This is a guide to running Linux with the Asus A2K laptop.
This guide is intended to provide you details on how well this laptop works with Linux and which modules you need to configure. For details on how to actually install and configure the required modules have a look at our guides section for distribution specific instructions.
If you would like to edit this page please first view our Editing Guidelines.
| Name | Asus A2K |
| Processor | AMD Mobile Athlon64 3000+ |
| Screen | 15” XGA |
| RAM | 512MB |
| HDD | 60GB |
| Optical Drive | DVD+-RW |
| Graphics | ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 |
| Network | 10/100/1000 Ethernet, Broadcom BCM4306 802.11g Wireless |
| Other | 5 x USB2.0, 1 x Firewire |
| Device | Compatibility | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Processor | Yes | |
| Screen | Yes | |
| Optical Drive | Yes | |
| Graphics | Yes | |
| Sound | Yes | Use the snd-hda-intel module |
| Ethernet | Yes | |
| Wireless | Yes | |
| 56K Modem | Not Tested | |
| USB | Yes | |
| Firewire | Not Tested | |
| Card Reader | Not Tested | |
| PCMCIA | Yes |
For the graphics chip you can use both the open source radeon module and ATI's proprietary fglrx module. For installation instructions, you can view our Configuring an ATI graphics chip guide. For 3D support, you will need the proprietary module. Some older versions of X may not have support for the ATI Mobility Radeon 9700, in this case you will need to use the proprietary module.
This wireless controller in this laptop does not have any native drivers for Linux so you will need to use the ndiswrapper module. For installation instructions, you can view our Configuring the ndiswrapper module guide. The windows driver to use with ndiswrapper can be found here.
The USR5410 802.11 card works in well in the PC card slot, so PCMCIA works fine.
The main issue with this laptop is the setup of the wireless network. Other than that there were no problems in getting this laptop working when used with an up to date Linux distribution. It is recommended to use a Linux distribution with kernel version 2.6.16 or greater, such as Fedora Core 5 or Ubuntu 6.06.
Discussion
Video Compatability
Be careful of the video driver that Debian flavors choose automatically, some can be slightly incompatable and can cause the card to malfunction i.e. permanent horazontal lines on the screen which vary from restart, to restart