Asus Zenbook Prime UX21A issues

[wb8nbs]

Okay salvator94, so I tried your solution, and it does work. However, I lose the visual indicator bar window in Cinnamon which pops up when I adjust the brightness. Is it possible to have the best of both worlds, to so speak?

For instance, I still have the keyboard backlight brightness indicator bar window popping up with full functionality (can adjust brightness all the way down, all the way up for the keyboard backlight and do not lose the indicator window).

PS I also despise Ubuntu's desktop environment, though the support is good and the repositories are great. I think Unity was a huge, huge mistake, and I'm in the Linux Mint camp for good. According to distrowatch, I'm not alone!

I lost the indicator as well, but I don't care. It works. Battery life is a LOT longer with the display turned down.

Salvatore, I am curious, how did you find that solution?

[skibum1981]

There's gotta be a way to fix it yet retain the bells and whistles.

Also, my fn+f2 doesn't work to disable the wireless. Anyone else have this issue?

[salvatore94]

I lost the indicator as well, but I don't care. It works. Battery life is a LOT longer with the display turned down.

Salvatore, I am curious, how did you find that solution?

Searched a lot around ubuntu, debian and arch forums. Is a common "bug" for a lot notebooks. And is releated to DSDT tables. Maybe Asus will solve it with the next bios updates.......
And I've also lost the visual indicator when I change the brightness, but for me is a minor thing right now.

[lakerssuperman]

Just wanted to drop by and offer my experience with my new UX31A Touch Zenbook. Running Ubuntu Gnome Remix 12.10 and the 3.6.11 mainline kernel this thing handles like a dream. The only two minor issues are the ambient light sensor doesn't work and the display brightness keys don't control display brightness. I can, however, set this in the display settings. I didn't have to mess with anything. It just works. Battery life seems good, the backlit keyboard works and can be adjusted with the function keys. Suspend works perfectly and the IPS display on this thing is awesome.

The touch screen works for basic single tap actions. I haven't experimented with it further as it just happens that I got the model with touch as it wasn't something I was looking for.

Performance is excellent and even with HD video playing the fan is still very quiet.

If you are in the market for an Ultrabook and plan to spend Ultrabook money, this should be something you are looking at. Great experience so far.

[skibum1981]

Searched a lot around ubuntu, debian and arch forums. Is a common "bug" for a lot notebooks. And is releated to DSDT tables. Maybe Asus will solve it with the next bios updates.......
And I've also lost the visual indicator when I change the brightness, but for me is a minor thing right now.

Does everyone else lack the ability to do Fn + F2 to kill WLAN + Bluetooth?

[skibum1981]

Anyone?

I tried making a keyboard shortcut and fn + f2 doesn't register as anything, whereas fn + f5 comes up as the correct brightnessdown code (forget precisely what it is called).

[charlie0440]

Anyone?

I tried making a keyboard shortcut and fn + f2 doesn't register as anything, whereas fn + f5 comes up as the correct brightnessdown code (forget precisely what it is called).

Pressing the key does nothing and the light always stays on.

I just wrote a bash script to enable/disable wifi and created a keyboard shortcut and set it to the fn + f2 key (your last post says the key is not recognised, on mine it shows up as "WLAN" in the keyboard shortcut

Here is the bash script (my 1st ever so someone can improve/rewrite it with bluetooth and maybe get the key light to work)

#! /bin/bash
nm=`nmcli -t -f NET-ENABLED nm`
wifi=`nmcli -t -f WIFI nm`
if [ "$nm" == "disabled" ]
    then
    echo "turning on networking" `nmcli nm enable true`
    echo "turning on wifi" `nmcli nm wifi on`
else 
    if [ "$wifi" == "enabled" ]
        then
        echo "turning off wifi" `nmcli nm wifi off`
    else
        echo "turning on wifi" `nmcli nm wifi on`
    fi
fi

[charlie0440]

Pressing the key does nothing and the light always stays on.

I just wrote a bash script to enable/disable wifi and created a keyboard shortcut and set it to the fn + f2 key (your last post says the key is not recognised, on mine it shows up as "WLAN" in the keyboard shortcut

Here is the bash script (my 1st ever so someone can improve/rewrite it with bluetooth and maybe get the key light to work)

#! /bin/bash
nm=`nmcli -t -f NET-ENABLED nm`
wifi=`nmcli -t -f WIFI nm`
if [ "$nm" == "disabled" ]
    then
    echo "turning on networking" `nmcli nm enable true`
    echo "turning on wifi" `nmcli nm wifi on`
else 
    if [ "$wifi" == "enabled" ]
        then
        echo "turning off wifi" `nmcli nm wifi off`
    else
        echo "turning on wifi" `nmcli nm wifi on`
    fi
fi

I just removed the keyboard shortcut and weirdly the key is now working correctly by default ie it is turning wifi on/off and the light on the key is turning on/off

[mrojas73]

SOLVED: First of all you need to:
sudo gedit /etc/default/grub

find the line:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"


and add "acpi_osi="

make it look like this:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi_osi="

close gedit and:
sudo update-grub

reboot and enjoy your FN Keys finally working!!

Tested on my N56VZ with ubuntu 12.10 and 3.7.0-7-generic kernel. Also I think that if you have an nvidia-optimus system you must also install bumblebee drivers.

Very nice Salvatore...it works on my UX32VD and Ubuntu 12.10, I am very happy to have my F6 and F7 buttons working finally.

Thank you for posting this.

[charlie0440]

Hi guys ive run into a problem.

I update the kernel following the wiki to 3.7.2 :

Grab all .deb-packages for your cpu architecture (most likely amd64) but don't forget linux-headers-3.7.*_all.deb! Assuming you downloaded all these files to ~/Downloads/, execute the following commands:

sudo dpkg -i ~/Downloads/linux-*-3.7.*.deb

then updated the grub per salvatore94 post

SOLVED: First of all you need to:
sudo gedit /etc/default/grub

find the line:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"


and add "acpi_osi="

make it look like this:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi_osi="

close gedit and:
sudo update-grub

Problem is I am now booting to the terminal! If I connect an external monitor the GUI immediately kicks in. But after a reboot/shutdown its back to the terminal.

I tried replacing "quiet splash acpi_osi=" with “nomodeset” but that didn't fix it.

The only way I can boot to X is via selecting "Advanced options for Ubuntu" in the grub menu and booting kernel 3.5.0-21

Any suggestions?