Ubuntu 8.04 was released in April 2008. It mainly works out of the box upon installation.
If you're looking for instructions on how to install Ubuntu, try the separate wiki page for this: Installing Ubuntu 8.04
Problem: The network adapter is picked up and I have enabled the restricted driver manager, but it just doesn't work, my router shows no link light when the eeePC is plugged in.
Solution: Unplug the eeePC and remove the battery, and then put the battery back in. Somehow this resets something in the eeePC and always gets the wired Ethernet to work again.
Wireless internet does not work on the Eee on installation. To update the drivers, open a terminal window (Applications>Accessories>Terminal) and enter the following commands:
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install build-essential wget 'http://snapshots.madwifi.org/madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-current.tar.gz' tar zxvf madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-current.tar.gz cd madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-* make clean make sudo make install sudo reboot
System updates (specifically, new kernels) will reverse these changes; simply repeat the above to make your wifi work again.
You can do this or go a bit further in the next section.
Adam McDaniel (also a user from eeeusers.com) has made a custom eeepc-optimized kernel available via synaptic/apt-get. This will setup your Wifi, Microphone, and eeepc_acpi modules instantly along with a few more features.
Many users have tested the Kernel and it appears to work well. By default, the repository will install kernel image 2.6.24-20-eeepc, This contains the following features:
(For the most recent list, see the features page.)
For more information, see the original forum announcement, or the upgrade announcement.
Upon installation, Ubuntu does not shut down the Eee properly. Shutting down your Eee will make the screen go entirely blank, but does not cut the power, and you will have to remove the battery to fully shut it down.
Add the following line:
rmmod snd-hda-intel
to the end of the /etc/default/halt script in order to make the Eee shutdown completely.
You may find that Firefox regularly hangs or freezes. There's a way of fixing this, for now…
Choose Edit>Preferences>Security and turn *off* the attack and forgery warnings. That'll eliminate the issue entirely.
The script found at http://www.x2on.de/eeepc/ubuntueeetweak.sh works great and will take care of most of the tasks listed in the sections below, and you can easily edit the script to remove the changes you don't want to make. The script enables the following changes:
(Thanks to http://www.x2on.de!!!!)
There is another script at http://eee.ricey.co.uk/files/eee/RiceeeyTweak.sh, which includes the above script, and adds the following tasks:
I have not used this script, and cannot speak to it's effectiveness and/or faults
(Thanks to http://eee.ricey.co.uk!!!)
Note: based on actual power measurements, there seems to be little reason to bother with frequency scaling. See Power consumption of the Eee PC. Read on if you want to try anyway.
At installation, Ubuntu will not perform processor scaling (which Xandros doesn't, incidentally). If you leave your computer on AC power all day, this is just fine; but if you don't, you may notice your machine's battery does not last anywhere near as long. It may also get much hotter.
Luckily, you can fix this: so that your processor runs much slower when you're just typing (and thus saves your battery life); this tweak also increases the processor speed when you're using Ubuntu for something more processor-heavy.
First, right click the far-left of the panel at the top of the screen, and choose “Add to panel”. Type 'scaling' into the search box, and add the CPU Frequency Scaling Monitor. You'll get an error that frequency scaling isn't enabled in your hardware (accept it), and it'll show that your processor is running at 630MHz.
Then, go into your terminal and type the following:
sudo apt-get remove powernowd sudo apt-get install cpufrequtils sysfsutils sudo modprobe p4_clockmod
You should spot at this point that your processor has slowed down. Hurray! You've just enabled processor scaling. We need to make this stick now, so you need to pop into a config file:
sudo nano /etc/sysfs.conf
…and add the following line:
devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor = ondemand
…then, edit a different config file:
sudo nano /etc/modules
…and add these two lines:
p4_clockmod cpufreq_ondemand
…create files for ACPI, so that it goes in full power mode as soon as you put on AC power:
sudo echo > /etc/acpi/ac.d/90-cpufreq.sh '#!/bin/sh' sudo echo >> /etc/acpi/ac.d/90-cpufreq.sh '/usr/bin/cpufreq-selector -g performance' sudo echo > /etc/acpi/battery.d/90-cpufreq.sh '#!/bin/sh' sudo echo >> /etc/acpi/battery.d/90-cpufreq.sh '/usr/bin/cpufreq-selector -g ondemand' sudo chmod +x /etc/acpi/ac.d/90-cpufreq.sh sudo chmod +x /etc/acpi/battery.d/90-cpufreq.sh
…finally, reboot, just to make sure you've done the trick, using
sudo reboot
Your processor speed applet should still say it's running very slowly (125MHz on this machine), but doing anything CPU-intensive will kick it back up to full speed as required. You may notice the machine become a less responsive - it can take a few seconds for it to decide to increase the clock frequency.
You can change the minimum speed the governor will use by adding the following line to /etc/sysfs.conf:
devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_min_freq = 337000
This will make the governor a little less effective for a little more initial speed.
Note: with p4_clockmod loaded, the EEEPC will claim a top speed of 900MHz - a full 33% faster than it was doing. Unfortunately that's not true - benchmarks will report the same performace with and without the module, so it must still be limited to 630 Mhz. This is described in more detail elsewhere on the wiki - including EEE-specific kernel module(s) which may allow you to achieve 900Mhz.
[TODO: add linkies]
*I found that the processor scaling as enabled above actually slows down my Eee (4GB Surf 701 w/2GB ram) - the main menu is much slower to pop up and you can see weird artifacts in the graphic as the icons in the main menu are rendered. If you want to speed up your processor, I'd recommend searching the forums for the info on how to do this by flashing to a special version of the bios that enables you to enable performance mode (900Mhz). If I recall, after you enable 900Mhz, you can then flash to any other, newer, more stable bios, and the change in processor speed will remain, even after the new bios is installed.
Non-root users can't adjust the CPU speed with the speed applet, you can take the security risk of providing the speed applet with root capabilities by doing
sudo chmod +s /usr/bin/cpufreq-selector
… and now you left click with your mouse on speed applet and change the values as your desire.
To enable wifi hotkeys add
pciehp pciehp_debug=1 pciehp_force=1
to /etc/modules
Create /etc/acpi/actions/wireless-toggle.sh with
#!/bin/sh wlan_control=/proc/acpi/asus/wlan WLANSTATE=$(cat $wlan_control) case $WLANSTATE in 1) ifconfig ath0 down modprobe -r ath_pci echo 0 > $wlan_control modprobe -r pciehp ;; 0) modprobe pciehp pciehp_force=1 pciehp_debug=1 echo 1 > $wlan_control modprobe ath_pci echo 0 > $wlan_control echo 1 > $wlan_control ;; esac
and make it executable with chmod a+x /etc/acpi/actions/wireless-toggle.sh
To get proper support for hotkeys, turning off the camera, etc. you need the eeepc-acpi module.
Install it by:
sudo apt-get install module-assistant eeepc-acpi-source sudo m-a a-i eeepc-acpi sudo sh -c 'echo eeepc-acpi >> /etc/modules'
This installs the source files for the module and builds it for your running kernel. You have to repeat the m-a a-i eeepc-acpi part after you upgrade your kernel (as by using apt-get dist-upgrade)
NOTE: On my eeepc 900, this doesn't seem to get my camera working… (You might want to check the features bios settings since the camera defaults to disabled)
There have been a number of reports of long boot-up times that appear to trace back to a problem in the clocksource detection. To test, interrupt grub by pressing escape while it's counting down. Hit 'e' to edit the default boot option, then arrow down to the kernel line and hit 'e' again. At the end of the line (after the “quiet” and “splash” options), append:
clocksource=hpet
Hit enter, then hit 'b' to continue booting. Boot time could be 40+ seconds faster (for SSD installations).
To make this change permanent, after booting into Ubuntu, edit the file /boot/grub/menu.lst (you'll need root access, so sudo it). Find the following line:
# defoptions=quiet splash
Edit it to read as follows:
# defoptions=quiet splash clocksource=hpet
(Note: defoptions only changes the kernel options for the default boot option, and leaves the others alone. If you want to make the change for all options, including the recovery mode, use kopt instead, which is located a few sections above defoptions.)
Save the menu.lst file and exit, then from the terminal, run
sudo update-grub
Reboot, and your new option should take effect.
Add:
options snd-hda-intel model=3stack-dig
to /etc/modprobe.d/snd-hda-intel (create this file, if it doesn't exist)
Add:
options snd-hda-intel model=auto
to /etc/modprobe.d/snd-hda-intel (create this file, if it doesn't exist)
For some reason the sound doesn't always come back after resuming on EeePc 90x hardware. Alsa needs to be instructed to specifically suspend and resume its own modules before the OS does.
(Note: this doesn't appear to be a problem under EeePc 70x hardware, or for Gutsy, however I cannot confirm :)
Warning: After applying this hack you may see a warning message after resuming that says the gnome-mixer has quit unexpectedly. Just click the reload button each time, or hit cancel to remove the applet. Currently there is no work-around to this problem.
Note: This may not be a 100% solution. After the resuming, the sound device tests work (System –> Preferences –> Sound), audio on applications like Skype work, but the Gnome 'System Sounds' still do not work after resuming even after reloading the mixer (e.g. the 'logout' sound no longer plays). If you log out and log back in again (no reboot needed), the 'System Sounds' do come back, so perhaps some other Gnome item also needs to be restarted.
Step 1: Modify /etc/default/alsa and change “force_unload_modules_before_suspend” to:
force_unload_modules_before_suspend="snd_hda_intel"
Step 2: Create /usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/45sound
#!/bin/bash
if [ ! -x /sbin/alsa ]; then
exit 0;
fi
case "$1" in
hibernate|suspend)
/sbin/alsa suspend
;;
thaw|resume)
/sbin/alsa resume
;;
*)
;;
esac
exit $?
Step 3: Make /usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/45sound executable:
$ sudo chmod +x /usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/45sound
To get the audio and wifi buttons work create a new file named /etc/acpi/eeepc-hotkeys.sh and paste the following to it:
#!/bin/sh code=$3 case $code in # Fn+F2 -- enable/disable wifi 0000001[01]) /etc/acpi/actions/wireless-toggle.sh ;; # Fn+F7 -- mute/unmute speakers 00000013) amixer set Master toggle ;; # Fn+F8 -- decrease volume 00000014) amixer set Master 10%- ;; # Fn+F9 -- increase volume 00000015) amixer set Master 10%+ ;; esac
Make it executable with chmod a+x /etc/acpi/eeepc-hotkeys.sh
Change /etc/acpi/events/hotkey to
event=hotkey ATKD action=/etc/acpi/eeepc-hotkeys.sh %e
If you've got a 900, this approach may not work correctly. Try this slightly altered version of the script:
#!/bin/sh code=$3 case $code in # Fn+F2 -- enable/disable wifi 0000001[01]) /etc/acpi/actions/wireless-toggle.sh ;; # Fn+F7 -- mute/unmute speakers 00000013) acpi_fakekey 113 ;; # Fn+F8 -- decrease volume 00000014) acpi_fakekey 114 ;; # Fn+F9 -- increase volume 00000015) acpi_fakekey 115 ;; esac
Ubuntu 8.04 Final has no hotkey file! Create one an it works fine.
Reboot and sound should be working perfectly, including the hotkeys (for which you need ACPI support).
This tweaks dosn't work for me (but that's not the point). This tweaks will not bring you any kind of On Screen Display. But if you simply install this eee-osd-package you'll get everything to work. Every LED, any special key (except the LED/LCD: fn+f5) will work. And you get a nice On Screen Display. This package is worked around the original progemm from Xandros, as they released their source. There is a small bug i reconized, don't press the buttons not as quickly as you can, your OS will stumble.
However Adam is working on a similar package. The package is still in development, but eventually will be released on the array.org repository as eeepc-hotkeys.
There can be issues with the screen resolution with Hardy with 640×480 being the only display mode
sudo apt-get install 915resolution
Will fix this and allow 800×480 to be selected.
Alternatively, make sure you have installed and are using the new mode-setting intel driver, known as “intel”. The package names for the drivers are prefixed with “xserver-xorg-video-”.
Explanation: The old “i810” driver relies on the BIOS for mode-setting, requiring 915resolution to patch the BIOS image in-memory and add missing modes.
Note: If one installed on a 900, in safe video-mode, the X11 driver is set to Vesa by default, giving only 640×480 and 800×600 resolutions. Editing “vesa” to “intel” in /etc/X11/xorg.conf will fix the problem:
Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "intel"
EndSection
To be clear: 915resolution is not needed if you can successfully change the driver from “i810” to “intel”.
This hack is a way to set any brightness value supported. The default max value is ~50% of eee display panel documented brightness. (Text copied from http://www.ubuntu-eee.com/index.php5?title=How_to:_Ultra_Bright_LCD)
sudo setpci -s 00:02.1 f4.b=ff
Don't know if it's a safe hack though….
fn f5 twice turns off the internal lcd while booting only to have it turn on again at the login window
/usr/bin/xrandr --output LVDS --off
Now only the External screen should be on hopefully it will increase battery life as well as being less distracting. you could turn this into a bash script or the clever people could use this as a basis to make a script whch runs when fn f5 is pressed.
The ability to move windows around on the Eee's small screen to view sections of the window that won't fit on the screen is a crucial function. This is accomplished by holding the <Alt> key while left clicking and dragging a window on the desktop.
However, with a new installation of Hardy, Compiz is, by default, enabled, and will not allow windows to be moved beyond the top of the desktop (screen). There are two options to remedy this problem: disable Compiz, or fix Compiz.
To fix this issue in Compiz, simply open a terminal and enter the following command:
gconftool-2 --set /apps/compiz/plugins/move/allscreens/options/constrain_y --type bool 0
Note: This fix will not work if you issue the above command as a root user (by placing sudo at the beginning of the above command).
Delete /etc/acpi/events/asus-mail and restart acpid with sudo /etc/init.d/acpid restart The asus-acpi module sends hotkey events on power connect.
For some reason this seems to be more difficult to do than it should be, probably since it requires both devices to be configured correctly.
you need to build the rndis driver from svn
svn co https://synce.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/synce/trunk/usb-rndis-lite cd usb-rndis-lite/ make sudo ./clean.sh sudo make install
edit
sudo nano /etc/networking/interfaces
# USB xda-universal tethering auto rndis0 iface rndis0 inet dhcp
I used an xda universal and configured an internet connection on the phone (details from your provider. I started internet connection sharing on the phone which didn't seem to be connecting so i started internet explorer and made sure the connection was active.
in a terminal i typed
sudo dhclient rndis0
which got me an ip address of 169.254.2.2 the phone took 169.254.2.1 I gave the IP of the phone as an additional dns server in networking. maybe this isn't necessary.
hmm this is strange i added a network monitor to the top bar for rndis0 it says my ip is 192.168.0.102 and broadcast ip 192.168.0.255 and its ethernet.
and then connected with firefox there was a little messing connecting and disconnecting the usb cable but it now works, the connection here is quite slow however its a g signal (3 bars) not 3g so i guess equivalent to dial up. T-mobile do data for £1 a day or £7.50 a month. cheaper than an internet cafe. hope this helps a little
incidentally virtualbox manages to use the connection too.
(solution provided by knox)
The Bug #218434 only affect systems running their root filesystem from an external device - such as the eeePC's SD-card reader. Therefore i have adapted one of the given workarounds by making use of the hal policy mechanism:
$ sudo mousepad /etc/hal/fdi/policy/removable_root_fix.fdi
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <!-- -*- SGML -*- -->
<deviceinfo version="0.2">
<device>
<match key="volume.mount_point" string="/">
<merge key="@block.storage_device:storage.removable" type="bool">false</merge>
</match>
</device>
</deviceinfo>
$ sudo invoke-rc.d hal restart
It perfectly resolves the issue for me.
Update: the gnome-keyring package has been updated and the above hack is no longer needed.
You may get a error when the system attempts to automount your MMC/SD card. (Like it did with my 16GB Card)
To fix this,
Run the following command:
sudo mkdir /media/MMCSD
Open '/etc/fstab' with a text editor.
Make the line that includes '/dev/sdb1' read the following:
/dev/sdb1 /media/MMCSD auto user,auto,exec,rw 0 0
Eject, and re-insert the card, and it will automount.
Automount option is courtesy of William Ruckman (http://ruckman.net)
(Note: Documentation based on http://news.softpedia.com/news/Encrypted-Ubuntu-7-04-61312.shtml with help from http://de.gentoo-wiki.com/Root-Partition_mit_dm-crypt_&_cryptsetup_verschl%C3%BCsseln_-_Die_schnelle_Version . The code is adjusted to work with Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) with kernel 2.6.24-19-generic)
Assuming you have the following configuration:
/dev/sda1: main root parition
/dev/sda2: boot partition (40 MB)
(I don't have a swap partition, since I have 2 GB RAM and this does not goes too well with the 4 GB HD on my 701)
You most likely have installed Ubuntu using a bootable USB stick (or a CD-ROM, if you have). Boot from that media again, so that you see the desktop. When everyting has loaded, open up a terminal (Applications → Accessories → Terminal) and become root by typing:
sudo su
You will be permanently root from now on (that means you will not have to type sudo anymore, until you exit this session).
Let's prepare the system for the encryption process by loading some necessary modules into the kernel. Type, or copy / paste the following lines in the terminal window:
modprobe aes_i586 modprobe dm-crypt modprobe dm-mod modprobe sha256_generic
Install the cryptsetup package:
apt-get install cryptsetup
Create mountpoints for the current file systems and mount them:
cd /mnt mkdir boot root mount /dev/sda1 root mount /dev/sda2 boot
And now backup the data:
cd /mnt/root tar xjvf /media/disk/root.tar.bz2 . cd ..
This last code will output a lot of text (the files that are being copied), so wait until it stops. It takes about 20 minutes (depending on the number of files). Note if you have the archive on a FAT partition: The file may not be larger than 2 GB there. If you use compression (j option) and have a freshly installed Ubuntu, this should work.
Good, now that the backup has finished, umount the drive with:
umount root
And encrypt the filesystem with the following command:
cryptsetup -c aes-xts-plain -y -s 320 luksFormat /dev/sda1
WARNING: All the data will be permanently erased!
Type YES when asked, and enter a strong password (twice). Note: yes must be all in uppercase (This is bold, because I did not realize this for several hours. If not, the you just get the message “Command failed.”) Then type:
cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda1 root mkfs.ext2 /dev/mapper/root mount /dev/mapper/root root
Now let's copy back the data from the temporary folder to the newly created encrypted root partition:
cd root tar xjvf /media/disk/root.tar.bz2
Same as above, it will output a lot of text, so wait until it finishes and remove the temporary folder:
rm /media/disk/root.tar.bz2 cd ..
The filesystem is encrypted now, but it will not work until you do some final adjustments. Type, or copy / paste the following lines:
mkdir root/boot mount /dev/sda2 root/boot mount -o bind /dev root/dev chroot root
At this moment, you are “virtually” in your root partition, and you can make modifications to it. Let's begin by installing the cryptsetup software:
apt-get update apt-get install cryptsetup
Then let's add the necessary kernel modules to the /etc/initramfs-tools/modules file, so that they can be loaded at boot time (see http://blog.rootserverexperiment.de/2008/04/29/eeepc-ubuntu-804-initramfs-tuning/ to get an even slimmer initramfs):
nano etc/initramfs-tools/modules
And add the following lines to the end of the file:
aes_i586 dm-crypt dm-mod sha256_generic
Hit CTRL+O to and then ENTER to save the file. Hit CTRL+X to close the nano editor.
You must adjust the /etc/fstab file to mount the correct encrypted root partition:
nano etc/fstab
And change the line that looks like this (the UUID is just an example… yours will be different):
# /dev/sda3 UUID=4565t675-6c67-56hg-hg7j-67g5jk00b562 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
To look like this one:
/dev/mapper/root / ext2 noatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1
So basically, you just replace (# /dev/sda3 UUID=4565t675-6c67-56hg-hg7j-67g5jk00b562) with (/dev/mapper/root).
Hit CTRL+O and then ENTER to save the file. Hit CTRL+X to close the nano editor.
Now you must edit the /etc/crypttab file:
nano etc/crypttab
And add the following line at the end of the file:
root /dev/sda1 none luks,retry=1,cipher=aes-cbc-essiv:sha256
Hit CTRL+O and then ENTER to save the file. Hit CTRL+X to close the nano editor.
And now you have to edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst file:
nano boot/grub/menu.lst
Search the line that looks like this (the UUID is just an example… yours will be different):
# kopt=root= UUID=4565t675-6c67-56hg-hg7j-67g5jk00b562 ro
And change it to look like this:
# kopt=root=/dev/mapper/root ro
Hit CTRL+O and then ENTER to save the file. Hit CTRL+X to close the nano editor.
Do some Fixes:
cp /usr/share/initramfs-tools/hooks/cryptroot /etc/initramfs-tools/hooks/cryptroot cp /usr/share/initramfs-tools/scripts/local-top/cryptroot /etc/initramfs-tools/scripts/local-top/cryptroot
Update GRUB with the following command:
grub-install --recheck hd0,1 update-grub grub-install hd0
And check the /boot/grub/menu.lst file to see if the entries changed like this:
title Ubuntu 8.04, kernel 2.6.24-19-generic root (hd0,1) kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.24-19-generic root=/dev/mapper/root ro quiet splash clocksource=hpet initrd /initrd.img-2.6.24-19-generic quiet savedefault
Make sure that you have root=/dev/mapper/root option. If so, then you can update initramfs with the following command:
update-initramfs -u All
Exit the chrooted environment and reboot the system with:
exit reboot
When the system starts, you will see the Ubuntu boot splash, which will disappear after a few seconds and all you'll be able to see is a blinking line on the top left side of your monitor. Now you should type the password you've setup when you encrypted the filesystem and hit ENTER. You will notice that (if you typed the password correctly), the system continues to boot. That's it folks, your whole Ubuntu 7.04 is now fully encrypted!
By compressing the /usr folder you can gain about 1 GB hd space. The basic idea is to compress the folder using squashfs. However, squashfs is read only. So we need to put an overlay file system like unionfs on top of it, to keep up with the changes.
A very good description how to set up squashfs and unionfs is here: http://po-ru.com/diary/linux-liposuction-or-xubuntu-in-under-a-gig-on-the-eee-pc/
Questions: How to recompress? Is it better / What is the advantage of compressing the whole file system? Is cloop + aufs better (if so: what are the advantages)?
Note: Compressed /usr folder goes well with encrypted root partition (see above; the compressed image is part of the root file system and therefore encrypted as well).
There is still a problem when home is mounted on an SD card with sleep and hibernation. Essentially the EEE forgets where /home is as it disconnects the card when it goes to sleep and fails to reconnect it when it awakens. Apparently it can be fixed if USB_Persist is enabled in the kernel. Step by Step instructions are needed for most users (including me). /var could be moved to an SD card to reduce writes to the SSD and make some space on the ssd drive.
The problem still with generic kernel. However, timauton's patch has been installed on the array.org repository's kernel version 2.6.24-20-eeepc, as of 16 jul 2008.
At first glance compiz doesn't appear to work as it did in Xubuntu 7.10 after a dist-upgrade to 8.04 and application of RiceeeyTweak.sh mentioned at the top of the page. With the same xorg.conf settings using either the intel or i810 driver, executing the command compiz –replace results in Checking for Xgl: not present and other errors. Attempts to fix this by installing the following packages simply resulted in screen artifacts and freezing of X. $ sudo apt-get install xserver-xgl libglitz-glx1 libglitz1 To recover simply <CTR><ALT><F1> and remove those packages. Oddly enough 915resolution appears to still work and glxgears returns > 700 FPS so graphics acceleration appears to be working fine. I guess I'll just live without compiz as it was mostly used as a quick method for showing off the graphics.
*With a clean installation of Ubuntu 8.04, Hardy Heron, out of the box, on a 4GB Surf 701 with 2GB ram, Hardy recognizes and displays the correct resolution (800×480) on the Eee, even though this resolution is not listed in the display settings. Also, on this clean install, Compiz is working great, after performing the small fix mentioned above re: moving windows above the top of the desktop by holding <Alt> while left-click dragging the window.
