Asus A6Tc

This is simple guide for making hardware on Asus A6Tc work.

It is assumed you do know how to install Gentoo Linux and Linux kernel on a notebook and you have a basic ‘Linux skills’.

This guide also might be very useful for ones running other Linux distribution but some procedures might differ and some issues might have been fixed by the distribution vendor.

Hardware
/proc/cpuinfo

lspci

lsusb

Kernel
There are some specific options that you should keep in mind while configuring kernel manually.

Framebuffer
Framebuffer console works fine with VESA VGA driver (1024x768), add this option to grub.conf: vga=0X318. Ror example, this is my grub.conf:

Cardreader
Works, see SD and MMC card readers.

X.org
For Xorg there is official guide. Display works with nVidia proprietary driver (x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers). Hence, for display, touchpad and keyboards you can add the following lines to your make.conf before update world.

You can also see the Nvidia and Synaptics_Touchpad/Xorg_7.3 articles.

You can also use this xorg.conf:

And config files for hal:

For manage tv-out you can also use nvidia-settings.

Ethernet
Works fine with r8169. See the kernel section.

Wireless
See Broadcom 43xx.

Webcam
Works with stkwebcam kernel module.

You can also see this guide; http://wiki.zenerves.net/index.php/Syntek_readme.

You can also test it via

Modem
Does not work for me.

ACPI
There is a problem with kernel 2.6.28 and netlink api, also with 2.6.30.

ACPI daemon (‘acpid’) has on some laptops problems with lid. You can disable it, like me, or search with google how to update your bios.

Function keys works well. You can control volume, touchpad and what you want via app-laptop/acpi4asus and these simple scripts.

and this is the general events files

Remember add execute permission to *sh files, start acpid initscript and add it to default runlevel:

DSDT
One thing about this asus laptop is the DSDT. It is somewhat defective. Some of the problems are the LID and the FAN. The laptop does not know if the lid is opened or closed, and sometimes keeps sending lid open/close events to the acpi daemon. Fan control is also a problem. Using the standard DSDT the fan just keeps running.

I solved these two problems by making my own DSDT. But discovered a new problem too. I am unable to add more than 1GB of RAM. When i do this a lot of acpi function stop working. You can see my efforts solving DSDT issues following the link below:

Defective DSDT

Links
http://www.gentoo-wiki.info/Asus_A6T

http://jm.xdns.eu/~jm/trac/wiki/A6Tc-AP014H

http://kompi.homelinux.org/home/patrick/asus_a6tc-howto/