I'd like to donate an Asus Q500A laptop

I'd like to donate an Asus Q500A laptop

[Alex Henrie]

Dear kernel developers,

I have been trying to use Linux on an Asus Q500A laptop, but ran into
a couple of problems:

1. The Caps Lock and Num Lock LEDs do not turn on
2. The volume control keys act like stuck letter keys (see
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2170285 for an example of
another Q500A owner complaining about this)

I am quite certain that these are both kernel bugs. I contacted the
Asus platform driver maintainer, Corentin Chary, but he said that the
bugs are more likely problems in the input drivers. If you are a
kernel developer interested in looking into them, the Q500A is
currently going for about $200-300 on eBay, which is low enough that
it would not be a problem at all for me to just buy one and send it to
you as a donation.

Let me know, and thank you for your work on Linux!

-Alex

Re: I'd like to donate an Asus Q500A laptop

[Alex Henrie]

2016-04-19 15:14 GMT-06:00 Alex Henrie <alexhenrie24@gmail.com>:
> Dear kernel developers,
>
> I have been trying to use Linux on an Asus Q500A laptop, but ran into
> a couple of problems:
>
> 1. The Caps Lock and Num Lock LEDs do not turn on
> 2. The volume control keys act like stuck letter keys (see
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2170285 for an example of
> another Q500A owner complaining about this)
>
> I am quite certain that these are both kernel bugs. I contacted the
> Asus platform driver maintainer, Corentin Chary, but he said that the
> bugs are more likely problems in the input drivers. If you are a
> kernel developer interested in looking into them, the Q500A is
> currently going for about $200-300 on eBay, which is low enough that
> it would not be a problem at all for me to just buy one and send it to
> you as a donation.
>
> Let me know, and thank you for your work on Linux!

Correction: The Caps Lock LED works, the Num Lock LED does not. There
is no Scroll Lock LED.

-Alex

Re: I'd like to donate an Asus Q500A laptop

[Alex Henrie]

2016-04-19 23:14 GMT-06:00 fixed-term.Oleksij.Rempel
<fixed-term.Oleksij.Rempel@de.bosch.com>:
>
>
> On 20.04.2016 07:04, Alex Henrie wrote:
>> 2016-04-19 15:14 GMT-06:00 Alex Henrie <alexhenrie24@gmail.com>:
>>> Dear kernel developers,
>>>
>>> I have been trying to use Linux on an Asus Q500A laptop, but ran into
>>> a couple of problems:
>>>
>>> 1. The Caps Lock and Num Lock LEDs do not turn on
>>> 2. The volume control keys act like stuck letter keys (see
>>> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2170285 for an example of
>>> another Q500A owner complaining about this)
>>>
>>> I am quite certain that these are both kernel bugs. I contacted the
>>> Asus platform driver maintainer, Corentin Chary, but he said that the
>>> bugs are more likely problems in the input drivers. If you are a
>>> kernel developer interested in looking into them, the Q500A is
>>> currently going for about $200-300 on eBay, which is low enough that
>>> it would not be a problem at all for me to just buy one and send it to
>>> you as a donation.
>>>
>>> Let me know, and thank you for your work on Linux!
>>
>> Correction: The Caps Lock LED works, the Num Lock LED does not. There
>> is no Scroll Lock LED.
>
>
> Hm... somewhat similar i already did for ASUS Zenbook ux31a. May be it
> is about ACPI and not about Input device driver. I can take this challenge.

Linux kernel development is certainly a challenge. Send me your
address and I'll send you the laptop. Please do your best to fix these
two bugs, but even if you fail, you can keep the laptop.

-Alex

Re: I'd like to donate an Asus Q500A laptop

[Alex Henrie]

2016-04-19 23:14 GMT-06:00 fixed-term.Oleksij.Rempel
<fixed-term.Oleksij.Rempel@de.bosch.com>:
>
>
> On 20.04.2016 07:04, Alex Henrie wrote:
>> 2016-04-19 15:14 GMT-06:00 Alex Henrie <alexhenrie24@gmail.com>:
>>> Dear kernel developers,
>>>
>>> I have been trying to use Linux on an Asus Q500A laptop, but ran into
>>> a couple of problems:
>>>
>>> 1. The Caps Lock and Num Lock LEDs do not turn on
>>> 2. The volume control keys act like stuck letter keys (see
>>> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2170285 for an example of
>>> another Q500A owner complaining about this)
>>>
>>> I am quite certain that these are both kernel bugs. I contacted the
>>> Asus platform driver maintainer, Corentin Chary, but he said that the
>>> bugs are more likely problems in the input drivers. If you are a
>>> kernel developer interested in looking into them, the Q500A is
>>> currently going for about $200-300 on eBay, which is low enough that
>>> it would not be a problem at all for me to just buy one and send it to
>>> you as a donation.
>>>
>>> Let me know, and thank you for your work on Linux!
>>
>> Correction: The Caps Lock LED works, the Num Lock LED does not. There
>> is no Scroll Lock LED.
>
>
> Hm... somewhat similar i already did for ASUS Zenbook ux31a. May be it
> is about ACPI and not about Input device driver. I can take this challenge.

Okay, this is weird: The Q500A-BSI5N04 has the bug, but the
Q500A-BHI5N01 does not have the bug. They look identical, and I
flashed the same BIOS firmware onto both. Maybe I should send you both
models so that you can compare the two...

-Alex

Re: I'd like to donate an Asus Q500A laptop

[Alex Henrie]

Hi Oleksij,

I have a Q500A-BSI5N04 ready to send to you now, but frustratingly,
the only keyboard problem that I can reproduce on it is that Fn+F8
behaves identically to the P key. My best guess is that you have to do
something specific to trigger the other Fn key problems, but I can't
figure out what it is.

Anyway, I will mail you the Q500A-BSI5N04 and the Q500A-BHI5N01
tomorrow. If you can at least fix the Fn+F8 problem, that's a step in
the right direction.

Thanks for your willingness to look into this for me.

-Alex