This description has been linked at tuxmobil.org.

Hey Guys!

This instruction is to help installing Debian 5.0 on an ASUS X50R-F5R notebook (released in late 2007). It describes my experience with kernel 2.6.26-1.
If you are interested to see the same instruction for Debian GNU/Linux 4.0, click here.

The installer detects both, the ethernet card and the wireless card. But I was not able to activate the wireless card at first (this is usually done with Fn-F2). I will mention some more details about that lateron.

What works out of the box: graphics card (the correct mode is selected automatically), sound card, ethernet card, card reader, bluetooth.


Installing the Penguin


Although I didn't experience the following problems on my laptop model, I would like to publish a note that I received from Nahuel Greco who uses an Asus X50R-AP199P with Debian 4.0:
"Also, I'm using ndiswrapper for the wifi card and I note that sometimes I must unload the kernel module "asus_laptop" to enable the wireless led using the switch at the laptop side. This can be very confusing at first time."

Output of lspci:
00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc Device 5a31 (rev 01)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge
00:04.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge
00:05.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge
00:06.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge
00:07.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge
00:12.0 SATA controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 Non-Raid-5 SATA
00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI0)
00:13.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI1)
00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI2)
00:13.3 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI3)
00:13.4 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI4)
00:13.5 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB Controller (EHCI)
00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 SMBus Controller (rev 13)
00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 IDE
00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)
00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 PCI to LPC Bridge
00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RC410 [Radeon Xpress 200M]
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)
06:00.0 Ethernet controller: Attansic Technology Corp. L2 100 Mbit Ethernet Adapter (rev a0)

I hope this introduction helps. The version for Debian 4.0 was created between 2007-12-24 and 2008-01-13. Updated on 2008-04-13 and 2008-06-17.
The version for Debian 5.0 was written on 2009-07-25 and updated on 2009-10-04. For further questions about this computer, feel free to send a mail to kontakt (at) k-40.de . Document released under CC-BY-SA 3.0 licence.
Thomas