29 Comments

1. 

   Aksoy

   August 9, 2013

   I wrote a simple line of code in order to enable the F12 wireless key. Just add the following to the “.xbindkeysrc”.

   #Wifi
   “if [ $(rfkill list wifi|grep -A1 phy|tail -n 1|cut -d: -f 2|tr -d ‘ ‘) = “yes” ]; then rfkill unblock wifi; notify-send ‘Wifi turned on!’; else rfkill block wifi; notify-send ‘Wifi turned off!’; fi”
   XF86WLAN

   • 

     rileybphoto

     August 11, 2013

     You are awesome!
     I just did a fresh install of the official stable release. I’ll try this out. If it works, I’ll update the post.

     • 

       Aksoy

       August 12, 2013

       Thank you.

       I have the same piece of hardware and it does work for me. I have just heard about the stable release last night and I will update my computer pretty soon, too. I’m in the middle of writing a blog and I’m planning on sharing all the settings I use on my computer. But for now, let me share some of them here.

       1) I have been able to enable the fan (F11) key for toggling the powersave and performance state. It is a bit longer than it is supposed to be but let me explain why. According to my experiences, if the laptop is is not plugged in to AC and it is put in powersave mode, even if you throttle everything, such as cpu, device power management and so on, you still won’t be able to get the most out of it. For example when I set the laptop to powersave and then to performance mode, I wasn’t able to watch hd videos. But if the computer is plugged in and then set to the performance mode, you could view hd videos. At least that was the case with me. So after trying a few things I came up with a solution. Now even if the computer is not plugged in, after setting it to performance mode, I can use it at 100% performance. Here are the steps to do that;

       First of all, create a script for setting the system to enter the powersave mode when it starts and when the plug is connected or removed. I always keep the computer on powersave mode since battery life is important for me and I really don’t do heavy processing all the time. If I need the cpu power, I just hit F11 key and voula! But if you would like your computer to enter the performance mode when it is plugged in to AC, you will need to edit the script below;

       Execute the following:
       $ sudo nano /etc/pm/power.d/powersavings

       Add the followings to the file:

       ##### STARTS HERE ##### DON’T INCLUDE THIS LINE

       #!/bin/bash

       echo silent > /sys/devices/platform/samsung/performance_level

       # Disable wake up on lan if I do use ethernet port
       ethtool -s $(ifconfig |grep eth|awk ‘{print $1’}) wol d

       # Turn on audio codec power management
       echo 1 | sudo tee /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save

       # – NMI Watchdog (turned off)
       echo 0 > ‘/proc/sys/kernel/nmi_watchdog’

       # Less VM disk activity. Suggested by powertop
       echo 1500 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_writeback_centisecs

       # Enable Laptop-Mode disk writing
       echo 5 > /proc/sys/vm/laptop_mode

       # – Device Power Management
       echo auto | tee /sys/bus/i2c/devices/*/power/control > /dev/null;
       echo auto | tee /sys/bus/pci/devices/*/power/control > /dev/null;
       echo auto | tee /sys/bus/usb/devices/*/power/control > /dev/null;
       for i in `find /sys/bus/usb/devices/*/power/autosuspend`; do echo 2 > $i; done;

       ## disable logitech powersaving
       echo on | tee /sys/bus/usb/devices/1-1.2/power/control 2> /dev/null;

       # Set SATA channel to power saving
       for foo in /sys/class/scsi_host/host*/link_power_management_policy; do echo min_power > $foo; done

       if on_ac_power; then
       # 0 (off) and 8 (max)
       echo 8 > /sys/devices/platform/samsung/leds/samsung::kbd_backlight/brightness
       else
       # 0 (off) and 8 (max)
       echo 4 > /sys/devices/platform/samsung/leds/samsung::kbd_backlight/brightness
       fi

       ##### ENDS HERE ##### DON’T INCLUDE THIS LINE
       —————————————————-
       Give permission:
       $ sudo chmod +x /etc/pm/power.d/powersavings
       —————————————————-
       Execute the following:
       # Create a folder to put the scripts in
       $ mkdir ~/.shfiles
       # Create the performance script
       $ sudo nano ~/.shfiles/setcpu-performance-samsung.sh

       Add the followings to the file:

       ##### STARTS HERE ##### DON’T INCLUDE THIS LINE

       #!/bin/sh

       # – CPU Scaling (on demand scaling governor for all CPU’s
       for i in `find /sys/devices/system/cpu/*/cpufreq/scaling_governor`; do echo ondemand > $i; done

       echo normal > /sys/devices/platform/samsung/performance_level

       ##### ENDS HERE ##### DON’T INCLUDE THIS LINE
       —————————————————-
       # Create the powersave script
       $ sudo nano ~/.shfiles/setcpu-powersave-samsung.sh

       Add the followings to the file:

       ##### STARTS HERE ##### DON’T INCLUDE THIS LINE

       #!/bin/sh

       # – CPU Scaling (on demand scaling governor for all CPU’s
       for i in `find /sys/devices/system/cpu/*/cpufreq/scaling_governor`; do echo powersave > $i; done

       echo silent > /sys/devices/platform/samsung/performance_level

       ##### ENDS HERE ##### DON’T INCLUDE THIS LINE
       —————————————————-
       # Give root permissions to those scripts
       $ sudo chown root ~/.shfiles/setcpu-performance-samsung.sh
       $ sudo chmod 700 ~/.shfiles/setcpu-performance-samsung.sh
       $ sudo chmod +x ~/.shfiles/setcpu-performance-samsung.sh
       $ sudo chown root ~/.shfiles/setcpu-powersave-samsung.sh
       $ sudo chmod 700 ~/.shfiles/setcpu-powersave-samsung.sh
       $ sudo chmod +x ~/.shfiles/setcpu-powersave-samsung.sh
       —————————————————-
       # Add the scripts to the sudo list
       $ sudo visudo

       Add the followings to the end of the file (Don’t change anything else in this file):

       ALL ALL = (root) NOPASSWD: ~/.shfiles/setcpu-performance-samsung.sh
       ALL ALL = (root) NOPASSWD: ~/.shfiles/setcpu-powersave-samsung.sh
       —————————————————-
       # Now to bind the F11 key, add the followings to the ‘.xbindkeysrc’ file;

       #CPU Governor
       “if [ $(cat /sys/devices/platform/samsung/performance_level) = “silent” ]; then sudo ~/.shfiles/setcpu-performance-samsung.sh; notify-send ‘CPU: Performance mode!’; else sudo ~/.shfiles/setcpu-powersave-samsung.sh; notify-send ‘CPU: Powersave mode!’; fi”
       XF86Launch3
       —————————————————-
       And you’re done. Now you should be able to toggle the state by using Fn+F11 key.
       —————————————————-
       2) To disable GRUB delay
       $ sudo nano /etc/default/grub

       set GRUB_TIMEOUT to 0

       $ sudo update-grub
       —————————————————-
       3) SSD Optimization
       $ sudo nano /etc/sysctl.conf

       add the following to the end of the file

       vm.swappiness=0
       —————————————————-
       4) Move the temp folder to RAM
       $ sudo nano /etc/fstab

       add the following to the end of the file

       none /tmp tmpfs defaults 0 0

       Reboot your computer.
       —————————————————-
       5) Set brightness on startup, the simple way.
       $ sudo nano /etc/rc.local

       add the following line reight before ‘exit 0’

       echo 15 > /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness
       —————————————————-
       6) Enable trim on SSD for better performance:
       $ sudo nano /etc/cron.daily/trim

       add the followings:

       #!/bin/sh
       LOG=/var/log/trim.log
       echo “*** $(date -R) ***” >> $LOG
       fstrim -v / >> $LOG

       # Give permission
       $ sudo chmod +x /etc/cron.daily/trim
       —————————————————-
       7) Enable hibernation
       $ sudo nano /etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/com.ubuntu.desktop.pkla

       add the followings:

       [Re-enable hibernate by default]
       Identity=unix-user:*
       Action=org.freedesktop.upower.hibernate
       ResultActive=yes
       —————————————————-
       8) Fix MP4 issue
       $ sudo mv /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gstreamer-0.10/libgstvideoparsersbad.so /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gstreamer-0.10/libgstvideoparsersbad.so.bak
       —————————————————-
       9)Enable keyboard shortcuts for Minimize(Alt+F9), Maximize(Alt+F10):

       $ gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings minimize [‘F9’]
       $ gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings toggle-maximized [‘F10’]
       —————————————————-
       10) Install touchegg and use gestures on your mousepad (like Mac OS)
       $ sudo apt-get build-dep touchegg; sudo apt-get –yes install build-essential libqt4-dev utouch libx11-6 libxtst-dev; wget -P /tmp/ http://touchegg.googlecode.com/files/touchegg-1.1.tar.gz; tar xzvf /tmp/touchegg-1.1.tar.gz -C /tmp/; cd /tmp/touchegg-1.1; qmake; make; sudo make install

       In order to add some gestures to the config file:
       $ nano ~/.config/touchegg/touchegg.conf

       Add the followings to the file:

       ##### STARTS HERE ##### DON’T INCLUDE THIS LINE

       0

       Alt+F10

       Super+Control+Right

       Super+Control+Left

       Super+s

       Super+w

       Super+Right

       Super+Left

       Super+Alt+Right

       Super+Alt+Left

       Control+plus

       Control+minus

       Control+Tab

       Control+Shift+Tab

       Control+0

       Control+w

       Up

       Down

       Right

       Left

       f

       Right

       Left

       ##### ENDS HERE ##### DON’T INCLUDE THIS LINE

       You will need to run the touchegg on startup. In order to be able to do that;
       Add the command

       touchegg

       to startup applications.

       The gestures in this file are:

       Gestures globally:
       3 fingers UP – toggle maximize/unmaximize
       3 fingers DOWN – minimize window
       3 fingers RIGHT
       3 fingers LEFT
       4 fingers UP – show workspaces
       4 fingers DOWN – show all windows
       4 fingers RIGHT – move to next workspace
       4 fingers LEFT – move to previous workspace
       5 fingers RIGHT – move to window to next workspace
       5 fingers LEFT – move to window to previous workspace
       5 fingers TAP – close the current window

       Gestures on Firefox:
       3 fingers UP – zoom in
       3 fingers DOWN – zoom out
       3 fingers RIGHT – move to next tab
       3 fingers LEFT – move to previous tab
       3 fingers TAP – set zoom to original
       5 fingers TAP – close the tab

       Gestures on VLC:
       3 fingers UP – seeking video
       3 fingers DOWN – seeking video
       3 fingers RIGHT – seeking video
       3 fingers LEFT – seeking video
       3 fingers TAP – fullscreen

       Gestures on EOG Image Viewer:
       3 fingers RIGHT – move to next image
       3 fingers LEFT – move to previous image
       —————————————————-

       I actually provided most them here. If you run into problems, let me know. You can also update your post with these settings if you want.

       • 

         rileybphoto

         August 12, 2013

         Man, you are hardcore. This is awesome!

         Thanks for the offer to post it on my blog. Send me the link when you finish yours. I will actually have to update my post at some point because I’ve noticed two things:

         One, the laptop-mode-tools fix for brightness doesn’t work anymore. I noticed some people on an Arch Linux forum mentioning they had the same problem. I’ve been using xbacklight (which works now) but it doesn’t work at the login screen.So I’ll try your quick and easy fix.

         Two, instead of installing a newer kernel from Ubuntu Mainline, I found a 3.8 kernel in the repos and tried that. This made the backlight function keys start to work without editing any config files :)

         -side note, back in the beta I installed the Ubuntu Enablement Stack to get both the kernel and xorg updates to Raring, but it broke my Steam install (and eventually my system with I tried to fix Steam by installing the ia32-libs package). If you haven’t heard of it: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack

         I’ll be checking out some of your tweaks, like Temp to RAM and swappiness. I don’t see the grub screen because I don’t dual boot, so would the grub tweak be useless to me?

         Happy Hacking ;)

         • 

           Aksoy

           August 13, 2013

           I’m currently using kernel 3.10 and all the function keys (except for the wireless, settings and fan keys but you can fix them with the xbindkeys application) work on my system without any configurations (as far as I remember :). So you should give the new kernel a try. I haven’t heard of the Ubuntu Enablement Stack since I don’t have any problems on my system. But if it has any advantages, let me know and I will give it a try. About the GRUB screen, I don’t dual boot either but if GRUB_TIMEOUT is not equal to 0, it is possible for the GRUB screen to appear for a few seconds. It just delays the boot for no reason. That’s why I would suggest you to set that value to 0 so that your computer would boot without any unnecessary delays.

           You should also try the gestures, it is really cool. But I forgot to mention another tweak for the mouse in order to be able to use 3, 4 finger gestures.

           $ sudo nano /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/52-synaptics-np900x3c.conf

           Add the followings to the file:

           ##### STARTS HERE ##### DON’T INCLUDE THIS LINE
           Section “InputClass”
           Identifier “touchpad”
           MatchIsTouchpad “on”
           # Enable the clickpad and set click actions
           # Single click = left button
           # Two-finger click = right button
           # Three-finger click = middle button
           Option “ClickPad” “1”
           Option “ClickFinger1” “1”
           Option “ClickFinger2” “3”
           Option “ClickFinger3” “0”
           Option “TapButton2” “3”
           Option “TapButton3” “0”

           # Define the right click area.
           Option “SoftButtonAreas” “50% 0 82% 0 0 0 0 0”

           Option “SHMConfig” “on”
           # Enable palm detection and set palm
           # senstitivity
           Option “PalmDetect” “1”
           Option “PalmMinWidth” “5”
           Option “PalmMinZ” “40”
           Option “VertTwoFingerScroll” “on”
           EndSection

           ##### ENDS HERE ##### DON’T INCLUDE THIS LINE

           Now you should be able to use all the gestures.

           I also forgot to mention why I move the temp folder to RAM (someone might wonder why). Since these laptops have SSDs on them, it is better to decrease the number of reads and writes to the SSD in order to increase its lifetime. And since the /tmp folder is one of the folders which get updated the most and since you will not use 100% of the space on your RAM all the time, it would be better to move the /tmp folder to the RAM.

           Finally, in order to be able to use the FnF11 (settings function key) you can add the following to the .xbindkeysrc file:

           #Settings
           “/usr/bin/gnome-control-center”
           XF86Launch1

           Enjoy!

         • 

           Aksoy

           August 13, 2013

           Fix: Not FnF11, it is FnF1. :)

         • 

           anon

           August 13, 2013

           Thanks for your post and for the config for the gestures.

           I tried the 3.10 kernel too but found it didn’t support all of the CPU governors or performance levels. It also had issues changing between available modes and had a nasty habit of ignoring the max CPU frequency setting and I’d find my CPU running flat out at 3GHz (overclock speed!) when it was supposed to be capped at 800MHz and not really doing anything. This my have just been something that had gone wrong on mine but I’d suggest keeping an eye on it if you’re running 3.10.

           To avoid the risk melting my CPU I ended up using the LTSE enablement stack kernel linux-generic-lts-raring (3.8.0-27) installed from the standard repos. Everything has worked so far and it has full support for all of the above and is maintained by the Ubuntu team and so receives security updates etc. which the mainline kernels won’t!!!

         • 

           Aksoy

           August 13, 2013

           Thanks for the update. I am actually here to comment about this issue :) I have just come accross the same problem now. It appears the CPU does not enter the powersave mode. Everything seems to work. My scripts that I posted here also work and when I check the settings, they seem to be ok but the laptop always stays on the performance mode. I didn’t have this issue on 3.9 but I just booted into it and it also has the same problem. I guess I’m gonna have to try the LTSE enablement stack kernel. Thanks.

         • 

           anon

           August 13, 2013

           So it wasn’t just mine then! Thanks for confirming.

           For anyone else who is using the mainline kernels you should be aware that it is not generally recommended or supported and they shouldn’t really be used for day to day use as they are intended for development and testing etc. and don’t have full driver support so are likely to encounter issues (and don’t receive security updates!). It’s much safer to stick with the kernels available in the main repos – the backports are usually pretty up to date. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/MainlineBuilds for more info.

           By the way, I’ve actually written an appindicator to manage/change the CPU performance level, CPU Governors, CPU boost mode, Battery Life Extender Mode and USB Charge Mode on the 900X3C (but should work on other series 9 laptops too). The thing is it requires permissions to modify the various config files and I’m not sure what the recommended (secure) way to do this is. At the moment I’m just setting the permissions at start up via /etc/rc.local but this obviously isn’t ideal. Do you (anyone) happen to know the way it should be done?

         • 

           anon

           August 13, 2013

           So it wasn’t just mine then! Thanks for confirming.

           For anyone else who is using the mainline kernels you should be aware that it is not generally recommended or supported and they shouldn’t really be used for day to day use as they are intended for development and testing etc. and don’t have full driver support so are likely to encounter issues (and don’t receive security updates!). It’s much safer to stick with the kernels available in the main repos – the backports are usually pretty up to date.

           By the way, I’ve actually written an appindicator to manage/change the CPU performance level, CPU Governors, CPU boost mode, Battery Life Extender Mode and USB Charge Mode on the 900X3C (but should work on other series 9 laptops too). The thing is it requires permissions to modify the various config files and I’m not sure what the recommended (secure) way to do this is. At the moment I’m just setting the permissions at start up via /etc/rc.local but this obviously isn’t ideal. Do you (anyone) happen to know the way it should be done?

           p.s. I just tried posting this but including a link to the Ubuntu mainline kernel page which resulted in the post being sent for moderation. So I’ve just removed the link – apologies in advance if a duplicate post subsequently appears!

         • 

           Aksoy

           August 13, 2013

           The method that I know of giving a script the root privileges is to add it to the sudoers file. If your application executes a script, then you can add that script to the sudoers file. In order to do that

           $ sudo visudo

           add the following line to the end of the file

           ALL ALL = (root) NOPASSWD: PATH/TO/SCRIPT

         • 

           anon

           August 13, 2013

           Thanks for the suggestion but because it’s an appindicator it has a GUI and so sudo style stuff gets a bit tricky. Usually you’d launch using gksudo or gksu but when I do this I can see terminal output but not the indicator itself. I need to run it in the user environment so it’s visible to the user but I’ve not found the combination that will make it visible to the user but run with root permissions on the required config files. I don’t think appindicators run as root (for obvious reasons) and I’ve not seen any others which require additional entries in sudoers. There’s very little documentation out there so I’m not sure what the proper way of doing it is!

           I don’t want to take this too off topic so I’ll go away and look into it and see if I can get it sorted and packaged up for release. Thanks again for your help.

         • 

           Aksoy

           August 14, 2013

           Yes, there should be a better way of doing it. The method that I suggested is not a solution but a workaround. And I don’t really know much about the GUI stuff since I deal with the CLI most of the time. Hope you can resolve that.

           I’ve installed the LTSE enablement stack kernel but as you said it removed a lot of packages which I did not pay that much attention to, since I knew it was going to update Xorg and in order to do that it would remove any old packages or leftovers. But unfortunately it removed some important packages whose names I don’t remember but I wasn’t able to log in to my system (I think the pantheon-greeter, the window where you log in didn’t appear at all). So I had to remove lightdm and install gdm in the recovery mode just to be able to log in. I will try installing just the single package you recommended. Hope it works. Thanks.

         • 

           anon

           August 14, 2013

           I originally ran it including the X stack updates but luckily I noticed before accepting the confirmation that it was going to remove some elementary system components and various other important packages so I declined it and re-ran it just to just install the kernel.

           It’s fine just installing the kernel on it’s own – it has good support including F11 and F12 function keys (using samsung-tools), backlight settings and all CPU performance modes, governors and CPU boost. No problems at all so far.

           For anyone interested, I just used the following in my .xbindkeysrc config and all of the function keys work.

           #fnf1
           “/usr/bin/gnome-control-center”
           m:0x0 + c:156
           XF86Launch1
           #fnf11
           “samsung-tools –show-notify –quiet –cpu hotkey”
           XF86Launch3
           #fnf12
           “samsung-tools –show-notify –quiet –wireless hotkey”
           XF86WLAN

         • 

           rileybphoto

           August 13, 2013

           Hi, did you ever try to install the LTSE Enablement Stack with the commands listed at the site? https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack

           When I was on the beta I ran:

           “sudo apt-get install –install-recommends linux-generic-lts-quantal xserver-xorg-lts-quantal libgl1-mesa-glx-lts-quantal”

           I tried it for both Qualtal and Raring, but the “libgl1-mesa-glx” broke my Steam install (and eventually my sytem when I tired to fix it). With the stable release of eOS, I’ve only intsalled from the repos using Synaptic.

           Do you know what the difference is? From the repos I am only getting the kernel, not the “X stack”, correct?

         • 

           anon

           August 13, 2013

           I don’t think they have go around to updating that page for the raring kernel yet but it’s in the official repos. Qauntal is just an older release – the latest officially backported kernel is the raring one. Just install the kernel without the x stuff. I just used:

           sudo apt-get install linux-generic-lts-raring

           If you try to install the updated xorg stuff it updates and removes a load of dependencies which are required by various things in elementaryos and so will probably break things.

         • 

           rileybphoto

           August 13, 2013

           Yes their page isn’t up to date. You can just replace “quantal” with “raring” if you want to do the full enablement stack. But like you said, it can be a system braker.

         • 

           rileybphoto

           August 13, 2013

           Also, how do you check the max CPU frequency setting?

         • 

           anon

           August 13, 2013

           cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_max_freq

           If you have a dig around in the directory where that file is you’ll find various other files relating to the governor settings etc. and other useful CPU info. There are equivalent directories for the other cores (cpu1 – cpu3) but these should generally have the same settings although they can be set individually. If you go up a couple of levels there’s some more system wide config. Be careful what you mess around with in there though.

         • 

           rileybphoto

           August 13, 2013

           Cool. Thanks for the info. Very helpful.

         • 

           rileybphoto

           August 13, 2013

           Hey, your fix for the brightness was Perfect! No need for xbacklight or laptop-mode-tools. My F12 key is also working now, many thanks. I’ll update my blog when I get a chance.

           Thanks for the explanation about temp to RAM. I was already aware of this, but it is important for other readers. A good idea for SSDs. I haven’t tried the Mouse Gestures mod yet, I am not really a big trackpad user.

           You’ll get the same F-Key support in the 3.8 lts kernel in the repos as you do with the 3.10 kernel, so it is probably the safer bet.

         • 

           Aksoy

           August 14, 2013

           You’re welcome. If I come across other useful tweaks, I will try to post them here. I’m also writing some scripts and some programs that are useful to me and when I’m done, i will put them on the internet. I’m also in the middle of writing a single script which would do all the settings, configurations and tweaks for the Series 9. When I’m done, upon installing the eOS, the only thing that I will have to do is to execute that script and done! I would also share that here if anyone would be interested.

       • 

         Marcos Vargas Moran

         March 16, 2014

         Dude i have a problem with qmake

2. 

   Eduard Gotwig

   July 26, 2013

   You did a really great post here, and you made me happy as a third-party dev =)

   You even made custom images, which look very good, and bring that prototype kind of feel.

   Checkout Gazette and Cable :)

   • 

     rileybphoto

     July 27, 2013

     Thanks! It’s always great to hear that people like it. I made all the images in GIMP on the eOS Series 9.

     That’s awesome that you are developing for elementary! I’ve heard of Cable. I’ll have to check out Gazette.

3. 

   rileybphoto

   July 25, 2013

   Thanks for the info. I just learned how to install the LTS Enablement Stack yesterday. I will give it a shot. I would have learn more about the custom pf-kernel before I installed in on my system.

4. 

   Tdrusk

   July 25, 2013

   Great post. I didn’t know about the back light tools. My laptop will only close to suspend sometimes. Maybe you can do something with pmsuspend?

   • 

     rileybphoto

     July 25, 2013

     Interesting. I wasn’t aware of pmsuspend. I’ll check it out when I have some free time. Thanks.

5. 

   Linux4kix

   July 25, 2013

   I am also using Elementary Luna on my desktop. I would highly recommend you check out the pf-kernel series and the LTSEnablement stack to get the most out of your hardware.

   http://pf.natalenko.name/
   https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack

   This will get you the newest intel graphics driver with SNA acceleration. Should be much better on the Intel HD 4000.