howTo: Jaunty Jackalope with custom netbook kernel

Now it has been over a week since I installed Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope" on my netbook, and in the meantime I've been working on customizing things to my needs. One main tweak consisted of replacing the default "2.6.28-8-generic" kernel with the more appropriate "2.6.28-12-netbook-eeepc" kernel compiled by Adam McDaniel over at array.org, main reason was merely the unpleasant sound of the word "generic" to me, since this "generic" kernel was working quite well - there was no obvious need to replace it.
But I still thought it would be nice to have the core of the operating system customized to my hardware. However the netbook-eeepc kernel is not officially available on the array.org website (yet), although there already exists a repository and .deb packages - I guess Adam hasn't found the time to update his website yet..
To install the latest "adams kernel" (from array.org) on your eee PC netbook you therefore need to enter the following in a terminal window:

sudo -s
echo "deb http://www.array.org/ubuntu jaunty main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/array-jaunty.list
wget http://www.array.org/ubuntu/array-apt-key.asc
apt-key add array-apt-key.asc
apt-get update
apt-get install linux-netbook-eeepc

Thats all about it. Now you can also add some scripts to gain full hotkey functionality if you wish (I did), for example the elmurato ACPI scripts I use. Simply go to your home directory and type in

wget http://www.informatik.uni-bremen.de/~elmurato/EeePC/Jaunty_Eeeasy-Scripts.tar.gz
tar xzvf ./Jaunty_Eeeasy-Scripts.tar.gz
cd Jaunty_Eeeasy-Scripts
sudo ./eeeasy-scripts.sh install

if you get an error message you may need to install the "asus-eee-dmks_3.0_all.deb" package located in the Jaunty_Eeeasy-Scripts folder (elmurato ACPI scripts depend on it) and then try to run the install script again. If everything has worked you now can use all eeePC hotkeys with Jaunty.

Wifi toggle works too if you add the following kernel parameters to your /boot/grub/menu.lst right behind the line "# defoptions=quiet splash" - it has to look like this:

# defoptions=quiet splash pciehp.pciehp_force=1 pciehp.pciehp_poll_mode=1

when you now run

sudo update-grub

the PCIeHotplug options will be added to your new kernel entry and after a restart, wifi can be switched on/off with alt+f2 to save on battery runtime.


Did I already mention I like Jaunty? 49 seconds from pressing enter in the GRUB menu to having the gnome desktop loaded and ready to go!
And pidgin integrates into the desktop panel very smoothly - nice.
Oh did I mention that my HSDPA modem worked right from the start?
Was able to dial in right after first boot. Huge improvements in that area. I'm lucky with my new jackalope.

picture of a real Jackalope! ->