ASUS Zenbook UX31E

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This page contains instructions, tips, pointers, and links for installing and configuring Arch Linux on the ASUS Zenbook UX31E Ultrabook. (There is probably little/no difference with his 11" little brother, the UX21E)

Installation problems

If you get an error trying to format partitions when installing Arch try adding this line to the kernel parameters

libata.dma=0

Compatibility

Touch Pad

There are different versions of the UX31, some have Sentelic and some have Elantec - Touch pads.

Elantec Touch pads

Touch & Scroll works out of the box. Clickpad functionality does not. (However, using two and three finger touches for right an middle click works fine).

If higher pressure must be applied to your touchpad in order to function properly, tweak the following properties according to your needs synaptics(4)

$ synclient FingerLow=5
$ synclient FingerHigh=15

Alternatively, edit your /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-synaptics.conf

Section "InputClass"
       Identifier "touchpad catchall"
       Driver "synaptics"
       MatchIsTouchpad "on"
       MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
       Option "TapButton1" "1"
       Option "TapButton2" "3"
       Option "TapButton3" "2"
       Option "VertTwoFingerScroll" "1"
       Option "HorizTwoFingerScroll" "1"
       Option "FingerLow" "5"
       Option "FingerHigh" "15"
EndSection

Tip: Multifinger taps: Two finger for middle click; three fingers for right click.

Sentelic Touchpads

The Sentelic Touchpad drivers have been added to the 3.2 kernel, so it should work out of the box by now. Since 3.4 this supports scrolling and multi-touch features. (In case of problems with the touchpad after resume see Suspend to RAM.) However it seems that two finger tapping and two finger scrolling are incompatible. To have both working you must use one of the following two patches.

ReubenBond

ReubenBond has made contact with a sentelic representative who has provided him with official documentation on putting the device into absolute positioning mode. The latter can be accessed here: https://sourceforge.net/p/fsp-lnxdrv/code/HEAD/tree/trunk/doc/fsp_packet.txt

This looks very promising and ReubenBond is committed to developing a driver in the next few weeks. This is all referenced in the forum https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=125262&p=2

Saaros

Saaros's driver works well for two finger and side scrolling and is fairly straight forward to apply and build. Unfortunately however, it does slightly impede normal functionality, pointing does not seem quite as accurate, tapping does not seem quite as sensitive and tapping and dragging/selecting can be quite tricky. This code should eventually be accepted into the official kernel: https://github.com/saaros/sentelic/issues/2.

Graphics

Works out of the box

HDMI Out

There seems to be a problem whereby having an HDMI device plugged in at boot results in the screens being switched and also the laptop screen not coming on. To make this more bearable you can automate switching HDMI on with the following udev rule and script:

ACTION=="change", SUBSYSTEM=="drm", RUN+="/usr/sbin/hdmi-plugged"

#!/bin/bash

export XAUTHORITY=/home/$USER/.Xauthority
export DISPLAY=:0

/usr/bin/xrandr -display :0 --output eDP1 --auto --output HDMI1 --auto --above eDP1

Colour Profiles

Colour accuracy on the Zenbook is not very good. There is a UX31E ICC profile on the Noteboocheck review. However, I find that too green using xcalib and so use the UX21E version.

Networking

Wireless

The embedded Qualcomm adapter works fine with the ath9k driver included in the kernel.

Unstable Wireless when using Network Manager

NetworkManager generally fails to work for one reason or another on the UX31E. Consider using an alternative such as netctl. Some users experience connection drops when using wireless. For some users this can be fixed by setting the wireless connection's BSSID (usually the router's MAC address). This only works if your wireless connection only has one access point as the BSSID is unique for each access point.

An alternative solution is to disable the ath9k driver ani feature, to do this use the following : echo 1 > /sys/kernel/debug/ieee80211/phy0/ath9k/disable_ani

Ethernet - Asix AX88772 USB Ethernet

The Asix AX887722 USB Ethernet drivers are included in the kernel, so it should work out of the box.

Solid State Drive

Check Solid State Drives

Power Management

Suspend to RAM

The USB modules must be unloaded or the laptop will not come out of sleep mode.

Put

SUSPEND_MODULES="xhci_hcd ehci_hcd uhci_hcd"

in

/etc/pm/config.d/unload_module

If you have patched the kernel to enable multitouch with the Sentelic touchpad, the touchpad may stop working after resume. In this case add the psmouse module to the list.

SUSPEND_MODULES="xhci_hcd ehci_hcd uhci_hcd psmouse"

PCIe ASPM

Do not add the following option to the kernel line

pcie_aspm=force

if

# dmesg | grep -i "acpi fadt"

outputs

ACPI FADT declares the system does not support PCIe ASPM, so disable it.

i915

Enabling i915_enable_rc6 will improve battery performance significantly. To enable it, add the following option to your kernel line.

i915.i915_enable_rc6=1

To check the current state of all i915 parameters execute the following (bash)

# for i in /sys/module/i915/parameters/*;do echo ${i}=`cat $i`;done

Module parameter details

$ modinfo i915

Additional powersavings

Configure Laptop Mode Tools and do not forget to check CPU frequency scaling

Additional resources