ASUS G55VW

This page contains instructions, tips, pointers, and links for installing and configuring Arch Linux on the ASUS G55VW ROG Laptop

Bootloader

Boot on usb

Press Escape to get the boot menu. If usb bootable device is not listed, enter configuration menu and directly press F10 to save. Press Escape again on reboot : this time USB bootable device should appears in the menu.

Set up UEFI boot

Follow the page of the chosen boot loader listed in Arch boot process#Boot loader.

Graphics Drivers

See NVIDIA.

Other Keys

It is also possible to use Dynamic Kernel Module Support (DKMS) (package in community), to avoid compiling the whole kernel:

1 get the archive at https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=12054636#post12054636 (ubuntu forums account + minimum of 50 posts required) or https://markmail.org/message/idvl6s27r26xzorb (no account required)

Note: there is perhaps more suitable place to get the asus-wmi kernel module sources, the patch and the dkms conf file

2 extract the archive, and then extract the .deb and get the sources inside (asus-wmi.c is already patched with above patch):

 # cp -a usr/src/asus-wmi-0.2 /usr/src/
 # cd /usr/src/
 # dkms add -m asus-wmi -v 0.2
 # dkms built -m asus-wmi -v 0.2 -k 3.4.6-1-ARCH
 # dkms status
 # dkms install -m asus-wmi -v 0.2 -k 3.4.6-1-ARCH
 # dkms status

replace 3.4.6-1-ARCH by your output for uname -r

3 There is still a problem since dkms does not gzip the kernel module and Arch Linux does (see $ modinfo asus-wmi):

# cd /lib/modules/3.4.6-1-ARCH/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/
# mv asus-wmi.ko.gz asus-wmi.ko.gz.save
# gzip asus-wmi.ko

Note: there is probably a cleaner way to do that with dkms

4 After reboot, xev should display events for Fn keys. And keyboard backlight can be trigger by:

# echo 0 >> /sys/class/leds/asus\:\:kbd_backlight/brightness
# echo 3 >> /sys/class/leds/asus\:\:kbd_backlight/brightness