Asus A2518DBH & Gentoo
Brand: Asus
Model number: A2518DBH
Basic spec: Athlon XP-M 2600, 512MB , R9600 Mobility, 40GB, 15", DVD/CD-RW, 10/100 LAN, 56K modem
Distro: Gentoo
Installed on kernel: love-sources-2.6.7-rc3-r2
ACPI
ACPI appears to work pretty well. Most recent kernels should have an Asus/Medion laptops option under the ACPI section - enabling this along with the usual ACPI settings should allow you to handle events from the various hotkeys, so that you can use them to turn the LCD on/off or increase/decrease its brightness.
However, the volume hotkeys still didn't work, so I emerged acpi4asus and set up handlers for each one - read the docs, it's fairly simple to do. Basically you just create a set of rules, which are matched against events generated by pressing the hotkeys. To renable the mute hotkey, for example, you would create a rule that matched the code produced by that hotkey, and attach a command that ran your favourite mixer program with the appropriate parameters (amixer is the basic ALSA mixer).
I couldn't get the screen to turn on/off using this method, it just produced an error in the syslog. I ended up emerging radeontool and adding a handler for the button / lid event which checks the contents of /proc/acpi/button/lid/LIDD/state, and calls "radeontool light on" or "radeontool light off" depending on the result.
To get CPU frequency scaling, I selected the relevant kernel options, and emerged powernowd. There's not much to configure (if you want more flexibility, try one of the other cpufreq daemons), and it appears to work properly.
This guide was very helpful in setting everything up: http://www.stud.uni-karlsruhe.de/~uxhz/gentoo/power-management
Ethernet
This works fine, just select the SiS900 option in the kernel and do "echo sis900 >> /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6" to load the module on boot.
IDE
Works fine. Just select "SiS5513 chipset support" in the kernel.
Touchpad
Works.
Sound
Works OK, using snd-intel8x0 ALSA module. The quality isn't great, but it's not bad either. HW mixing isn't supported (surprise :)), but you can use the dmix ALSA plugin to get around this somewhat. Check the docs for the intel8x0 driver on the ALSA website for some examples of /etc/asound.conf files that use dmix.
USB
Works. (select OHCI support in kernel).
IEEE1394
Not tested.
PCMCIA
Not tested.
Video
3D acceleration works well using the binary ATI driver (emerge ati-drivers). My FAQ has some install instructions and hints: http://odin.prohosting.com/wedge01/gentoo-radeon-faq.html. Compile the kernel AGP support as modules (select /dev/agpgart support and SiS chipset support), then load agpgart, sis-agp, fglrx modules (add them to /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6). Set "UseInternalAGPGART" to "no" in your XF86Config (run fglrxconfig to create the file), and everything should work.
IrDA
Not tested.
DVD playing / CD Burning
Works.
Modem
This isn't working at the moment. I'm not sure if thats because I just haven't tried the correct driver or if it isn't actually supported. I can't find any driver which appears to explictly support it as yet. The best driver I've tried was the one from SmartLink (emerge slmodem on Gentoo), which appears to partly recognise the device, enables wvdialconf to run properly, but always fails when trying to dial (either NO DIALTONE or NO CARRIER depending on init options).
If anyone has any suggestions/information please let me know: wedge__ A T fastmail.fm
Update: on further investigation, it appears that the modem has a Conexant chipset, which means the slmodem drivers won't work. The HSF driver from Linuxant seems to be the best bet now, but I can't get it to detect the modem at the moment.
Update #2: after talking to tech support @ Linuxant, the problem is that this particular type of modem uses an SiS AC97 controller, while the HSF driver only supports the Intel, VIA, and Ali AC97 controllers. However, they are working on adding SiS support at the moment, so it should be possible to use the modem at some point in the future.
lspci -v, in case anyone is interested:
0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 746 Host (rev 10)
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32
Memory at d0000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)
Capabilities: [c0] AGP version 3.0
0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SG86C202 (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 64
Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=64
I/O behind bridge: 0000d000-0000dfff
Memory behind bridge: fea00000-feafffff
Prefetchable memory behind bridge: bff00000-cfefffff
Expansion ROM at 0000d000 [disabled] [size=4K]
0000:00:02.0 ISA bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS963 [MuTIOL Media IO] (rev 25)
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0
0000:00:02.1 SMBus: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS]: Unknown device 0016
Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 5
I/O ports at 0c00 [size=32]
0000:00:02.5 IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5513 [IDE] (prog-if 80 [Master])
Subsystem: Asustek Computer, Inc.: Unknown device 1818
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 128
I/O ports at ffa0 [size=16]
0000:00:02.6 Modem: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] AC'97 Modem Controller (rev a0) (prog-if 00 [Generic])
Subsystem: Asustek Computer, Inc.: Unknown device 1816
Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 10
I/O ports at e400
I/O ports at e080 [size=128]
Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2
0000:00:02.7 Multimedia audio controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] Sound Controller (rev a0)
Subsystem: Asustek Computer, Inc.: Unknown device 1763
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 10
I/O ports at e800
I/O ports at ec00 [size=128]
Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2
0000:00:03.0 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (rev 0f) (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
Subsystem: Asustek Computer, Inc.: Unknown device 1819
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 3
Memory at febfd000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)
0000:00:03.1 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (rev 0f) (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
Subsystem: Asustek Computer, Inc.: Unknown device 1819
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 5
Memory at febfe000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)
0000:00:03.3 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 2.0 Controller (prog-if 20 [EHCI])
Subsystem: Asustek Computer, Inc.: Unknown device 181a
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 15
Memory at febff000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
0000:00:04.0 Ethernet controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS900 PCI Fast Ethernet (rev 90)
Subsystem: Asustek Computer, Inc.: Unknown device 1455
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 4
I/O ports at ee00 [size=febc0000]
Memory at febfc000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Expansion ROM at 00020000 [disabled]
Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
0000:00:0a.0 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c475 (rev b8)
Subsystem: Asustek Computer, Inc.: Unknown device 1814
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 11
Memory at 20000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)
Bus: primary=00, secondary=02, subordinate=05, sec-latency=176
I/O window 0: 00000000-00000003
I/O window 1: 00000000-00000003
16-bit legacy interface ports at 0001
0000:00:0a.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C551 IEEE 1394 Controller (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
Subsystem: Asustek Computer, Inc.: Unknown device 1817
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 5
Memory at febfb800 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)
Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 2
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 [Mobility Radeon 9600 M10] (prog-if 00 [VGA])
Subsystem: Asustek Computer, Inc.: Unknown device 1772
Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, medium devsel, latency 255, IRQ 11
Memory at c0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=feac0000]
I/O ports at d000 [size=256]
Memory at feaf0000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
Expansion ROM at 00020000 [disabled]
Capabilities: [58] AGP version 3.0
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2