My motherboard was shipped with BIOS Version 0904. I upgraded to 1103 with EZFlash2 which is built into the BIOS. Before entering the BIOS, download and copy the latest BIOS version from www.asus.com

The Xserver and KDE will start up with the “vesa” display driver as a default. You can change to the built-in NVidia 2D driver by changing “vesa” to “nv” in the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.

The proprietary NVidia 3D driver can be installed manually:

• Download the latest driver from www.nvidia.com to your home directory
• Make the file executable with chmod u+x /home/<user>/NV*.run
• Reboot Kubuntu into your kernel's recovery mode (make sure it is the one belonging to your default kernel)
• Execute the driver file, answer “no” to the first question and “yes” to all subsequent questions
• If this is one of the first things you do with your new installation, it is likely that the installation cannot proceed because of the missing libc header files. In this case you need to install these first with apt-get install libc-dev
• After the kernel modules for your NVidia card have been built, reboot the machine into your default kernel

The Xserver and KDE will start up with the “vesa” display driver as a default. You can change to the built-in NVidia 2D driver by changing “vesa” to “nv” in the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.

I could not yet figure out how to install the proprietary NVidia 3D driver. Actually, the driver installs according to the description above for Feisty, but during boot the Xserver cannot start, stating that there is now matching GPU found. I seems that when the graphic card has a DVI and a VGA interface, then the VGA interface is not recognized correctly, but I need to verify this assumption. Will post my learnings here, so check out later.

Drivers for the M2N-VM DH motherboard, the ASUS remote, the FusionHDTV tuner card, and the Fusion 430 case are available from the vendors for Windows XP / Vista only. To check proper functionality prior to getting them work under Feisty, I decided to do an alternate OS install. Here is what I did:

1. To avoid using up disk space I installed Windows XP on an external HDD connected through the eSATA port
2. The eSATA port is handled by a JMicron 363 chip. For XP to recognize this port, you need to create a custom boot disk using nLite and integrate the driver from the motherboard driver support CD
3. For whatever reason, the XP installer cannot differentiate between the HDD's plugged into SATA port 2/3 and eSATA port or even the SATA port 4. I therefore temporarily disabled the built-in HDD's in the BIOS during installation (see paragraph System)

Note that if a Soundgraph iMON remote is connected to USB1 and the Antec Fusion 430 VFD to USB5/7, then the Antec VFD driver would not start. Use the original Soundgraph driver instead.

Since XP replaces the MBR, it might be necessary to re-install grub after the XP install, onless you disabled the original boot HDD. Boot into a live CD with grub installed or a recovery CD, then enter the following commands:

grub
grub> find /boot/grub/stage1  # to find the HDD id where grub was originally installed
grub> root (hd0,0)  # replace hd0 with the id found in previous find command
grub> setup (hd0)  # installs grub into the MBR, setup (hd0,0) to install into partition

To activate the remote “power on” functionality, you need to run the Asus DH remote configuration tool and save the settings with the functionality enabled. Afterwards, you can boot directly into Linux and then shut down the OS by any means. “power on” will work with the ASUS remote. Note:

1. In my configuration with the iMON remote, the ASUS remote can activate “power on” through the iMON receiver
2. Do not disconnect the ASUS receiver, but you can leave it out of sight as the ASUS remote connects through the iMON receiver. If the ASUS receiver is disconnected the power on does not work anymore.
3. If you power off the computer with the power switch, you cannot power on by remote. Power on manually and boot into Linux, after the next shutdown power on by remote will work again.
4. After disconnecting the case from the power line (or after a mains power failure), you need to boot into XP to activate the ASUS remote
5. If you use a one-for-all type of remote, use 2 different commands for power on and power off. Teach all the keys from the iMON remote and the power on key from the ASUS remote - Done.

Install Kubuntu Feisty. Hardware including graphic and sound is recognized without problems, but apt-get does not work with some broken links. To fix the problem, issue the following command:

find /usr/share/fonts /usr/local/share/fonts /var/lib/defoma/fontconfig.d _
-type d -print0 | xargs --null touch

The wireless device is recognized by Feisty, but I could not get the KDE wirless tools to recognize the WEP protected LAN. Instead, I had to add the following lines to my interfaces file:

vim /etc/network/interfaces
iface ethx inet dhcp
wireless-essid <your-wireless-id>
wireless-key <your-WEP-key>  # 64 or 104 bits (8 or 13 hex numbers)

Then, execute /etc/init.d/networking restart

First, install the samba filesystem:

apt-get install smbfs

To manually mount a samba share:

mount -t  smbfs -o username=<username> //<servername>/<sharename> /mnt/point/

To have the samba share mounted during boot-time, edit fstab:

mkdir /mnt/<sharename>
vim /etc/fstab
//<servername>/<sharename>  /mnt/<sharename>  smbfs  username=<username>,password=<pwd>  0  0

The card is recognized automatically. To activate the DVB tuner, enter the following:

modprobe cx88_dvb

This is due to a small Feisty bug, which fails to load the module during boot time. To fix this, add the module name to /etc/modules:

vim /etc/modules
cx88_dvb

Check that the relevant cx88 modules are loaded with lsmod and /var/log/dmesg

Check that the sound capture is recognized with:

cat /proc/asound/cards