Posted by ap0calypse on 28. September 2009 – 13:05
hi,
just wanted to give you a small update about how things are going with the current kernel (2.6.31.1 so far) on the 901 model from Asus.
Graphics:
The intel chipset ( Intel Corporation Mobile 945GME Express Integrated Graphics Controller ) works very well and even KMS works like expected. There were some minor issues that required to build a initial ramdisk in the past, but now that’s not necessary anymore. I don’t know if that’s because of a bugfix or just some lucky configuration of my kernel. 
Wireless:
WiFi works with the rt2860 module from /staging.
Bluetooth:
I managed to use my cell phone as a modem device. It wasn’t very difficult. I’ll write a small article soon how to get this done. wvdial and rfcomm do the dirty work anyway …
I also bought a very nice little IBM thinkpad some days ago which I am currently tweaking to fit my needs. Screenshots will follow. Here is one from my eeePC:
Posted by ap0calypse on 18. September 2009 – 08:58
Filed under general, linux
Ok guys, I figured out how to fix the issue I wrote earlier about. Sometimes KMS didn’t work on boot-up and I didn’t know why. After some research I found the reason. The intel-agp module has to be loaded before the intel driver gets loaded. Sometimes (I don’t even know why) the driver got loaded earlier than the intel-agp and KMS failed. My simple fix is to create an initial ramdisk which loads intel-agp. So far it works quite well … The error didn’t appear again.
Here are the steps for 2.6.31:
# create initrd
mkinitrd -c -k 2.6.31 -m intel-agp
OK: /lib/modules/2.6.31/kernel/drivers/char/agp/agpgart.ko added.
OK: /lib/modules/2.6.31/kernel/drivers/char/agp/intel-agp.ko added.
3224 blocks
# this now created a file named initrd.gz under /boot
Next, you have to include this line to you lilo.conf, under your “root = blabla” line:
initrd = /boot/initrd.gz
and run lilo to update. You have to comment out the “vga = xxx” line too by the way.
I hope this helps some of you. Enjoy!
Posted by ap0calypse on 10. September 2009 – 14:17
Filed under general, linux
today I tried out KMS for the intel-chipset on my eee 901. It results in reduced flickering when starting X and a much higher resolution when booting up. So far, I’m glad it works now. The only thing that sucks is, that there is something wrong with KMS when I reboot via 3-finger-salute. It works perfectly when I type in “reboot”, but it does not come up in KMS again if I reboot via [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [Del] … strange.
Config for kernel 2.6.31:
Device Drivers --->
Graphics Support --->
Direct Rendering Manager (XFree86 4.1.0 and higher DRI support) --->
<*> Intel 830M, 845G, 852GM, 855GM, 856G
[*] Enable modesetting on intel by default
Today I found a very nice ncurses-based calendar tool named calcurse. At first it is a bit hard to get used to it, but once you figured out how it works, you’ll love it.
Friends of console applications will love it anyway . I have always been searching for a reasonable console tool for this task. Now I found one 
Here is the link to the website:
calcurse
I’m using it as my primary calendar application to get an overview of my daily tasks and events.
Here a screenshot of me entering my university lessons 
:
entering stuff in calcurse
