ASUS N551JM

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Device	Status	Modules
Intel	Working	i915 and xf86-video-intel
Nvidia	Working	nouveau or nvidia
Ethernet	Working	r8168 or r8169
Wireless	Working	iwlwifi
Audio	Working	snd_hda_intel
Touchpad	Working	xf86-input-synaptics
Camera	Working	linux-uvc
Card Reader	Working	rtsx_pci
Bluetooth	Working	iwlwifi

ASUS N551JM - this article covers hardware specific configuration. All topics covered can be performed after an installation of Arch Linux has been finished and the machine rebooted into it. Also this article could be applicable for the ASUS N551JK model.

For a general overview of laptop-related articles and recommendations, see Laptop, for a predecessor with a similar configuration, see ASUS N550JV.

Configuration

Video

Integrated Intel graphics works out of the box. For the hybrid graphics configuration, see Bumblebee.

You could install Bumblebee.

Display brightness

FN+F5 and FN+F6 will not produce any output (will not work) until you use the kernel parameter acpi_osi= to your bootloader. It is indeed followed by a blank space.

Although for the Asus N751JK the kernel parameter acpi_osi= works for the brightness controls, it also brings some ACPI errors in the kernel log. Using the following kernel parameters prevents these errors, while the brightness controls still work: acpi_osi=\"!Windows 2006\" acpi_osi=\"!Windows 2009\" acpi_osi=\"!Windows 2012\" acpi_osi=\"!Windows 2013\". The backslashes are needed for grub to escape the double quotes.

It might happen that display brightness adjustment will not work even when the kernel parameter is used. In this case, make sure you are still using kernel parameter acpi_osi= and load the asus_nb_wmi module with the following command:

# modprobe asus_nb_wmi

Audio

Install PulseAudio.

To enable the internal microphone and the external subwoofer support, install asus-n551-hda-fix^AUR from the AUR. This package installs the pincfg patch, and also enables the internal microphone by adding the asus-mode8 to the HDA driver options.

After installation, reboot the laptop to ensure all modules are loaded. Check if the fallback device is correctly set to Build-in Audio Analog Stereo with pavucontrol. See PulseAudio/Troubleshooting#Fallback device is not respected for more information. Also check for muted devices:

$ alsamixer -c PCH

Note: alsa-utils provides alsamixer and amixer shell programs.

Keyboard

Keyboard support is provided out of the box.

Brightness

In some cases, FN+F3 and FN+F4 might not work out of box with some desktop environments, so install asus-kbd-backlight^AUR from the AUR. Load the module to control hotkeys:

# modprobe asus-nb-wmi

and start and enable the asus-kbd-backlight.service.

Now you can take control over the keyboard backlight:

$ asus-kbd-backlight up
$ asus-kbd-backlight down
$ asus-kbd-backlight max
$ asus-kbd-backlight off
$ asus-kbd-backlight night
$ asus-kbd-backlight 2
$ asus-kbd-backlight show

Touchpad

Touchpad works out of the box with the default synaptics drivers. You can tweak its options using the default Xorg configuration files. For example:

/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics.conf

Section "InputClass"
    Identifier "touchpad"
    Driver "synaptics"
    MatchIsTouchpad "on"
	Option "MinSpeed" "1"
	Option "MaxSpeed" "2.5"

	Option "TapButton2" "2"
	Option "TapButton3" "0"

	Option "ClickFinger2" "2"
	Option "ClickFinger3" "0"

	Option "VertTwoFingerScroll" "1"
	Option "HorizTwoFingerScroll" "1"
	
	Option "VertScrollDelta" "60"
	Option "HorizScrollDelta" "60"

	Option "LockedDrags" "on"
	Option "LockedDragTimeout" "400"

	Option "CircularScrolling" "on"
	Option "CircScrollTrigger" "8"
EndSection

Rich multitouch gestures can be configured with Touchegg. To use two-finger or three-finger gestures, you should disable the corresponding features in the Xorg config:

/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics.conf

Section "InputClass"
    Identifier "touchpad"
    Driver "synaptics"
    MatchIsTouchpad "on"

        # ...

        # Two-finger gestures
	Option "TapButton2" "0"
	Option "ClickFinger2" "0"

        # Three-finger gestures
	Option "TapButton3" "0"
	Option "ClickFinger3" "0"

        # ...
EndSection

Troubleshooting

nouveau problems

Sometimes nouveau driver produces a lot of garbage log lines during boot and even causes a kernel panic. This is a bug in the driver. You can workaround this by disabling nouveau:

/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nouveau.conf

blacklist nouveau

At the same time, you can install a proprietary nvidia dirver.

Tips and tricks

bbswitch

If you are using Bumblebee, you can install bbswitch package to manipulate the dedicated graphics card state. You can also change the default state of the dedicated graphics card.

Touchpad switch

The touchpad can be toggled using a xinput script.

Function keys

You can see the list of the function keys here: ASUS N550JV#Special keys for window managers.