Setting up Ubuntu Lucid Lynx (10.04) on the Asus U35JC

[osensei]

I was wondering; If I disable the graphicscard - would the laptop still be able to render highdef movies without stuttering?

The intel chip is more than capable of rendering HD movies, so don't worry about that. Anyway, Ubuntu is not using the NVIDIA card at all, the purpose of disabling it is to not waste battery power on it, being that it's not being used.

About the high pitched noise; I heard the noise in Windows 7 but, strangly, I cannot hear it in Ubuntu.

It's good to hear that! Your words, not the noise

[aro87]

I disabled the Nvidia card yesterday; and you're correct. The laptop still handles HD movies very well

Have any of you tried out the web cam in Ubuntu? Mine shows upsidedown when I try to use Cheese. Strangely, there's significant delay in Windows using it, but in Ubuntu it's much faster and actually fairly usable.

About the webcam (mine is also upside down, running Lucid at 64bits) I'm pretty sure this is an usual issue with asus's laptops. Its mentioned here at launchpad

[kos888]

Just wanted to thank the OP for this thread, it helped me get my U35jc set up within an hour or so. If anyone has a fix so that the nvidia card doesn't activate itself after suspend, let us know! It's the only thing missing to make this system perfect (that and hibernating of course)

I also wanted to share another thread with some great tips to save battery life and to fix the Fn F9 combination (toggles the trackpad on/off):

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...&postcount=110

[kos888]

This wake-up script I threw together fixed the Nvidia suspend issue for me - I can suspend an indefinite number of times and the card is switched off upon resumption. (adapted from the wpa script in /etc/pm/sleep.d/ and the suspend fix posted by the OP)

Create a script /etc/pm/sleep.d/20_suspend-dg and enter the following:

#!/bin/sh
# File: "/etc/pm/sleep.d/20_suspend-dg".

case "${1}" in
        suspend|hibernate)
                echo '\_SB.PCI0.PEG1.GFX0._ON' > /proc/acpi/call
                ;;
        resume|thaw)
                echo '\_SB.PCI0.PEG1.GFX0._OFF' > /proc/acpi/call
esac

Make it executable:

sudo chmod +x /etc/pm/sleep.d/20_suspend-dg

I know - it's crazy that you have to turn the card on when suspending and then off again when it wakes, but that's the only way I could get it to work. It should apply to hibernating as well if we ever get that fixed.

Please report back on whether the script works for you as well

[kos888]

Also, maybe the OP can add the toggle-trackpad (Fn+F9) fix to the original post:

To get working disable touchpad (Fn+F9) button:

sudo gedit /etc/acpi/asus-touchpad.sh

delete everything and paste this:

#!/bin/sh
[ -f /usr/share/acpi-support/state-funcs ] || exit 0 

. /usr/share/acpi-support/power-funcs

getXconsole

DEVICE_ID=`xinput -list | grep -i touchpad | grep id= | sed 's/.*id=\([0-9]*\).*/\1/' `

if xinput -list-props $DEVICE_ID | grep "Device Enabled" | grep "1$" > /dev/null
then
    xinput set-int-prop $DEVICE_ID "Device Enabled" 8 0
else
    xinput set-int-prop $DEVICE_ID "Device Enabled" 8 1
fi

save and close.

[Flupke]

Thanks kos888, I merged your on/off nvidia trick with the USB buses one in a "custom_asus-u35jc" pm-utils script, and also added the fix for the trackpad button.

The tips to save battery life are indeed great, made me win a steady 2W of power. I would prefer them to be activated only when on battery though, but I don't get how /etc/acpi/power.sh works (this is apparently the script called when switching AC/battery)

[kos888]

Thanks kos888, I merged your on/off nvidia trick with the USB buses one in a "custom_asus-u35jc" pm-utils script, and also added the fix for the trackpad button.

The tips to save battery life are indeed great, made me win a steady 2W of power. I would prefer them to be activated only when on battery though, but I don't get how /etc/acpi/power.sh works (this is apparently the script called when switching AC/battery)

Good call on merging the two scripts into one! Also I never thought about the fact that the battery saving methods are constantly on. Will try to do some research into how that might be fixed.

[Zaremos]

Seems that the scale for the display brightness is a bit off which results in a brightness greater than 100% when the ac-power is plugged in, which the display does not like. I fixed this by changing the "Set the display brightness to" setting under the AC-power properties. Changing the brightness over 55-60% with the fn buttons results in a black display for the same reason.

[SOLVED]

This thread really fixed a lot of problems for me, so thank you!

I have encountered another issue and that is that my display dims down to 0 when I plug in the AC power... it brightens up to 100% again when I unplug the AC power. I can't change the brightness with the fn+f5/6 buttons when using AC and fiddling with the display power settings does not seem to help.

Anyone got a solution for this?

[flowerdealer]

Hi, could anyone post updated instructions for 10.10? The apci calls freeze my system. I did not do the kernel installation step, though. Should I follow it? Thanks!

[osensei]

Hi, could anyone post updated instructions for 10.10? The apci calls freeze my system. I did not do the kernel installation step, though. Should I follow it? Thanks!

Hi flowerdealer, I followed this guide with Ubuntu 10.10 except for the kernel update and the X configuration for the trackpad steps, and had no problem with it.

I haven't had any issue with the acpi_call module and my NVIDIA card is being disabled as expected.

Is your laptop model U35JC-A1?