[Debian-eeepc-devel] Debian EEE, the 701, and SD card reader kernel bug

[mpb]

> On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 10:53:01AM -0800, mpb wrote:
>> I installed Debian EEE.  Everything worked except the card reader.
>>
>> When I tried to manually mount /dev/sdb1 to /mnt/sdcard, the mount
>> command would block for several minutes.  Eventually, the mount would
>> exit (claiming success), but /mnt/sdcard would be unreadable (I forget
>> whether reading from it would result in blocking or immediate error
>> messages).

On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 11:30 AM, Axel Beckert <abe at deuxchevaux.org> wrote:
> This problem is known and there is a workaround. I just recently added
> this to the wiki, but since
> http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEeePC/HowTo/Troubleshooting only has
> cross-references to non-hardware bugs, I put it here:
>
> http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEeePC/HowTo/InstallOnSDcardOrUsbStick#head-7975900ebf36a00a3a47313f3dd8ca487570fd16
>
> Basically you have to change the NVRAM setting in the BIOS which remembers if the
> user went through the initialisation of the EeePC's original OS.
> Otherwise you get very strange timeouts with the SD card reader
> independently when mounted. The same SD cards work fine in USB card
> readers on the same machine.

Thanks!

I did have the [ BIOS / Advanced / OS Installation ] option set to
"Start" instead of to "Finished".  I have found this page:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-eeepc-kernel/+bug/301932

It describes the exact same problem I experienced.  It seems to happen
with kernels greater than 2.6.24.  I am currently running 2.6.24
(which works) and it was Debian with 2.6.25 which gave me problems.
So I will assume this is the cause of the problem and try to test it
at some point in the future.

Just FYI - there was also something on that page about problems with
old versions of the EEE BIOS.  My 701 may have an old version of the
BIOS.  The version I have is:

ASUS 701 ACPI Bios Revision 0401
Core Version: 0401
Build Date: 10/17/07
EC Firmware Version: 701_065

and

v02.58 (C) Copyright 1985-2005, American Megatrends, Inc.

Thanks for all your help!

-mpb