Linux on Asus Vivobook X202E

[Frank616]

Just bought an Asus Vivobook X202E netbook that comes with Win8 and touch screen. Specs are good for a sub $500 machine. I wondered if it would run Linux, so did a search and found two links to suggest that it would. One is here, and the other is here. So, I went and bought one.

After turning secure boot off in the BIOS, I booted initially from a USB flash drive using 32 bit Kubuntu 12.04. All seemed to work. I then tried to install as dual-boot to test the install more fully in case I had to return it. The dual-boot did not work. Kubuntu installed successfully, but failed to boot. The Windows Boot Manager got control every time. After checking with the authors of the above two links, it seems they both replaced the drive with an SSD, and successfully installed to that. So I did the same.

Further research reveals that the drive in this machine is a slimline Hitachi that is only 7 mm thick. I replaced it with a Samsung 830 series 245 GB SSD which is also 7 mm. The more common 9 mm thick drives will not fit. Once that was done, I installed Kubuntu 12.10 64 bit. My thought was that kernel and/or driver support for the touchscreen might be better. I have not confirmed that it is any better than 12.04, but I did not test this fully either.

The install of 12.10 was successfull. Pretty much everything works out of the box, including:

wifi
card reader
all USB ports
HDMI port
touch screen (partially)
trackpad, including two-finger scroll
suspend to RAM and wake up on lid close / open

Things that don't work are:

Hotkeys for brightness and volume
Ethernet port
Shut down

I'm not sure why the ethernet port does not work. It is a half-thickness port that has a drop-down door to accommodate a full-size plug. However, either it is not making a physical connection (the spring-load on the door is weak), or the device is not seen by Linux. I have not checked either yet, as I've only had the machine for a little over a day at this point, and I still have to work for a living.

Workarounds:

Volume can be adjusted with the KMix volume slider in the kicker. Volume is quite good, but clips somewhat at maximum.
Screen brightness can be adjusted with xbacklight, which is in the repository
Shut down works if you log out first, then shut down. Otherwise it will only suspend to RAM.

I have created two one-line batch files and linked them to desktop icons. One issues the command:

xbacklight -inc 20

which brightens the screen by 20%

The corresponding command is:

xbacklight -dec 20

which decreases backlight by 20%

The machine is fully funtional with these workarounds. I'll keep working to find fixes for the volume and brightness hot keys, and shutdown. If anyone has any suggestions on that, then please submit.

Touchscreen works to some extent, as shown in the above-linked video. Pinch to zoom works sometimes. I haven't found out why sometimes it works, and other times it won't. Beyond what is shown in that video, I can select commands in LO, and block text to copy/paste etc. Essentially your finger becomes the mouse cursor.

Overall, I am very pleased with this machine, which works much better, and is less money than the 13" Acer S3 that I tried first. Build quality of the Asus X202E is really excellent, and the keyboard is very usable, something that was NOT the case with my previous Eeepc 901 netbook. This is a really nice little machine.

Frank.

[luckyone]

Have you switched the keyboard to ASUS? There are other adjustments in System Settings/Input Devices/Keyboard that may be relevent.

[Frank616]

Have you switched the keyboard to ASUS?

No. Didn't even realize it was possible until you had me look there.

That did fix the volume hotkeys. Thanks very much!

However, this did not fix screen brightness. I can make do with the little batch files I have that call xbacklight, but enabling the brightness hotkeys would be super.

Frank.

[luckyone]

Take a look at keyboard-configuration (in the default repositories) and/or what shows up with xkeys in the Muon Search box.

[Frank616]

Take a look at keyboard-configuration (in the default repositories) and/or what shows up with xkeys

Hmmmm. Will take me a while to digest this. The cure may be worse than the disease.

One of four three things will happen:

1) I'll do nothing, and just use the one-line batch files connected to system tray icons and use xbacklight to do the job.
2) I may try acpi parameters in GRUB
3) The devs will catch up with this machine, and the next update will just work.
4) I may roll up my sleeves and actually do this myself.

Those are listed in order of likelihood.

Thanks for the tips. I created a foreign language keyboard in KDE3.x some years ago, but it stopped working in KDE4.x. This module that you pointed me to may fix that, so I appreciate your bringing it to my attention.

Frank.

[Guest]

How did you enter EFI/BIOS?

Hi Guys,

I also got an Asus x202e-dh31t recently and have tried to press and hold "F2", "delete", or "esc" key while booting in order to enter EFI/BIOS, but none is working.
What key did you guys press to enter EFI/BIOS in this netbook?
I really need to enter BIOS to disable secure boot. Please help!

Just bought an Asus Vivobook X202E netbook that comes with Win8 and touch screen. Specs are good for a sub $500 machine. I wondered if it would run Linux, so did a search and found two links to suggest that it would. One is here, and the other is here. So, I went and bought one.

After turning secure boot off in the BIOS, I booted initially from a USB flash drive using 32 bit Kubuntu 12.04. All seemed to work. I then tried to ...
...

[Frank616]

Zoello:

F2 is the correct key. Don't press and hold it, but keep pressing and releasing from the moment you press the power key until you enter the UEFI setup screen.

Frank.

[james147]

Hi Guys,

I also got an Asus x202e-dh31t recently and have tried to press and hold "F2", "delete", or "esc" key while booting in order to enter EFI/BIOS, but none is working.
What key did you guys press to enter EFI/BIOS in this netbook?
I really need to enter BIOS to disable secure boot. Please help!

Did you check the manual that it came with? I suspect it will change from computer to computer but I don't own any uefi computers so don't know for sure.

[Frank616]

Take a look at keyboard-configuration (in the default repositories) and/or what shows up with xkeys in the Muon Search box.

My efforts to try GRUB settings had no effect (GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="acpi_osi=Linux acpi_backlight=vendor")

I may try some others.

However, in the meantime, what did you mean about keyboard configuration? What am I looking for?

Thanks.

Frank.

[Frank616]

OK, tried several GRUB default options, but nothing seems to have worked. All the other special function-key + special key combinations work, including sound, screen blank, sound mute. Cannot seem to enable the screen brightness keys.

Not that it is a major issue, as I do have a couple of one-line batch files linked to icons that use xbacklight to increased and decrease screen brightness, and this works well enough.

I did discover one other thing: I can shut the machine down from the three button exit dialog, but I have to click on the text in the 'Turn Off Computer" button, and not the red power off button that is just beside it. The red button will only suspend to RAM -- no other choices in the drop down list. However, clicking the text area to the left of it will shut the machine down.

I have yet to try the HDMI out, but I am told that it works. I have to buy another cable for that, as I only have a micro HDMI to HDMI cable, not a mini HDMI to HDMI.

I have confirmed that the SD card reader works just fine, having transferred a bunch of shots from my Sony NEX-7 SD flash card with no problem.

My next effort will be to try to enable the KDE netbook interface, and play with the touch screen.

Frank.

[Frank616]

OK, just switched into the Netbook interface of KDE. It comes up fine, and works fine with a mouse, but the touchscreen only moves the mouse pointer. I cannot find a way to select an item and open an application from one of the desktop icons. In other words, I cannot duplicate a double-click from the touchscreen. Double tap, two finger tap, long tap -- none of them are recognized. The mouse cursor moves immediately to the point on the screen where I place my finger, but I cannot select anything. I can select items in the standard KDE desktop interface, oddly enough. A double tab there does simulate a double-click.

System Settings | Input Devices does show a graphics tablet in the left pane, but the right pane says it is not connected. I am assuming that there is no driver for it yet, though I have not checked that out thoroughly.

Anyway, the little machine works well enough for my limited needs, and as time goes on, the devs will undoubtedly catch up with the hardware. They always do.

Frank.

[Guest]

I have this same laptop, installed with Ubuntu, naturally with same issues.

- The touchpad has "swing-button" - that is, you cannot press both buttons at the same time to emulate 3rd button (to paste selection). Have you figured out how to emulate 3rd button on this touchpad?
- Wired connection not working
- Wireless not connecting to all networks. Most networks work like a charm and connection is very fast, but some it seems to be allergic with and does not get authenticated at all.
- Same issues with touchscreen (though I'm not using it, as I don't need it..)
- Screen brightness keys not working
- Battery life only 3 hours or so, compared to 5 hours given in specs. Would like to do some tweaking to improve battery life, though this isn't a major issue.

[Frank616]

Omkaar:

I don't use the touchpad. I prefer a mouse. In fact, I keep bumping the pad while typing, sending the cursor off across the screen. Very annoying, so have disabled the touchpad with:

modprobe -r psmouse

I have that one-line batch file linked to an icon on my desktop. Clicking the icon and supplying the admin password for sudo disables the touchpad.

My wired connection does not work either, and I don't know why. I just haven't gotten around to tracing that one. In fact, I had forgotten about it.

I haven't had a problem connecting to other networks wirelessly, but then, I use Kubuntu. I don't think the same network manager is used in both versions, but I'm not sure of that. I do sometimes have problems making the initial connection. If it doesn't work, I find I often need to delete the connection, and re-create it. I do that by letting Network Manager scan for a network, select it, check the 'connect automatically' box, switch tabs and select the type of security (most often, Personal WPA), provide the password, save everything, then try to connect. The Kubuntu Network Manager is very slow to update its list of available networks. Once the list is updated, however, it seems to connect alright.

Screen brightness can be adjusted with xbacklight. If it is not installed, then get it from the repository. xbacklight increases or decreases the backlight in percentage steps. I use the following two commands:

xbacklight -inc 20

increases the backlight by 20%.

xbacklight -dec 20

reduces is by 20%.

I have these two one-line batch files linked to up arrow and down arrow icons in the ribbon of icons on the bottom of my screen. That way they are available in all my workspaces. I tried a number of other things first, like changing the keboard definition and playing with some other boot settings, but found nothing that worked. I did manage to enable the sound keys. Just look up higher in this thread if you haven't seen that already.

I am pleased with the little machine. It is very fast (with the SSD intalled), and has a decent keyboard for a cheap unit.

Hope some of this helps. If you find a solution for the wired ethernet, be sure to post back.

Frank.

[ironmantis7x]

Wow!!! This sounds promising!!!
Has anyone tried Kubuntu 12.10 on any other Asus Touch screen -- like the Asus Zenbook UX31a Touch screen??
I am considering picking that one up this week and trying it out with Kubuntu 12.10.

ironmantis7x

[Frank616]

Ironmantis7x:

Has anyone tried Kubuntu 12.10 on any other Asus Touch screen

The touch screen sort-of works on the X202E.

I can move the mouse pointer around with the touchscreen, and I can select items that require a single click. I've not been able to determine how to initiate a double click. Touching the screen twice does not seem to work, or at least does not work consistently. Multi-touch does not seem to work on the screen either. Multi-touch DOES work on the touchpad.

The touch screen does not show up as a device in Settings | Input Devices. Disabling the touchpad does NOT disable the touch screen, so the touch screen may be using the mouse driver.

I also find that the touch screen works better in desktop Kubuntu than it does in Plasma Active (netbook interface), which surprised me.

I have a vanilla Kubuntu 12.10 64 bit installation on my Asus X202E. I have made no effort to try to enable the touch screen beyond the way it is supported 'out of the box'. Quite honestly, I may not ever bother. I hate finger prints on the screen. I can wipe off my smartphone on my pants. To clean the screen on the 11.6" netbook screen takes more effort, a big cloth, and a small amount of glass cleaner. I can't be bothered for the little bit of utility that it affords.

Frank.