March 07, 2010

HOWTO have wireless working on an ASUS EEE PC 1001P in Ubuntu

HOWTO have wireless working on an ASUS EEE PC 1001P in Ubuntu
or, alternatively,
HOWTO add AR2427 support to Ubuntu


UPDATE:

This is the last update I plan to do to this blog post. Ubuntu 10.10 (at this moment only available in it's "Alpha 2" version) already supports this out of the box. Thus, the most recommended procedure is to install Ubuntu 10.10 or later. No other support is being offered regarding this issue.


It's pretty simple, really. This blog post is being written just because all the "other ways" of doing it I've seen on the web until now were painful in comparison.

  1. Open a terminal, and type:
  2. wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/daily/2010-06-15-maverick/linux-image-2.6.35-999-generic_2.6.35-999.201006151505_i386.deb
  3. sudo dpkg -i linux-image-2.6.33-999-generic_2.6.33-999.201003061003_i386.deb
  4. reboot

Oh, how I love free software :-)

Update:
The brightness controls for this laptop are kind of messed up when you install Ubuntu there, and get even more messed up when you update the kernel (what I said you to do before in order to get wireless working). To fix it, you have to do, in a terminal:
  • sudo gedit /etc/default/grub
  • change the line that says
    GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
    to
    GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi_osi=Linux"
  • save the file and quit, and then, in the terminal, type:
  • sudo update-grub
  • reboot
Update 2: Notice that now the kernel version I'm telling you to download in this blog post is different. This kernel version has a couple of bugs solved that affected 1001P netbooks, so it is recommended that you use this one instead.

Update 3: See the top disclaimer.

9 comments:

  1. Mind Booster Noori,

    I'm running Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook Remix, and I had trouble following your suggestion. I installed the new kernel without any problems, but when loading it would just freeze up.

    When I run uname -r, it says that I'm running 2.6.31-20-generic. Is there an incompatibility with upgrading to a .33 version from a .31?

    Any thoughts?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Tom, I had this HOWTO done both in 9.10 and 9.10NR without any problems (freezes or anything else). They were freshly installed. I can't think of why it isn't working for you...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yeah! Great!

    Many thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  4. thank you for your post, however on boot with the new kernel it halts on loading

    kernel_init+0x6a/0x100
    kernel_thread_helper+0x6/0x30

    i tried regular and recovery mode. same issue.
    using UNR on Asus eee 1001p

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hello Tom I followed your directions as well but I have a problem. I press linux-image-2.6.33-999-generic then it lists a whole bunch of numbers and to the left of them is a list of commands I think but then it freezes with the cursor blinking on the bottom right of the screen. I cannot do anything but force restart. But when I restart it goes right back to the numbers and commands again it doesn't even give me a choice of Linux mode, like recovery or generic. So I have to uninstall and reinstall, done this twice. I think i will stick with W7 but I would really like this to work, wireless on a netbook is pretty major :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Brie987: this instructions keep working fine for me. Is your laptop a 1001P?

    Anyway, for those who this post doesn't help (sorry!), maybe you could try this:

    https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/lucid/+source/linux-backports-modules-2.6.32/+bug/521967/comments/28

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oh, just to add... Linux kernel 2.6.34 supports the driver out of the box. Maverik (Ubuntu 10.10) is planned to be released with 2.6.35, so backports of Maverik's kernel will probably be the best choice.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hi thanks for the reply. Yes it is a 1001P the exact is ASUS Eee PC 1001P-PU17-BK, don't know if this makes a difference. I am learning Linux so this takes time for me :( and I have no problem starting over when I come to a problem. Funny thing is I can tether my netbook with my G1 Android phone through usb so I can still us it if I am out side my wifi but I just would like the wifi to work. I will keep trying.

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  9. No problem, I hope you'll find a solution.

    I am strongly recommending everyone to whom this post doesn't work to try what's said in the official bug report on Ubuntu:

    https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/lucid/+source/linux-backports-modules-2.6.32/+bug/521967

    I've just started to follow that issue myself, so my comments will be seen there.

    ReplyDelete