Asus A6M
Created by: Bill Giannikos,Last modification on Mon 13 of Aug, 2007 [07:16 UTC]by Bill Giannikos
This guide is intended to provide you details on how well this laptop works with Linux and which drivers you need to configure. For details on how to actually install and configure the required drivers have a look at our guides section for distribution specific instructions.
Introduction
This is a guide to running Linux with the Asus A6M laptop. This laptop uses the AMD Turion64 processor, unfortunately its Linux compatibility is not the best.Editing This Page
View our Editing GuidelinesLinux Compatibility
| Device | Type | Compatibility | Comments |
| Processor | AMD Turion64 X2 TL-50 1.6 GHz | Yes | |
| Screen | 15.4" WXGA | Yes | |
| HDD | 80GB | Yes | |
| Optical Drive | DVD+-RW | Yes | |
| Graphics | NVIDIA GeForce Go 6100 | Yes | |
| Sound | Yes | Use the snd-hda-intel driver | |
| Ethernet | 10/100/1000 | Yes | |
| Wireless | Broadcom BCM4318 802.11g | Yes | |
| Bluetooth | Not Tested | ||
| 56K Modem | Not Tested | ||
| USB | 4 x USB2.0 | Yes | |
| Firewire | 1 x Firewire | Not Tested | |
| SD Card Reader | Not Tested | ||
| PCMCIA | Not Tested | ||
| Webcam | Not Tested |
Notes
For the NVIDIA GeForce Go 6100 featured in the A6M either the Xorg 'nv' driver or NVIDIA's proprietary 'nvidia' driver is usable. The proprietary driver is required for 3D support, more details in our installation guide guide.The Broadcom BCM4318 802.11g wireless built into the A6M has no native drivers so ndiswrapper must be used. More details on this is in our ndiswrapper guide. The windows driver to use is found on the Asus support website.
The r1000 driver is required for the ethernet port in the A6M. However, as it is proprietary, most Linux distributions do not include this driver. You will need to download it from here and install it manually. Work is in progress on the r8169 driver and support should be added in version 2.6.19.
Related Resources
Preparing your laptop for LinuxConfiguring a nVidia graphics chip
Configuring the ndiswrapper driver for wireless controllers without native Linux drivers
Increasing battery life
Summary
The Asus A6M currently has a couple of issues with Linux. The need to use the ndiswrapper driver does make configuring this laptop for Linux a little difficult.Have you installed Linux on this laptop? If so how about leaving a comment about your success in the comments section below.
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