Ubuntu on Asus eeebookX205 with all peripherals

Solution 1:

I'm running Ubuntu 14.10 on my X205TA. Right now the major gripe for me is that audio doesn't work. I would recommend that you do get the laptop if you're okay with using Windows for a while. It is a really good laptop for the price.

I followed instructions from the following pages

  • https://github.com/lopaka/instructions/blob/master/ubuntu-14.10-install-asus-x205ta.md
  • https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Asus/X205TA

What works for me right now

  • WiFi - Installed the latest linux 4.0 kernel and then followed instructions from the debian page.
  • Battery Meter - Works out of the box once you install the linux 4.0 kernel.
  • Brightness works if you add the boot flag acpi=force to grub.

Before getting the inbuilt WiFi fixed, I used my android phone to connect to my WiFi using USB tethering. That helped in following all the instructions and not having to juggle files from my desktop to this laptop.

Please make sure you don't wipe your entire drive, since you need some files from the windows partition to get WiFi to work.

Solution 2:

I recently installed ubuntu 18.04 MATE on my ASUS X205TA, and it was quite a hassle!

Finding a bootable image was time consuming, as (i learned) the X205TA has a strange UEFI BIOS (32 bit)that requires a file bootia32.efi, just to boot from USB.

Onboard WiFi did not work in the beginning, so i plugged in a USB-Wifi Adapter, that was recognized, then the installation worked. Without this USB WiFi, the installation failed when installing Grub! After that i installed Broadcom drivers, then also onboard Wifi was recognized and worked ok!

Thanks to harryharryharry, who did a phantastic job and provided several Linux isos for the X205TA.

So, now Ubuntu 18.04 works with Sound and Wifi, BUT: - Sound on LineOut is not working yet - Hibernate is still not working - Function keys do not work

But still, the x205ta is a nice Netbook with Ubuntu, its a pitty that ASUS offically is not support Linux, as they state by themselves....

Hope that helps!