Asus Eee PC 1015

This is a guide for installing Gentoo on the Asus Eee PC 1015PEM. Generally it applies to other versions of the Eee PC 1015 as well, but hardware may still wary.

System Specifications(Eee PC 1015PEM)

 * CPU: Intel Atom Dual-Core N550 @ 1.5 GHz (2 threads on each core)


 * RAM: 1GB DDR3 SO-DIMM @ 1066MHz (up to 2GB)


 * HDD: 2.5" SATA 160GB/250GB/320GB HDD @ 5400RPM


 * GPU: Intel GMA 3150


 * Display: 10.1" 1024x600 LCD


 * WiFi: Broadcom BCM4313


 * Ethernet: Atheros AR8132


 * Bluetooth: TODO


 * Webcam: USB Webcam


 * Card Reader: USB Card Reader


 * Other: 3 USB 2.0 ports, Bluetooth 3

Installation
In general, you can follow the the installation guide in the Gentoo Handbook, but it is advised that you read this HOWTO thoroughly before proceeding with the installation in order to be aware of any particular changes from the standard process that will be necessary.

There are two hurdles to overcome when installing Gentoo on an Eee PC 1015PEM. The first things you may notice about your Eee PC is that they do not have an CD/DVD drive built in. The second problem is that driver for the wireless network adapter isn't included in the Gentoo Minimal LiveCD.

No built-in CD/DVD drive

 * Make a live Flash Drive: You could use Unetbootin to write the live CD ISO on a flash drive instead of a CD and make it bootable. Very easy and quick.


 * Install from another distro: Personally, I like this one. You just boot from another Linux distro, format the drive, copy the needed files, and chroot to Gentoo. This might as well give you wireless network access during the install.


 * Use an external CD drive: If you have a USB CD/DVD drive, you could just plug it in and boot from a CD.


 * Network boot with PXE: Boot from a computer in your network rather than a physical drive on your computer.

Internet access during the installation

 * Use Ethernet: The wired networking drivers work fine. You could just plug your Eee PC to an internet connection via Ethernet.


 * Use a USB adapter:  Same as above, but with a USB Ethernet adapter.

Partitioning the Hard Drive
There are four filesystems on the Eee PC 1015PEM's hard drive by default. The first two are for user files and the last two are for the system restore function and Asus's software tweaks to make the system boot faster, respectively. Deleting them will not prevent the machine from working, but it will make the system restore and the bootup tweaks unusable. It is your decision whether you want those features intact or want to reclaim the hard drive space that they take up.

The bootup tweaks themselves can be disabled manually in the BIOS setup utility. If you delete the partitions that the tweaks are stored on, the tweaks will automatically disappear from the BIOS setup and you will (of course) not be able to enable them again.

Choosing a Kernel
The Eee PC 1015PEM has some weird hardware, similar to the other Eee PC models. While this hardware is currently supported in Linux, you will need to use a kernel whose vanilla version is at least 2.6.27.7 or newer to get some of the components to work properly. Three kernels which are known to work with the Eee PC 1015PEM are gentoo-sources, hardened-sources and vanilla-sources.Personally, I like to use tuxonice-sources due to it's improved hibernate and suspend support. Everything in this guide works perfectly for me.

Configuring Your Kernel
As of Kernel 2.6.39-r3, some of the Eee PC 1015PEM hardware drivers are still marked as "experimental" and will not appear at all without setting the appropriate kernel option.

Processor Options
The Eee PC 1015PEM uses the Intel Atom N550 Dual-Core processor, so you should change the processor family to "Atom". Also, since the Atom supports HyperThreading, be sure to turn on Symmetric multi-processing and SMT scheduler support.

ACPI (Power Management)
The Eee PC 1015PEM has support for ACPI, through the [ eeepc_laptop] module. The description of the eeepc_laptop is a bit deceptive in the 2.6.39-r3 Kernel, as it implies that it only works for the hotkeys("Eee PC Hotkey Drivers"). However, it does in fact provide full ACPI support and should be used if you want any sort of power management.

If you chose to compile eeepc_laptop as a module like I did, be sure to add the following to /etc/conf.d/modules - modules="eeepc-laptop"

Wired Networking
The Eee PC 1015PEM requires the atl1c driver for its wired networking. If you run you might be inclined to think that you actually need atl1 (Attansic L1 Gigabit Ethernet) as Attansic is the manufacturer of the NIC. Nonetheless, you do in fact need atl1c and not atl1. 01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Attansic Technology Corp. Atheros AR8132 / L1c Gigabit Ethernet Adapter (rev c0)

Wireless Networking
The wireless network card of the Asus Eee PC 1015PEM is the Broadcom BCM4313. For modern Kernels, it is recommended to use the official broadcom-sta driver that's provided by Broadcom. Otherwise, check the Gentoo Wiki on Broadcom 43xx.

GPU
The Asus Eee PC 1015PEM has an Intel GMA integrated graphics card.

If you have blackscreen on boot, it may be because you've built both Framebuffer Console support and the i915 driver (with KMS enabled) as modules. The blackscreen is a result of the i945 driver probing for displays before the fbcon module is loaded. As it can't find any console display(because the fbcon driver isn't loaded yet) it simply turns it off. To solve this you have to set the fbcon module to load at boot. Add the following to /etc/conf.d/modules - modules="fbcon"

make.conf
You probably want to use -j3 as your makeopts, following the general rule of +1. MAKEOPTS = "-j3"

If you plan to install X on your system, use the following configuration - INPUT_DEVICES = "evdev" VIDEO_CARDS = "intel" Then follow the X HOWTO.

Run after installation to install WiFi drivers.