Debian install on Asus ROG GL552VW.md

Debian 10 "Buster" install on Asus ROG GL552VW

Jan 04, 2019 Updating the document for the new debian version

Installation

Download the netinst image for amb64, and copy it to a sdcard/usbstick/etc... Atention Figure out which device (sdX) is your removable media, otherwise you might delete your entire system!

dd if=/tmp/debian-buster.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M; sync

It is extremelly recommended that you check that the files has been properly copied to the device. To do so, we will copy them back to a file, truncate it so it is the same size as the original, and check if they are exactly the same:

dd if=/dev/sdX of=/tmp/from-removable-media.iso bs=4M
truncate --reference /tmp/debian-buster.iso /tmp/from-removable-media.iso
diff -s /tmb-debian-buster.iso /tmp/from-removable-media.iso

After that, we need to provide the required firmware for the wifi card, which we can get over here. Find the missing .ucode that the installer warns you about (should be iwlwifi-7265D-27.ucode) and put it in a second thumbdrive/sdcard. The warning will look like something like this.

Now we are ready to begin the installation!

Reboot the computer, press ESC while its booting, and it should take you to the boot menu. Over there selecte your device and begin the instalation.

Caution: Make sure to load the sdcard/thumbdrive in UEFI mode, since the motherboard supports UEFI.

After a painless installation, with the wifi already working, we are ready to boot under debian.

When the Grub menu pops out, press the e key. Currently the nouveau drivers for the NVIDIA card are not stable yet (in my case, it was constantly blocking one of the 4 CPU's), so we are going to disable it. Look for a line that says "linux..." or something similar, and add nouveau.modeset=0 to the end.

Now your computer should be able to boot. We are going to make this change permanent by modifying the file /etc/default/grub, so it looks like this

GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_TIMEOUT=5
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet nouveau.modeset=0"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

Run update-grub, reboot and you are good to go.

Tap to click

With this baisc installation, default to click doesn't work, but following this stackoverflow post, there is an option for the libinput library to enable it. Editing the file /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-libinput.conf, and change the touchpad section to this:

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "libinput touchpad catchall"
        MatchIsTouchpad "on"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
        Driver "libinput"
        Option "Tapping" "on"
EndSection

What doesn't work

The microphone didn't work, and I have fixed it but I don't remember how. I think it had to do with installing some drivers package, and playing with the pulseaudio options.

Hi! I have the same Asus computer here and trying to install Debian Stretch.
The problems for me are:

• First, screen resolution is bad during installation. Font size is too small to read normally. And Window size is bigger than monitor size.
• After install, need to nouveau.modeset=0. But resolution is still bad and there is no option but 3840x2160 to set. How can I change this?
• Try to install nvidia driver (bumblebee or whatever) and can't log in into graphics UI (GNOME) or the system keeps hanging depending on the process. Have you tried this drivers?

Hi @fabatera I haven't tried to make the Nvidia graphics to work yet, since honestly I only use it in my windows partition.

I think I remember the issue about the resolution being to small, and it is because you are booting the installation in BIOS compatible mode, instead of the UEFI mode. So I can't remember now the exact name, but when you have to "boot from device", choose de UEFI one instead of the regular USB one.

This should fix the resolution problems during the install and during normal use, let me know if it is not the case.