Ubuntu Linux on the Asus ZenBook 13"

Ubuntu Linux on the Asus ZenBook 13"

A.K.A Zen flipbook
A.K.A UX362F
 
Short story is Ubuntu works fine.

Install Process

A couple of tricks.

If you turned on the laptop you need to properly shutdown, power button is a soft key. Hold down the off button for ages (like 10 or 20 seconds) to properly hard reset.

The screen should go blank and then start hitting F2 repeatedly.
The ASUS logo shows for a what seems like a long time, keep hitting F2, finally you enter the BIOS.

Insert the pendrive with Ubuntu on (USB Disk Creator if you dont have one) I was using 18.04 LTS but I plan to upgrade to 19.10 since the UI is good looking.

Disable Secure Boot

Delete the Windows Boot Option  (fear not it can be recreated)

Add a new boot Option e.g. called usblinux and find the efi file   <efi> <boot> bootx64.efi

Save & Exit

The system should boot to a terminal UI select * Try Ubuntu

Ubuntu should load and show you the familiar fancy dekstop, with the Install Ubuntu Icon.  Using Try and Install, saves you rebooting and BIOS nonsense if the install fails.

Attempt 1

First time I tried to install Ubuntu into the C: drive space (the largest partition) leaving the repair partitions, something I have done with other laptops. This initially worked and booted successfully but somehow during  a subsequent boot the BIOS found Windows, Windows found Linux and before I could stop it, it "repaired" my system by removing the Linux boot option and reinstalling the Windows boot option.  Naturally windows would not boot since I'd wiped C: data.

Arguably this is virus behaviour!

Attempt 2

Second time wiped the main disks partition table, and created a new partition table.  Adios Windows and its viral "repair" features.

I needed to re-create an efi partition, this is important or install will fail at the grub stage.  ref:.  Creating EFI partition is hidden in the "something else" option, for manually creating partitions.

I created a 200Mb EFI system partition, 8Gb /swap, and the rest etx4 /.

<rant>So much Junk gets put in $HOME these days its not worth separating out that partition.  Particularly I code rust and rustup installs the whole tool-chain and all libs inside $HOME. The days of having user data in $HOME, it seems, are over.
I create a /data directory and put all my user data there, where helpful automated tools can not find it :) </rant>

Peripherals

Ethernet

This laptop has a decent amount of connectivity options but no RJ45, so a dongle of some sort is needed.  The left side has a regular USB3 port and cheapo  Gigabit Ethernet dongle inserted there works fine, no config needed.  Plug it in and the network auto-configures.
On the other side are 2 x USB-C ports. I consider USB-C too small and flimsy for everyday use but I did try a dongle with Gigabit Ethernet HDMI and 2 x USB3 ports.  Everything auto-configured with no effort.  USB peripherals connected to the USB-C dongle also auto-configure.

Wifi

Works.

Audio

Works. <rant>Harmon Kardon pretty much pwn the entire audio industry these days, they are owned by Samsung and they have a great many sub-brands.  Harmon Kardon branded stuff is a pretty good guarantee of quality and certainly no gripes on the audio output. N.B. real mini jack with a proper head phone amp, no noise and good quality sound. </rant>

Keyb

Keybord function keys all work except the on/off for the back-lighting in 18.04, fixed in later versions.  Back-lighting works. You can run the preinstalled script /etc/acpi/asus-keyboard-backlight.sh instead of the button.
Layout in Europe is US style small Enter key which I much prefer, one of the reasons I accepted a Spanish layout.  If you can touch type on a US keyb this is a good option when purchasing on the continent.

Mouse

Works. The mouse pad is painted with a keyboard which does not work. Not investigated that yet

Display

<rant>Have to remove an annoying sticker on the screen without damaging the screen.  What you might call a bad un-boxing experience.  I remove the other little sticker on the from panel too, except Karmon Hardon is printed on.<rant>

Display is sexy: 1920 x 1080 and touch screen works.  I've not owned a touch screen laptop before but from familiarity with phone I have found myself poking at laptop screens before so I suspect it will become a much loved feature.

On screen keyboard automatically pops up when needed like on a phone, but is a bit patchy, does not work in FireFox for example.  Apparently there are some tool to install to make table mode more comfortable.


<rant> N.B. this Laptop has Intel Graphics so no Optimus woes, I believe those things are fixed in newer Ubuntus (with no little from NVidia itself) once bitten twice shy. I will not buy NVidia hard ware if I can avoid it.<rant>




All in quite happy.  I recommend the ASUS ZenBook UX362F if you are looking for a powerful ultra-portable Linux Laptop, Intel i7, 16GB of RAM, should be enough for everyone.