ASUS AT3IONT-I deluxe

[njsharp]

I'm not sure if this belongs in this forum. Better suggestions welcome.

From Sydney, Australia.

I am very interested in the possibility of running Ubuntu (probably 10.04 by now) on an ASUS motherboard AT3IONT-I DELUXE. See spec:

http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_I...Ctw&templete=2

No CPU fan (big passive heat sink), no PSU fan (laptop-like external brick instead)

So, the only noise: a few SATA2 disks, and perhaps not even that if I can work out how to turn them all off when not actually in use. The board has 4xSATA2 and my plan might be 1xsmall SATA2 for OS, 2xhuge SATA2 RAID0 for SAMBA and TV storage, 1x SATA2 DVD/RW. Plus a digital TV PCI-Ex16 TWO-channel card (which? suggestions please!)

Functions:
house internet connection and firewall, DHCP server, DNS proxy, SAMBA server, PVR (MythTV? Not had much luck with that so far - still on WMC oh dear!), my desktop machine (firefox, thunderbird, openoffice), perhaps wireless router and bluetooth connector.

And cappuccino maker.

My current firewall is CentOS5.4/Dell C640laptop, so is nearly silent - just as well as it is 2M from my bed!

Comments and thoughts welcome.

[stevefrench88]

I recently purchased this mobo with the plan of installing ubuntu + XBMC and using as a HTPC/torrent box. I have so far installed ubuntu 10.04 to a USB stick and boot from that until my HDD arrives. I initially attempted to run the PC with ubuntu 9.1, however, I could not get the resolution to display correctly via HDMI - this issue seems to have been addressed with the update to 10.04.

I also have an Apple Airport-Extreme Base Station with multiple external HDDs attached, from which I will stream all my media to the HTPC, as well as being the location to save all of my torrent downloads.

As well, I purchased a VESA mountable case from minibox, so that the PC will be mounted directly onto the back of my LCD HDTV, and all that will be visible from the viewing angle will be the IR receiver for the remote. I also chose this particular case as there is a jumper setting for the power button that sets the system to an "always on" state. Basically, if the power goes out, or if one of my roomates accidentally unplug the PC, it will automatically boot up once power is restored. Transmission is set to startup and resume once ubuntu loads, as well as XBMC - so as far as anybody in the living room is concerned it's just a "media box", easy for them to use, while I can do all the config remotely via VNC.

I especially love that there is very little to generate any noise in this PC. Both the mobo and case are fanless, however, i did mount a small 40mm fan to help out which is also proving to be whisper quiet.

The only real issue I'm having is that the included ASUS IR remote doesn't fully work with ubuntu. Some of the "basic" buttons work (ie. the volume buttons), however none of the "special" buttons seem to work.

This wouldn't be a huge deal, except that one of those "special" buttons include the "back" button - therefore when in XBMC, I can not back out of any menus (i.e. if i want to change from watching videos to listening to music, or even just switching between the folder levels in the video menu).

I have installed LIRC and have tried various methods of configuring, but ubuntu just doesn't seem to recognize the key codes for these buttons, so I can't even customize these buttons for XBMC or have ubuntu "learn" them.

A friend of mine also has the same hardware, and has successfully installed WinXPSP3. Since asus included all the drivers for WinXP, there were no issues with the installation/setup. He was also able to use Event Ghost to completely customize all the commands for the asus IR remote in XBMC.

I may end up just doing the same and running WinXP on my box for the time being, but I would still prefer the ubuntu setup, so please if anyone comes across a method for successfully get the remote to function fully and/or be customizable with XBMC, I love to know!

[moore82]

To stevefrench88.

How did you get the sound card working?
I can only get Stereo from the optical output. Do you use your optical output for surround sound?

Best Regards,

Morgan Sundqvist

[emisariuss]

To make HDMI sound output work, You should run alsamixer, and switch mute off on spdif* (or something like this).

Any progress with IRDA device?

[rauli]

I got this board yesterday. Really nice. But I can't get the irda working with lirc. Any ideas? Few of the buttons work with MythTv but not all. What I want to do is use the irda receiver and then make my own config file to use any remote I want, but I can't get irrecord to work. I don't know which driver to use or where the device is located.

Has anyone worked with lirc and this irda?

[emisariuss]

Good news, I have configured 2 buttons: power and back!!

1). sudo apt-get install xmodmap xev

2). xev
Check what keycode You receive by pressing power button and back button (I get 150 and 166)

3). xmodmap -pke > ~/.Xmodmap
create custom .Xmodmap file

4). edit ~/.Xmodmap file, and modify following lines
keycode 150 = s
...
keycode 166 = BackSpace NoSymbol BackSpace

5). xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap
apply custom xmodmap

run XBMC

Remember to run (5) every time You run X11 (the best choice is to make an appropriate script and run it at KDE/GNOME/XFCE start).

[pj7]

Hi,

I have the board and I've been struggling for days with lirc and the remote. I've tried everything but the 8 special buttons do not work.
I've modified mceusb driver to recognize it but it's not working right since the usb interface of the device reports only one endpoint. Then with lirc and devinput driver I think the problem is that the codes that the special buttons send, are outside of the valid keycode range.
Then I used EventGhost in a windows laptop to discover the keycodes (used the generic hid driver). It reports 4 interfaces, one for each button group. The 3rd interface is for the special buttons and the raw data reveal quite big numbers as keycodes.
So, it's a dead end. Better get another remote.

The on-board bluetooth (appears in lsusb as 0cf3:3002 Atheros Communications, Inc.) needs the ath3k module which is not on the latest lucid kernel. However the module is coming on a kernel soon and you can grab the code to compile it yourself:

git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mcgrof/ath3k.git
cd ath3k
make
sudo make install
sudo modprobe -v ath3k
echo ath3k | sudo tee -a /etc/modules

[rauli]

I also gave up with the included remote. I had a serial Evation irman lying around, so I got a used internal serial cable for 1 € and connected that to the MB. Now I can use lirc and any remote conrtoller I want. I'm running MythBuntu.

[sankukai93]

Hi rauli,

I use the asus remote with lirc (devinput driver) and of corse, i cant use special button

I've also a serial Evation irman but i dont know how configure it !

Can you help me and say please ?
is it work with the asus remote ?

Sankukai93

[pj7]

Hi,

I have been more stubborn than the remote of this board, so I wrote a hid kernel driver that maps the special buttons to useful keys.
It works fine now!

I am making a DKMS build system for this driver and the bluetooth driver as well and I will make a deb package that you can install.