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.

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Page Contents Introduction Editing This Page Specifications Linux Compatibility Notes Related Resources Summary

Introduction

This is a guide to running Linux with the Asus M6R laptop. This is quite a cheap laptop but still quite fast. Unfortunately the wireless controller is not the best under Linux.

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Specifications

Processor	Intel Pentium-M 1.5Ghz
Screen	15.4" WXGA
RAM	512MB
HDD	40GB
Optical Drive	DVD+-RW
Graphics	ATI Mobility Radeon 9100 IGP
Network	10/100 Ethernet, Broadcom BCM94306 802.11g Wireless
Other	4 x USB2.0, 1 x Firewire

Linux Compatibility

Device	Compatibility	Comments
Processor	Yes
Screen	Yes
Optical Drive	Yes
Graphics	Yes
Sound	Yes	Use the snd-atiixp driver
Ethernet	Yes
Wireless	Yes
56K Modem	Not Tested
USB	Yes
Firewire	Not Tested
SD Card Reader	Not Tested
PCMCIA	Not Tested

Notes

For the graphics chip you can use either the open source radeon driver or ATI's proprietary fglrx driver. For installation instructions, you can view our Configuring an ATI graphics chip guide. For 3D support, you will need the proprietary driver. Some older versions of X may not have support for the ATI Mobility Radeon 9100 IGP, in this case you will need to use the proprietary driver.

This wireless controller in this laptop does not have any native drivers for Linux so you will need to use the ndiswrapper driver. For installation instructions, you can view our Configuring the ndiswrapper driver guide. The windows driver to use with ndiswrapper can be found here.

Related Resources

Preparing your laptop for Linux
Configuring an ATI graphics chip
Configuring the ndiswrapper driver for wireless controllers without native Linux drivers
Increasing battery life

Summary

The main issue with the Asus M6R is the setup of the wireless controller. Other than that there were no problems in getting the M6R working.


Have you installed Linux on this laptop? If so how about leaving a comment about your success in the comments section below.