[Debian-eeepc-devel] Installing squeeze on 1005PE

[Laurentiu Pancescu]

Hi everyone,

I managed to install Debian Squeeze on my Asus EeePC 1005PE, using the
daily build of Debian Installer from March 17th.  It worked almost out
of the box (SynrG: thanks!).

The installer booted and recognized the hardware without any problems
(both the LAN and WLAN).  I added acpi_osi="Linux" to the boot command
line parameters; changing brightness during the installation also
worked.  I used the LAN (wired) for installation, it worked without any
problems.  WLAN wouldn't work for me, it couldn't get a DHCP address
even after switching the router from WPA2 to no encryption (the
installer asks only about WEP, might be an installer issue, not with the
hardware - never did a wireless netinstall before, no idea if it ever
worked).

I got into some problems with partitioning.  I chose Encrypted LVM in
Guided Partitioning, chose sda (the 250GB Hitachi drive) but when it
tried to create the LVM, it failed with sda5 busy, access denied.  I
retried that installer step, same result.  I restarted the netbook, the
same problem.  The workaround is to drop into another console before the
partitioning step, and manually delete all partitions with fdisk; it
works without any problems after that.  I think there is something about
the factory partitions that confuses the kernel or installer, since once
I had Linux partitions instead of an empty partition table, overwriting
them was no problem for Debian Installer (I couldn't resist testing, I
just had to know :).  Oh, erasing the data on sda2 takes about 4-5
hours, so be ready to wait if you want full disk encryption.

The rest went without any issues, I deselected all tasks offered by
tasksel (I always do that, and install later what I really need).  When
rebooting in the final system, the LUKS key has to be entered using an
US keyboard layout, instead of the one you had during installation
(German layout, in my case).  The LAN was also not seen at all by the
installed system, although the atl1c module was loaded.  Toggling the
WLAN from the keyboard (Fn-F2) also toggles the LAN, so I immediately
got a DHCP address and everything worked fine.

As I said, I just have the base system installed now, so there's not yet
much to say about what works and what doesn't, except that the
installation works, with the small caveats above.  I'll continue
installing stuff in the next days and see what is not fully working.  If
there are any questions, or I can help in any way...

Best regards,
Laurențiu