ASUS Zenbook UX301LA: A Nice Intel Ultrabook For Linux Users

When I bought the Zenbook UX301LA-DH71T, ASUS had no experience with running Linux on it so they were unable to comment at all on its Linux compatibility. However, having run many Intel Haswell systems with Linux over the past year, I felt fairly safe in buying this new ultrabook and seeing it work on Linux. I ended up being correct and was fairly easy to install Ubuntu 14.04 LTS in its near-final development form on this system.

Booting Ubuntu 14.04 LTS on the system went smooth without any issues. I ended up breaking the RAID array to use the first disk for the main operating system while the second SSD is just being used for back-up purposes. When running Ubuntu 14.04 with the Linux 3.13 kernel and Mesa 10.1-devel, the Iris Graphics 5100 worked just fine. For those using Haswell hardware or any Intel graphics, the newer the drivers the better. Already from this ultrabook earlier in March I wrote Iris Graphics: Windows 8.1 vs. Ubuntu 14.04 comparison.

All key functionality of the UX301LA was working fine on Ubuntu 14.04 with the Linux 3.13 kernel, the display was working at its native resolution with Intel Iris Graphics, the touch-pad worked, the touch-screen worked, 802.11ac support was working fine with my ASUS router, and I didn't have any other connectivity issues. In the weeks I've been using this ultrabook every day, I have yet to uncover any major issues on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. The big complaint is just about the Linux HiDPI support but that has nothing to do with the ASUS ultrabook but is simply a Linux software issue and relevant to any HiDPI display that most Linux desktops and software aren't yet properly optimized for these high-density displays. For more on this see OS X Is No Longer On My Main System, But I Already Have Regrets and Unity 7 Is Now My Desktop, Wins Over Xfce On HiDPI.