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.
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.
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