Running Ubuntu on ASUS N550JK

Here is list of issues I faced with Ubuntu 14.04

1. Hotkeys don’t work

Changing of backlight of keys, sonitor brightness level, sound level

Fix:

Open /etc/default/grub replace string GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi_osi=" Run updae-grub and reboot.

2. No touchpad tab in mouse&touchpad settings

This might help:

sudo modprobe -r psmouse
cd /usr/src/
sudo dkms remove psmouse/elantech-v6 --all
sudo wget http://www.ouam.fr/~madko/ubuntu/elantech/psmouse-elantech-v7.tar.bz2 
sudo tar jxvf psmouse-elantech-v7.tar.bz2 
sudo dkms add -m psmouse -v elantech-v7
sudo dkms build -m psmouse -v elantech-v7 
sudo dkms install -m psmouse -v elantech-v7
reboot

Links connected with subject:

Link 1

Link 2

3. Subwoofer works incorrectly

Fix:

Added following line into /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf:

	options snd-hda-intel model=asus-mode4

Reboot. If you run sound test via sound settings menu you should hear sound from front left, front right and rear right. Rear right should be sounded via subwoofer. Rear left should be without sound. Despite that if you start using music, left and right speakers will work together with subwooder. To check this speaker-test -c6 -twav

4. Battery icon persistently present

No solution so far

5. screen calibration

xrandr --output eDP1 --gamma 0.68:0.7:0.7

6. Card Reader works unstably

7. No usb devices in VirtualBox guest machine

VB doesn’t support usb 3.0 so far. Look at https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/8873

8. Power Management

ASUS N550JK has discrete graphic card GeForce GTX 850M, also on board it has integrated card Intel HD Graphics 4600. By default Ubuntu 14.04 doesn’t switch between cards correctly in order to reduce power consumption.

Fix

Luckuly there is a package Bumblebee. After installation you should notice longer battery life.

sudo apt-get install bumblebee