Popular Guides
View more guides at Linux Wiki Guides
Welcome to LinLap - The Linux Laptop Wiki
Asus M51Tr
Introduction
This is a compatibility guide to running Linux with the Asus M51Tr laptop.
This page is just for discussing using Linux on the Asus M51Tr. For a general discussion about this laptop you can visit the Asus M51Tr page on LapWik.
Editing This Page
If you would like to edit this page please first view our Editing Guidelines.
Specifications
For full specifications see the Asus M51Tr specifications page.
| Name | Asus M51Tr |
| Processor | AMD Turion 64 X2 Mobile Technology Processor ZM82/ZM80/RM70; |
| Screen | 15.4“ WXGA/WXGA+/WSXGA+ Color-Shine (Glare-type) |
| Graphics | ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3470 |
| RAM | Up to 4GB |
| HDD | 160GB to 320GB - 5400rpm |
| Optical Drive | DVD Super Multi Double Layer: Blu-Ray DVD Combo |
| Network | 10/100/1000 Integrated 802.11b/g |
Linux Compatibility
| Device | Compatibility | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Processor | Yes | |
| Screen | Yes | |
| HDD | Yes | |
| Optical Drive | Yes | |
| Graphics | Yes | For 3D, ATI Catalyst™ 10.3 Proprietary Linux x86 Display Driver is needed instead of radeonhd driver. HDMI output was not tested though it is recognized by system |
| Sound | Yes | With ALSA 1.021, headphones output, microphone, speakers all work correctly. SPDIF (multiplexed with headphones output) was not tested |
| Ethernet | Yes | |
| Wireless | Yes | |
| Bluetooth | Yes | |
| Modem | Not working | Not recognized |
| USB | Yes | |
| Firewire | Yes | Tested with Kino and external HDD |
| Card Reader | Yes | Only SD card tested |
| ExpressCard Slot | Not Tested | |
| Webcam | Yes | Tested with Kopete |
| Fingerprint reader | Yes | |
| Touchpad | Yes | Tested with Gsynaptics |
Notes
There are two ways of installing ExpressGate (included on utility DVD) on this machine. One is via Windows (XP works). After install, you can safely delete all Windows folders, i.e. leave only ASUS.000, ASUS.SYS and splash.idx. Then you can proceed with Linux install. The other one is via WINE. More about this procedure can be found here http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1049170
Summary
With openSUSE 11.2, installation went smoothly. Except for the modem, all the components were recognized properly and worked out of the box. Battery management is working, brightness hotkeys are recognized and working, as well as the volume up/down and multimedia hotkeys. ExpressGate hotkey is also working (provided that ExpressGate is installed as discussed under NOTES section. Regarding graphics, ATI Catalyst™ 10.3 Proprietary Linux x86 Display Driver is better then default radeonhd driver. With this driver, you can stand-by and hibernate this machine properly.
Author(s)
Bojan Vondra
Discussion
Is it true that on Arch in order to install xorg, you first need to install catlyst?
No, but if you need proprietary driver you need to install catalyst 11.3 or later to get support for x-server 1.10. Use the latest packages and you'll hardly run into trouble.
Does the opensource driver work well? Which one is better?
I use fglrx, because I'm still gaming a lot, but heard that there are improvements lately. This guy have a ton of information on current state of the open source driver on Arch:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1238129 /the first post is updated often/
And now there is improvement on the Open Source driver on Arch as they enabled Floating Point Textures support:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OTUxMg
Forgot to say that the choice of driver depends more on what kind of Window Manager/Desktop Environment combination you'll use. With Gnome3 and Gnome-shell /Mutter/ there's a lot of problems with proprietary driver. Right now, I'm at Gnome3 in Fallback mode with Compiz Running:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=938805#p938805
If you are not going to play games a lot, you can always use the OSS Driver as you will have much more stable and fluid experience.
I'm asking because, for example, OpenSUSE doesn't boot at all with opensource drivers, unless you add “nomodeset” boot option, and Ubuntu often doesn't shut down again because of open drivers. And when I install fglrx, I got huge lags with compiz even when minimizing/maximizing windows. One man also said than Arch doesn't boot (like OpenSUSE) with open drivers on this laptop, so you have to first install proprietary drivers and then install xorg, because xorg will not install with “nomodeset” option. I also heard about some patches for xserver, so that proprietary drivers will work well with it. Are there such?
Have to try, the problem is that the notebook isn't around and there's many dependencies that have to be removed before changing catalyst with OSS driver. I'll write here when I have more info.
P.S. I think that it can't boot without “nomodeset” with the proprietary driver.
Does someone have idea if the PowerXpress function in catalyst 11.4 and later is of use in the case of presence of both discrete and integrated graphics? When I do “aticonfig –initial -f” beside the usual “xorg.conf initialized” I got an additional lines with:
“PowerXpress error: Cannot stat '/usr/lib64/fglrx': No such file or directory
Failed to initialize libglx for discrete GPU”
Did you tried sudo aticonfig –initial -f –adapter=all?
Just tried it and it returns:
sudo aticonfig –initial -f –adapter=all –acpi-services=offUninitialised file found, configuring.
PowerXpress error: Cannot stat '/usr/lib64/fglrx': No such file or directory
Failed to initialize libglx for discrete GPU
Found here - http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubuntu_Natty_Installation_Guide:
“If you are using the x86_64 architecture (64 bit), be sure to install “ia32-libs” before proceeding!”
I don't know whether it does for Arch Linux.
Anyone tried with Ubuntu 11.04?
It was released yestersay officially, but has some major issues with power management so I'll wait a while. I'm using arch for now and everything is fine if we exclude the mic problem, even the fingerprint reader works :) I used Turion Power Control to tweak the voltages of the CPU in idle and load, now the battery life and temperatures are better.
Follow instructions from here - http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=10263323&postcount=17, and your front mic will work.
Thanks! I'll try them later at home, because the notebook isn't in front of me right now.
It worked! And it was so easy, thank you again!
Tried openSUSE 11.3 and 11.4 - freeze during installation
The problem with ACPI is actually related to fglrx and can be solved with “sudo aticonfig –acpi-services=off”. All credit goes to Catalyst Archwiki at Arch Linux official wiki site.
Maybe you know how to get rid of annoying “cannot reserve MMIO region” message during boot?
In Ubuntu releases there is the same problem… Is any solution for this ?
The Ubuntu forums says, this is *just* a kernel message and can be ignored, but in my opinion the boot process hangs for a little time (before this message)
I tried bios upgrade (v208), nothing happened :(
That's actually only on Ubuntu. On other distributions there is no such message.
On Ubuntu 10.10 when I plug off AC adapter, system freezes. I suppose that's because ACPI dosn't work properly on this laptop.
The front mic problem is solved easily.
how you fixed microphone problem?
I would like to know that too…
I do not remember exactly. I followed some advices from this thread - http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1552196
Actually there's some issues with Ubuntu 10.10 - there is no possibility to install fglrx because of some bug related to acpi described here - https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/acpi/+bug/75174. The front mic isn't working at all and now I'm figuring out how to start using the fingerprint reader - there is an interesting solution here - http://www.pdfserver.net/fingerprint/index.php
Greetings!
G'day,
I'm having problems with trying to integrate HDMI output and switching off properly. Any Help would be kindly appreciated.
Kind Regards,
Suhel.
Hello,
I have this notebook, I had ACPI and g1raphic problems when trying install linux. But every problem was solved when Ubuntu 9/10 was releases, it perfectly works!