EeeUser Eee PC Wiki

Note: there are more detailed and up-to-date instructions at Arch Wiki.

Kernel and modules packages for Eee are available in AUR.

• Arch Linux provides a very basic Linux installation with only the packages necessary to log in to a console. Then you decide what you want to install; there will not be anything you don't want on your system. On the Eee this is a big advantage, since it saves a lot of space.

• While Arch Linux doesn't do all the configuration for you, the underlying system is quite simple and easy to understand, in contrast to the complex systems of distributions that try to do it all for you. If you want to learn how Linux works, Arch Linux is a great choice, since nothing is obscured by complicated hardware detection scripts, etc.

• Arch Linux has a very good package manager, called pacman. Combined with Arch Linux's rich and extremely high-quality package repositories, installing, uninstalling, and updating programs is something that “just works”. Pacman was created in the Arch Linux spirit, so it's also very simple to understand, and creating your own packages is quite easy.

• The Arch Linux community is quite small, but it's very friendly and helpful. Even though you are warned that Arch Linux is for experienced users, any question, however naive, will be answered in a friendly tone. (OK, sometimes people are rude, but it's very rare.)

• If you don't have much computer experience, and no knowledge about Linux at all, Arch Linux will be very intimidating, strange, and irritating.

• If you want your Linux distribution to be installed, and then just do everything you want, then Arch Linux isn't for you. I suggest sticking with Xandros, or installing Ubuntu, but then you still have to do some things to make it work to your preferences.

I will cover two methods of installing Arch Linux on the Eee:

• Normal install from scratch with an external CD-ROM drive.
• Using a pre-installed image file of Arch Linux.

There are other methods I'm not going into, like installing from a USB disk. The Arch Linux wiki has good advice for this (as well as for what I'm duplicating here…).

Here we go:

Be sure that you can erase everything on your Eee's SSD without losing any data you need. Everything will be gone. The fast restore function will also disappear, so if you want to restore Xandros, you'll need to use the provided DVD.

The stock Arch Linux kernel doesn't include drivers for any of the network cards on the Eee. This makes it difficult to proceed after a base system install. One option to overcome this is to download the sources for the necessary drivers before installing, and then just compile them after the base install. The other option is to download the custom kernel package from the [community] repository and just install that after the base install. The second option is obviously the simpler one, but I'll give instructions for doing both, just to show where the sources are for all the drivers, and how to install them. If you want to use the preconfigured kernel go to 2b. If you want to install all the drivers yourself, read on:

• The Arch Linux install CD
• Atl2 ethernet driver source
• The Atheros Wi-Fi driver source
• The Atheros driver patch
• The ASUS acpi source
• acpi patch for 2.6.23 ->
• Use subversion to download the uvcvideo driver source:

 svn checkout svn://svn.berlios.de/linux-uvc/linux-uvc/trunk
 mv trunk linux-uvc

All of these files should be made available on a CD, USB drive, or SD card for your Eee after installation.

Go to the Get Arch webpage. Download the Arch Linux core install image. The kernel is in the [community] repo. To download the package, choose one of the mirrors further down on the same webpage and go into the community directory. There you'll find a file called kernel26eee-something. Download the latest version and save it on a CD, USB drive, or SD card.

First you have to burn the Arch Linux ISO image file to a CD. Then, start the Eee with the CD-ROM drive connected and the CD inserted. When the ASUS Eee BIOS startup screen appears, press Esc quickly, to get into the boot menu. Choose to boot from the CD. When the CD boot prompt appears, just press Enter.

After a while, you'll get to a prompt again. On my Eee there was something wrong with the partition table, so I had to create a new one before starting the install script. To do this write:

 cfdisk -z

cfdisk has a quite user-friendly interface, so you shouldn't have any problems with creating one primary partition that takes all the space on the disk. Make it bootable too, just to be sure. Write it, then exit.

To start the Arch Linux installation script, write:

 /arch/setup

Then go through the menus from the top and down. This is all very well-explained in the Arch Linux documentation, so I'll not go through it here. Just remember to choose ext2 as file system.

After everything is installed, reboot.

Here again, you follow this section, 6a, if you are installing all the drivers yourself, and the next section, 6b, if you want to use the custom kernel.

Here's simple instructions on how to install the driver for the wired card here. If you need instructions for the wifi, see further down for instructions.

I'll suppose you have some Linux console knowledge for this. If not, ask in the forum, or search the internet. It's not as difficult as it looks.

First, mount the CD or disk with the files you downloaded in Section 2. Copy the atl2-2.0.5.tar.gz file to a folder on the Eee drive and unpack it:

tar -xzf atl2-2.0.5.tar.gz

Go into the atl-2.0.5 folder and write:

 make

Wait. There will be no errors. If there are any errors. Then seek a zen master.

Write:

 insmod atl2.ko

Your ethernet card driver is loaded.

Connect the USB drive or insert the CD or SD card where you saved the kernel package. Mount the drive, and go into the directory where the package is. Write as root:

 pacman -U kernel26eee*

Then add something similar to this to the file /boot/grub/menu.lst:

 title  kernel26-eee
 root   (hd0,0)
 kernel /boot/vmlinuz26-eee root=/dev/sda1 ro

Reboot, and choose kernel26-eee. You now have a kernel which should support all the hardware on the Eee.

Arch Linux is a rolling distro. It's made for being updated regularly. The good thing about this is that you never have to upgrade to the next version. The next version is always what you have after updating. You can install a quite-old CD installer, do a system upgrade, and you will be as up-to-date as anyone else.

First we must connect to the Internet. Here are instructions for connecting to a wired network:

Connect the wire and write either:

 dhcpcd eth0

if you have automatic IP, or:

 ifconfig eth0 x.x.x.x           # x.x.x.x is ip address
 echo y.y.y.y > /etc/resolv.conf # y.y.y.y is dns address
 route add default gw z.z.z.z    # z.z.z.z is default route

if you have a static IP.

Then for system upgrade write:

 pacman -Syu

You'll probably be asked if you want to update pacman before the system upgrade. Say yes to this, and then do a system upgrade again.

The system update is finished. If you chose lilo as boot manager, which you shouldn't have, you have to run this command before rebooting:

 lilo

Then reboot.

You can skip this section if you installed the kernel26eee package.

Since you did a system upgrade, and most likely your kernel was updated, the network driver you installed is gone. So you have to go through everything again:

You probably still have the driver source on your Eee. Go there and write:

 make clean
 make
 cp ath2.ko /lib/modules/2.6.23-ARCH/kernel/drivers/net # Change 2.6.23 as fits
 depmod

Copy the files madwifi-ng-r2756-20071018.tar.gz and madwifi-ng-0933.ar2425.20071130.i386.patch to a directory and write:

 tar -xzf madwifi-ng-r2756-20071018.tar.gz
 cd madwifi-ng-r2756-20071018
 patch -p0 < ../madwifi-ng-0933.ar2425.20071130.i386.patch
 make
 make install

You have to get connected to the internet. Install unrar:

 pacman -Sy unrar

Copy the files ASUS_ACPI_071126.rar and acpi.patch to a directory and write:

 unrar e ASUS_ACPI_071126.rar
 tar -xzf asus_acpi.tar.gz
 cd asus_acpi
 patch -p0 < ../acpi.patch

Edit the first line of the file Makefile so it points to 2.6.23-ARCH or whatever your kernel version is. Then write:

 make

When it's finished, write:

 cp asus_acpi.ko /lib/modules/2.6.23-ARCH/kernel/drivers/acpi
 depmod

Copy the linux-uvc directory to the Eee's drive. Write this:

 make
 make install

Write this line in the file /etc/rc.local

 echo 1 > /proc/acpi/asus/camera

Now all the Eee-specific things are taken care of. For the rest of getting your Arch Linux running exactly as you want it to, I refer you to the Arch Linux wiki. Good luck. :)

I'll write something here soon, or someone else… Meanwhile look at this forum thread:

http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=5855

Pre-prepared images are availabe here http://archeeemage.coderseffigy.com/