Installing Linux on a G750

[Dream]

Has anyone here installed a Linux OS on a G750 yet? This is all I found so far on it : http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?35105-Linux-compatibility

My G750JX came with Windows 7. I installed ubuntu on my prior laptop without any issues (option to boot to Windows 7 or UB on startup). I'd like to get that same setup going again, either with UB or Linux Mint.

If anyone can point me to a guide of some kind that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[Grimalkin]

Monsterarmy07 wrote:
I found a way to do so, just either get a second hard drive or shorten the partitions to only one for windows and then just leave the other one unformatted and when you do the live USB don't change any settings in the boot setup and install choose install alongside windows, it won't even try to have you choose amount of partition and it will even create efi boot on that hard drive and work perfectly without even downloading the drivers for the NVIDIA card, I did it with my G750JW 1TB with WD 1TB added and Ubuntu 13.04 from Linux Live USB Creator, try it and let me know how it works for you

HI,

When you are doing the install are you booting from the USB and choosing the install or the try option? DId you change any settings in the BIOS before doing this? Any more details you can give will be greatly appreciated

Cheers
G

[Zygomorphic]

On my Surface Pro (which is EFI equipped), I have done either, and either seems to work. I would recommend booting into the "try" option first, just to make sure that things are nominally functional. Then, you can double-click on the "install" desktop icon and proceed from there, the process is no different.

[nocturnal]

Running Arch (w/ Gnome) AND secure boot enabled. Works great (besides some tweaking with backlight). No HW issues at all...

[Zygomorphic]

nocturnal wrote:
Running Arch (w/ Gnome) AND secure boot enabled. Works great (besides some tweaking with backlight). No HW issues at all...

Thanks! That's great to hear that you can get other distros running without having to disable Secure Boot. Screenshots?

[morphemass]

nocturnal wrote:
Running Arch (w/ Gnome) AND secure boot enabled. Works great (besides some tweaking with backlight). No HW issues at all...

What actually worked for the backlight and with which graphics driver (nouveau or the propriety?).

While I'm at it, has anyone any tips for the touchpad right button which doesnt work, and also reducing the sensitivity of the touchpad? I keep moving the mouse with my right hand when typing *sigh*

EDIT: To answer my own question in part: touchpad right button fix is pointed out by Joe at https://ask.fedoraproject.org/question/37354/asus-rog-g750jh-right-click-not-working/.

EDIT 2: Also still on the touch pad, unintended activation can be avoided with:
synclient PalmDetect=1 PalmMinWidth=5 PalmMinZ=5

Still no complete solution to the backlight problem. fn5+fn6 can be enabled with "quiet splash acpi_osi= " in the grub menu, nvidiabl can be patched but I haven't had time to look at what the ranges should be. xbacklight works but I suspect I'm missing something simple...?

[Zygomorphic]

If you want to turn them on, check under /sys/class/leds directory and see what is in there.

[morphemass]

Zygomorphic wrote:
If you want to turn them on, check under /sys/class/leds directory and see what is in there.

Its the backlight levels for the 17" display I'm having problems with...

[Zygomorphic]

morphemass wrote:
Its the backlight levels for the 17" display I'm having problems with...

Oh, that's harder. Have you tried the latest NVidia drivers from NVidia proper? They were starting to add support for notebook backlighting.

[morphemass]

http://lajackson2.wordpress.com/2014/01/07/g750jh-backlight-brightness/

I finally managed to get the backlight working with OSD.

Edit: Annnnnndd I rebooted and it broke. Ahhh xhost +local: vs xhost +localhost. Fixed!

[nocturnal]

morphemass wrote:
What actually worked for the backlight and with which graphics driver (nouveau or the propriety?).

While I'm at it, has anyone any tips for the touchpad right button which doesnt work, and also reducing the sensitivity of the touchpad? I keep moving the mouse with my right hand when typing *sigh*

EDIT: To answer my own question in part: touchpad right button fix is pointed out by Joe at https://ask.fedoraproject.org/question/37354/asus-rog-g750jh-right-click-not-working/.

EDIT 2: Also still on the touch pad, unintended activation can be avoided with:
synclient PalmDetect=1 PalmMinWidth=5 PalmMinZ=5

Still no complete solution to the backlight problem. fn5+fn6 can be enabled with "quiet splash acpi_osi= " in the grub menu, nvidiabl can be patched but I haven't had time to look at what the ranges should be. xbacklight works but I suspect I'm missing something simple...?

First i used nvidiabl utility which did not work out of the box (had to change code to work with our model). Wasn't happy with that solution, so i added a few tweaks as kernel parms, and now its working with xbacklight. The slider in Gnome does not work properly, assuming it does not use xbacklight.

AS for secureboot, I ended up using gummiboot (what a great and tiny piece of software, so much esaier than that grub bloat). w/ linuxfoundation's signed loader.