Are you Linux user, want to buy Zenbook and wonder how well it plays with Linux?

I’ve got one and can tell you how is it supported right now.

Zenbook (Asus UX31) and Linux:

Power  management

Much worse than running Windows. Don’t expect more than 1,5h – 2h on battery.

There are some kernel options you can use to improve that but you should forget about stability then.

Here are these options:

i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 i915.semaphores=1 i915.i915_enable_fbc=1
i915.lvds_downclock=1 i915.modeset=1 pcie_aspm=force

With these options passed to kernel don’t count on stability. Unexpected shutdowns once a day is something normal. Using highly multithreaded apps like JDownloader shutdowns are every 5 minutes.
You have been warned.

Some changes are being made in recent (3.2) kernels to fix these problems but right now you have two options: stability or huge power consumption.
Additionaly it’s better to disable VTd extension in BIOS to gain some stability.

You can also try the solution with Differentiated System Description Table (part of ACPI) recompilation which according to that guy fixes the problem.

Ethernet

Works fine, but driver isn’t available even in 3.1.x kernels. You have to download it and compile yourself.
Here’s the driver.

The 3.2.x line of kernels will be shipped with this driver.

WIFI

Works out of the box

Touchpad

There are two options.

Elantech

You’re lucky. Works out of the box. With recent (3.2) kernels even better.
You can tune it a little with the help of the following script (courtesy of Aurélien Jacobs):

#!/bin/sh
# higher sensitivity
synclient FingerLow=9 FingerHigh=12
# faster movements
synclient MinSpeed=2.0 MaxSpeed=4.0 AccelFactor=0.1
# 2 fingers scroll
synclient VertTwoFingerScroll=1 HorizTwoFingerScroll=1
# faster coasting
synclient CoastingSpeed=10 CoastingFriction=25
# enable tap to click (2 fingers for middle click, 3 fingers for right click)
synclient TapButton1=1 TapButton2=3 TapButton3=2
# faster tap and double tap
synclient FastTaps=1 MaxDoubleTapTime=100
# continue dragging movement when reaching the edge of the touchpad
synclient EdgeMotionMinZ=30 EdgeMotionMaxZ=40 EdgeMotionMinSpeed=100 EdgeMotionMaxSpeed=400

Sentelic

Basically with Oskari Saarenmaa’s driver some functionality works.
At least two-finger scrolling and disabling touchpad while writing.
But the driver still needs some work on edge scrolling or emulation of middle button.
Last thing you can “workaround” using synclient and setting tapping with two fingers as emulation of middle button.

Sentelic company updated their touchpads documentations so there is a chance that sooner or later the driver will work with all features.

Here are the links to other efforts:
ReubenBond’s work.
Chris D’ work.

The most comprehensive place with information about current status of this problem is probably the Ubuntu’s launchpad entry.

SD card reader

Ubuntu’s wiki states it works perfectly out of the box. Well… not for me.
I had to download driver and compile it myself.
3.2 kernel should include this driver.

S2R/S2D aka hibernation

Works only if you unload USB related modules (xhci, sometimes ehci too).

Bluetooth

Should work but needs patching kernel.
I don’t use BT so treat it only as a hint.

Sound/Microphone

Works out of the box

Useful links

ArchLinux Wiki

Ubuntu Wiki
Written on January 1st, 2012