Recently I bought an Asus Zenbook 13 RX333FN. I removed Windows 10 and installed xUbuntu 18.04 on the laptop. However, not every feature I use works out of the box. In these notes explain how to fix this. Probably these notes will apply for similar Asus Zenbooks as well. I expect that these fixes become obsolete with never versions of Ubuntu. Don’t forget to check the ArchLinux wiki on the Asus Zenbook UX333 as well.
Enable deep suspend mode
The Zenbook doesn’t go into deep suspend mode automatically when I close the lid. To enable deep suspend mode open /etc/default/grub
, and add to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT
the line mem_sleep_default=deep
. In my case I have
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash mem_sleep_default=deep"
(partially) Reduce power usage and heat
The laptop overheats quickly. I followed the Most Effective Ways To Reduce Laptop Overheating In Linux. Still the cpu easily heats up to 40 to 50 Celsius. I’m guessing that this is the downside of having such a small laptop.
Fix sound
The sound card is supported in the Linux operating system 4.20 and onward. I installed the 4.20.17 kernel using ukuu.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:teejee2008/ppa sudo apt update sudo apt install ukuu sudo ukuu-gtk # Install Kernel 4.20.17
In order to boot the latest Linux operating system, navigate to BIOS, go to “Advanced Menu”, then the “Security” tab and set “Secure Boot” to Off
.
Enable Nvidia CUDA support
To enable the Nvidia CUDA support, first disable the nouveau driver. Open /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nvidia-nouveau.conf
and add
blacklist nouveau options nouveau modeset=0
Next open Software & Updates
in the menu, go to Additional Drivers
and select nvidia-driver-418 (open source)
. Click on Apply Changes
.
Go to the Nvidia home page and download CUDA Toolkit and cuDNN. To download cuDNN you’re required to create an Nvidia account. Install the packages:
sudo dpkg -i cuda-repo-ubuntu1804-10-1-local-10.1.168-418.67_1.0-1_amd64.deb sudo dpkg -i libcudnn7_7.6.0.64-1+cuda10.1_amd64.deb
Reboot your machine and check if CUDA works.
> nvidia-smi Mon Jun 10 15:02:51 2019 +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | NVIDIA-SMI 418.67 Driver Version: 418.67 CUDA Version: 10.1 | |-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+ | GPU Name Persistence-M| Bus-Id Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC | | Fan Temp Perf Pwr:Usage/Cap| Memory-Usage | GPU-Util Compute M. | |===============================+======================+======================| | 0 GeForce MX150 On | 00000000:02:00.0 Off | N/A | | N/A 57C P0 N/A / N/A | 111MiB / 2002MiB | 0% Default | +-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+ +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Processes: GPU Memory | | GPU PID Type Process name Usage | |=============================================================================| | 0 3348 G /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg 109MiB | | 0 6656 G /usr/lib/firefox/firefox 1MiB | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Retrieve the Windows 10 license key
The zenbook comes with a Windows 10 license key hardcoded in the firmware. You can extract the license key as follows
sudo grep -aPo '[\w]{5}-[\w]{5}-[\w]{5}-[\w]{5}-[\w]{5}' /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/MSDM
So … in conclusion, are you happy with what is supported, what works, the power management, etc? I’m looking to buy pretty much exactly this laptop, wipe it and and put some sort of Linux on it.
sir maybe you can help me
i was eyeing on the asus zenbook 13 rx333fn
would you mind sending some of the laptop pictures its a bit confusing for me whether its the zenbook 14 or this 13 would you do me a favor sir? and where site did you bought it? thank you in advance sir
Does the numpad + trackpad integrated system work in linux kernals?