Laptop: Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED (UM5302, AMD Ryzen 6000 series)

[taumask]

Releases

Linux Mint 21.x

Compatibility

Works fine with some minor problems

Description of the hardware

As of kernel 6.1.0-1010 (package linux-oem-22.04c), UEFI (BIOS) v311:

Device	Works	Notes
Monitor/GPU	Yes	Hardware decoding in Celluloid does not seem to work correctly
Keyboard	Yes, but	Does not work with kernel 5.15 (default for Mint 21.1), works with kernel 5.19 (available after installation)
Keyboard backlight	Yes, but	Applet slider seems confused between 0 and 33%, automatic switch off after inactivity might require to setup screen dimming (?)
Fn+Esc to Fn+F7	Yes
Fn+F8	untested
Fn+F9, Fn+F10	No	It is possible to switch their state on Win11, however during the booting of Mint the Fn+F9 led switches back on
Keyboard Function keys	Yes, but	F8 does nothing, F9 and F10 untested yet, F11 unexpectedly opens the sound mixer applet's context menu, F12 does nothing
Touchpad	Yes
Touchpad Num Keypad	untested	Disabled in BIOS because too annoying
Touchscreen	Yes	Recognised as a battery (!?), cannot be disabled directly
Sound: integrated speakers	Yes	You must update the UEFI to version 311 for the speakers to work
Sound: integrated mic	untested	Could be unsupported, could be blocked because of Fn+F9 stuck
Sound: headset on jack	No	The headset is detected (the sound stops playing on the speakers), but nothing else works
Webcam	No	Undetected?
Wifi	Yes
Bluetooth	Yes
Fingerprint reader	untested
Battery	Yes	Install TLP for setting charging thresholds

Installation from Linux Mint 21.1 Live CD

You will need:

• a USB keyboard
• to disable Secure Boot in the BIOS
• to disable Bitlocker on Win11 (if you want to keep it in dual boot)

Once Mint is installed and booted into, look into the Update Manager, open View → Linux Kernels-> Continue, you now have a list of available kernels, install at least the latest 5.19 (latest one available at the time of this writing). Or you could directly install the latest OEM kernel officially available (linux-oem-22.04c at the time of this writing).

CPU Frequency Governor – highly recommended if you do not want your laptop to turn into a toaster on a regular basis

In your /etc/default/grub, in GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX, add amd-pstate=passive, then run update-grub. You need to reboot for this setting to take effect. This lowers the default frequency of your CPU to 400Mhz.

Then select the powersave scaling governor, for instance you are already using TLP for managing your battery charge level, uncomment the two following lines in /etc/tlp.conf then run tlp start:

CPU_SCALING_GOVERNOR_ON_AC=conservative
CPU_SCALING_GOVERNOR_ON_BAT=conservative

Extra things to do

• save the colour profile from OS/Windows/System32/spool/drivers/color/UM5302TA_1002_834C4172_CMDEF.icm (if you have disabled Bitlocker, you should be able to access it from the file explorer) and apply it in System Settings → Hardware → Color (I can't tell the difference though)
• create the following script to disable the touchscreen (needs to be run again after resuming from suspend):

#!/bin/sh

id=`xinput --list | grep -P '04F3:2F2B.*slave\s+pointer' | sed -r 's/.*\sid=([0-9]+)\s.*/\1/m'`
echo "Device number detected: $id"
xinput disable $id

Quirks

• when resuming from suspend with lock screen, the screen is black and only the mouse is visible, pushing the power button (hopefully you kept its default action as "Ask") makes the lock screen appear

TODO

• check if screen configuration function key (on F8) works when plugged onto an external monitor
• check fingerprint reader
• check whether the kernel scheduler handles well one physical core set to the schedutil frequency governor while the others are limited to powersave (could save some energy and keep the temperature comfortable)
• the windows Asus app also has a pixel-shifting tool to prevent OLED burn-in, how to do that in Mint?