Install linux on a eeepc 1000he
I came across a eeepc 1000he over christmas where I had to install Linux (more precisely Archlinux). It was for my brother who wanted to try Linux and use it for his work. That gave me the idea for my previous post "Discover, install and try a new Linux distribution: archlinux". Indeed I didn't know any real good tutorial for archlinux when someone never used Linux before. As he managed to install Archlinux few problems remained: the touchpad was not working perfectly and the hardware acceleration for compiz was not working out of the box. So I decided, as I wanted him to have a good experience with Linux, to create a good kernel config and compile the kernel myself as well as make a good xorg.conf (I am not a big fan of the AutoAddDevices as things don't work really perfectly for a specific machine).
Install Linux
Simply follow my previous post to install archlinux.
Compile the kernel
First step is to download it at http://kernel.org. Once you have the .tar.bz2 you copy it in /usr/src/. At the time I write these lines the last stable kernel version is 2.6.32.2
cp linux-2.6.32.2.tar.bz2 /usr/src/
Then extract the archive
tar jxf linux-2.6.32.2.tar.bz2
Now you need the kernel config file which I have made for you (if you find some improvements that can be done, leave a comment):
Download kernel config for eeepc 1000he
You copy it in /usr/src/linux-2.6.32.2/
cp config /usr/src/linux-2.6.32.2/.config
You enter the folder linux-2.6.32.2
cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.32.2/
You can check the kernel configuration a bit more visually than by reading the config file
make menuconfig
Now you're going to compile the kernel, the modules and install the modules with one simple command
make && make modules && make modules_install
Once it's done (it might take while), you need copy the bzImage to your boot folder
cp arch/x86/boot/bzImage /boot/linux.img
We're almost done, you just have to edit your grub or lilo configuration to add an entry to boot this kernel configuration so for grub you would have something like this:
title Linux
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/linux.img root=/dev/sda3 ro
initrd /boot/kernel26.img
Here I have my boot partition on /dev/sda3 as well as my Linux (I don't have a specific partition for /boot) so I have hd0,2 (3-1) and root=/dev/sda3. Guess you got the idea and you'll find which number to have there. You can see a list of your mounted point by typing
df -h
Don't forget if you have lilo to run lilo otherwise you can reboot and boot this kernel configuration. You should normally see your boot time improved (at least a bit if not greatly).
Xorg.conf for the eeepc 1000he
Now that you have all your hardware set up correctly thanks to a good kernel configuration, we still need to configure xorg to work as well as possible which means a touchpad sensitive as you like and the hardware acceleration for compiz working properly and as smooth as possible.
Just download the xorg.conf I have created for the eeepc 1000he
You copy it in /etc/X11/
cp xorg.conf /etc/X11/
You restart gdm and you can test your touchpad and installed compiz if you don't already have it. With fusion-icon if you right click on it, you will see Compiz options, I recommend you select Loose Binding and Indirect Rendering, you should get better performance. You can check with the plugin Benchmark the fps you have (Super + F12 by default).
Conclusion
We've seen in this post how to get a perfectly working eeepc 1000he on Linux and Archlinux in particular but the things we've seen here are not specific to this distribution and apply to all of them. If you have any questions don't hesitate to leave a comment.
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