Hey Guys!
As I had some trouble installing Linux on the ASUS X50R-F5R notebook, I find it quite helpful to let you know about how to succeed with this little "monster". I decided to buy this computer at Christmas 2007, because it was quite cheap compared to other notebooks with about the same equipment.
When going to a computer shop with a KNOPPIX cd, you should not be surprised that it doesn't come up with X11 (update: X11 now works out of the box using Knoppix 5.3!). You shouldn't even be frightened of KNOPPIX detecting neither LAN nor WLAN nor the sound card. These problems can be solved when installing a distribution to your hard disk. But before buying this computer you should keep one thing in mind: You're not able to install Linux via LAN or WLAN, so you need Bluetooth, CDs or DVDs. Additionally, this computer doesn't have a PCMCIA port (only ExpressCard).
Installing the Penguin
I burnt a Debian 4.0 network installation CD on another PC. I knew exactly, that I needed more than that, but I neither had a DVD burner nor a clue on which Debian CD I could find ndiswrapper or bluetooth.
Installing the basic system caused no problems. The installer didn't find any ethernet card, but I already warned you of this. I decided to use the unstable branch.
(You don't need to read this paragraph if you don't want to install via a bluetooth dial-up connection. I suppose most of you don't have this opportunity): As I have a UMTS Internet flatrate and a mobile phone with bluetooth support, I thought it was the easiest and maybe most freaky way to establish an internet connection. But how could I do that without having network access and bluetooth drivers? I committed a severe crime that you actually should never do: I started KNOPPIX 5.1 and copied the whole CD in a subdirectory of my Debian partition. Then I copied the midnight commander with its editor and viewer into the /usr/bin directory and started Debian again. Now it told me that there were various libs it couldn't find. No problem, because I just needed to copy them from my KNOPPIX "source" to /usr/lib. Once the mc ran, I analyzed the KNOPPIX /etc/init.d/bluetooth file to find out, which programmes were needed to get bluetooth running. That took a while. I also made use of the KNOPPIX gprsconnect, modemlink and modemtool script, including pppd. After an hour of experiment the whole thing worked, I got a connection to the Internet and could go on.
Next step was to install that ugly closed source fglrx video driver from ATI. Update: Maybe it now works without fglrx, as Knoppix 5.3 starts X11 using another driver. For fglrx, first you should download and configure your X server with dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg. Then get the non-free driver (remember to allow non-free packages in /etc/apt/sources.list, just type non-free behind the source) with apt-get install module-assistant fglrx-driver. After that, type aticonfig -initial and m-a a-i fglrx-kernel. After a reboot, it should work.
Now it's time for WLAN. There is an Atheros chipset, so my first thought was using madwifi. But due to a bug in madwifi, this doesn't work out of the box at the moment. You can follow this instruction using this patched version of madwifi. It works perfectly! I tested it! But if you were using ndiswrapper before, remember that it only works after blacklisting ndiswrapper (in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist) and rebooting. The module that provides the WLAN compatibility can be loaded with modprobe ath_pci. Remember that you need to do ifconfig wlan0 up before you may search for networks and set the wireless parameters. This is different to other drivers I know.
Alternatively you can use ndiswrapper: Get ndiswrapper and do m-a a-i ndiswrapper. Then download the windows driver.
I had to face a bug, that modprobe ndiswrapper didn't work, the module wasn't found. If the bug is still there, you need to get and compile ndiswrapper on your own.
Now do ndiswrapper -i driver-directory/Drivers/XP-x32/net5211.inf and have a look whether ndiswrapper -l shows that driver. Now it's time for modprobe ndiswrapper and see whether iwconfig/iwlist work as usual. Remember that for a WEP connection you need to configure with iwconfig wlan0 essid NAME key open KEYSTRING. That open was new to my and I wondered why the network connection didn't work at first.
LAN: Thanks to Nahuel Greco who sent me a mail on this issue, I can report that there is a driver called atl2. It is included in the Debian unstable release. Nevertheless, I didn't test it myself yet.
Sound is provided by the module snd_hda_intel which loads automatically. I installed esound and libesd-alsa0 to be able to play several sound files at the same time.
The camera needs an experimental driver from sourceforge which you can find here. Then it works okay, using e.g. camorama, xawtv or camstream. The colour is unrealistic with the first two programmes, but okay with the last one. I don't know why.
Bluetooth works out of the box once bluez is installed. While troubleshooting , keep in mind that there are two switches which disable bluetooth/WLAN. One on the left side and one is Fn-F2. There are two leds near the touchpad that indicate whether bt/WLAN is activated.
The card reader works out of the box
ACPI: After installing the acpi packages, acpi worked. I was able to suspend and realive the computer with the Fn-F1 keys. Somehow, I don't know what exactly made it work. I installed the klaptop programmes so I could switch on some functions with kcontrol, but there should be an easier way. Hotkeys can be configured with the files in /etc/acpi/events. To find out what signals come from the hotkeys, use the programme acpi_listen.
For controlling the CPU frequency with speedstep you can insert into /etc/modules:
cpufreq_ondemand
cpufreq_conservative
cpufreq_powersave
freq_table
speedstep_lib
00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc Unknown 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 Unknown device 5a37
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 SB600 SMBus (rev 13)
00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 IDE
00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 Azalia
00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 PCI to LPC Bridge
00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 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. Unknown device 001c (rev 01)
06:00.0 Ethernet controller: Attansic Technology Corp. Unknown device 2048 (rev a0)