 and Fn+F4 keep working on resume. Hope this helps.

Note : You may have a warning about removable disk on resume because it has not come up fast enough, don't care it's ok, the disk bring up few second later.

Note 2 : On resume you may have to reconnect Wifi using wifi-radar since it would try to connect to any open access point on resume (btw not the one you use)

Webcam

This works to some degree (the colours may be a bit strange).

How the Problem was Solved

Install from Live Image

There's a script on the desktop for this - just double-click the icon and (after asking for the root password 'eeedora') it'll go through the standard anaconda installer (accepting all the defaults work fine). There's a bogus message about '/1' that appears when it starts to copy the files - just dismiss it.

How the Problem was Solved

Fonts

Default font clarity could be better.

How the Problem was Solved

Go to Menu→Settings→User Interface Settings

Check “Use sub-pixel hinting” and set it to RGB.

Shutdown on Xorg restart

If the Xorg is restart (Ctrl+Alt+Backspace) then the computer shuts down, rather than rebooting the windows manager.

Does not completely shutdown

FIXED - required removal of a sound-related kernel module in the halt script.

Desktop effects do not work

The desktop effects (like compositing) need to be enabled through the XFCE desktop setup dialogs. This can give you translucent windows, etc.

I haven't tried the 3-D effects like compiz, since their inclusion would boost the initial image size by 20Mb or so.

Wacom Tablet does not work out of the Box

Almost fixed…

I did some more testing on this and I was able to get the Wacom tablet to work :

Remaining Issues

Battery Monitor Doesn't work

The XFCE panel applet (a) doesn't do a good job of determining remaining battery life, and (b) eats about 8% of the CPU. Anderson Silva has suggested that the Gnome battery monitor applet does a better job - this solution may make it into the next release.

Wifi-radar doesn't accept too long passwords

I found that if I try to put a very long password on wifi-radar gui ( for a wpa ecrypted wlan ) it doesn't accept whole. I mean, I start to write my alphanumeric password ( 37 chars ) , at 30 about, it stops to write. Infact in /etc/wifi-radar.conf my password is not my complete password. Maybe this problem is not related with eeedora, but now I have no other computer to test it.

Project on Google Code

The kernel module building, RPM building, and ISO building are all run from scripts. These, and the full source tree are up on Google Code : http://code.google.com/p/eeedora/

If you're interested, the whole source code tree can be browsed via : http://eeedora.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/

And it can also be downloaded anonymously (without write-access) - just hunt around the Google Code thing.

Basic Idea

To get the required stuff together to use the Fedora tools, I've been building a special RPM that brings in a tar-ball of code (modules, scripts, etc) over in /root/ on the Eee after it boots. All the scripts, etc, unfold in /root/eee-setup/

This enables every stage of the set-up to be tested, and the 'good bits' reincorporated into the next iteration of the ISO (building an ISO takes around 35mins on my ordinary laptop).

Building EeeDora from Source

  1. Download the SVN trunk
    • anonymous download should be fine, but if you'd like commit access, just let me (mdda) know.
  2. Execute the following as root (the script names are rough, but the first letters should allow filename completion) :
    1. Building all kernel modules from source (not essential, since they are all in SVN) :
      • cd eee-setup
      • ./kernel-modules-update
      • Alternatively, this can be done one module at a time …
    2. Building atl2.ko from source (not essential, since atl2.ko is in SVN) :
      • cd eee-setup/atl2
      • ./rebuild_atl2-ko
    3. Building ath_pci.ko from source (not essential, since ath_*.ko are in SVN) :
      • cd eee-setup/ath
      • ./rebuild_ath-madwifi-ko
    4. Building asus_acpi.ko from source (not essential, since asus_acpi.ko is in SVN) :
      • cd eee-setup/acpi
      • ./rebuild_acpi-ko
    5. Building truecrypt.ko from source (not essential, since truecrypt.ko is in SVN) :
      • cd eee-setup/truecrypt
      • ./rebuild-truecrypt
    6. Building uvcview.ko from source (not essential, since uvcview.ko is in SVN) :
      • cd eee-setup/uvc
      • ./build-uvc…
    7. Building the splash images source (not essential, but pretty) :
      • cd eee-setup/artwork
      • ./build-artwork.bash
    8. Building the RPMs eee_tarball and eee_splash :
      • cd eee-setup
      • ./build-eee_tarball_RPM.bash
      • ./create-eee_splash_RPM.bash
    9. Building the ISO (takes around 35mins on my old laptop) :
      • ./build-eeedora.bash
    10. Copying the ISO to USB (automatically choses latest ISO, assumes /dev/sdb1, takes around 4mins) :
      • ./copy-iso-to-usb.bash
  3. Of course, the above should really be in Makefiles (could someone help out?)

If any of the scripts are updated (or added to), you'll need to go into eee-setup and re-'build-eee_tarball_RPM.bash'