1	# Linux on the Asus EeePC 900 
	# kjteoh 
	# 25.11.2008
     2	
     3	My previous laptop was another Asus M5200AE - single core Pentium 1.6Ghz
     4	and Slackware 12.1 installed on it without incident, so thats a big plus.
     5	The unfortunate part of the M5200AE is nothingi - its one of the better
     6	laptops Ive used.  Only that if you turn off the wireless with the
     7	hotkeys, you have no way of turning it back on unless you have Windows
     8	elsewhere to bring it back up (which I didn't).  Further, that laptop
     9	is as good as gone now - and its in some "forensic" department believe
    10	it or not.  But thats a different story altogether.
    11	
    12	Model:  Asus EeePC 900 HardDrive: 30Gigs (preinstalled with Windoze XP)
    13	SD Card Placeholder: optional Processor: Celeron 900 RAM: 1Gig Network:
    14	NIC - Atheros L2 Fast Ethernet (Reported by Windows) Network: Wireless -
    15	Atheros AR5007EG Wireless Network Adaptor (Reported by Windows)
    16	
    17	I had decided to keep Windows and whatever preinstalls included (for
    18	my wife - honest) and in turn opt to install Linux on the 1Gig Micro SD
    19	which my vendor threw in.  And, taking the easy way out, I preinstalled
    20	Slax 6.0.7 (www.slax.org).
    21	
    22	PS: I have a copy available for anonymouse ftp at
    23	ftp://203.115.226.130/pub
    24	
    25	Its not difficult to get Live CD to pendrive/thumbdrive.  (Read the
    26	excellent and concise documentation provided by Tomas M)  Of course,
    27	I am a rather Linux seasoned ... and for those of you who have trouble
    28	getting Slax to usbdrive, erm - its not difficult.
    29	
    30	Slax will boot without incident except that the two most important things
    31	for me wont work out of the box.
    32	
    33	1.  The NIC; and 
    34	2.  The Wireless.
    35	
    36	Getting it to work requires some extra work which I will detail below.
    37	I hope its helpful.
    38	
    39	[1] The NIC.  Notwithstanding Windows reporting it as being Atheros L2
    40	Fast Ethernet, Linux will report:
    41	
    42		Ethernet controller: Attansic Technology Corp.	L2 100Mbit
    43		Ethernet Adapter (rev a0).
    44	
    45	
    46	... and from the outset, the development of the driver has been rather
    47	patchy and I hope now that it matures with the excellent work of Chris
    48	Shook at RedHat.
    49	
    50	See http://people.redhat.com/csnook/atl2/
    51	
    52	The version I've used is atl2-2.0.4.tar.bz2 and it works for me.  
    53	a.  Get it to your laptop somehow 
    54	b.  tar -jxvf atl2-2.0.4.tar.bz2 
    55	c.  cd <accordingly> 
    56	d.  make all
    57	e.  mkdir /lib/modules/<kernel version>/net/attansic 
    58	f.  copy *  /lib/modules/<kernel version>/net/attansic 
    59	g.  depmod -a 
    60	h.  ls -l /lib/modules/<kernel version/modules.dep
    61		you should see timestamps updated
    62	i.  modprobe -v atl2 
    63	j.  lsmod | grep atl2
    64	
    65	Hopefully all things work good and you should be able to perform the
    66	regular "ifconfig" and "route add".
    67	
    68	PS:  Its easy to go down the wrong road here since development has been
    69	patchy and somewhat inconsistent.  There are older drivers around in
    70	.rar type.  I would avoid them.  Good Luck.
    71	
    72	
    73	[2] The Wireless Linux reports the Wireless as:
    74	
    75		Ethernet controller: Atheros Communicationd Inc. AR242x 802.11abg
    76		Wireless PCI Express Adaptor (rev 01)
    77	
    78	PS: really makes me wonder why Windows says AR5007EG or maybe I am
    79	missing something.
    80	
    81	Again, the madwifi project has moved from here to there to where and
    82	hunting down the correct drivers is again abit elusive.  But ... finally
    83	something that works is, madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-r3875-20081105.tar.gz
    84	
    85	See, http://madwifi-project.org/ticket/1192 and
    86	http://snapshots.madwifi-project.org/madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6/
    87	
    88	The devil is in the details, and what this means is that HAL (Hardware
    89	Abstraction Layer) refused to recognise the wireless device for some
    90	reasons and the above tar.gz fixes it.	Thank goodness.
    91	
    92	a.  Get it to your box somehow 
    93	b.  tar -zxvf madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-r3875-20081105.tar.gz 
    94	c.  cd <accordingly> 
    95	d.  make install 
    96	e.  it will go to /lib/modules/<kernel version>/net (if I am not mistaken) 
    97	f.  depmod -a 
	g.  ls -l /lib/modules/<kernel version>/modules.dep
    98		timestamps will update
    99	h.  modprobe -v ath_pci 
   100	i.  lsmod will show ath_pci 
   101	j.	__reboot__ (believe it or not)
   102	
   103	Once your machine comes up again, iwconfig will show a device
   104	
   105		ath0 IEEE 802.11g xxxxx
   106	
   107	It is this device thats used for wireless access.  A simple thing to
   108	do is assign an IP to it via ifconfig ath0 192.169.1.100 and ping -I
   109	ath0 192.168.1.100
   110	
   111	
   112	kjteoh 
   113	ps: Good Luck