ASUS NB Ctrl

asusd is a utility for Linux to control many aspects of various ASUS laptops but can also be used with non-asus laptops with reduced features.

NOTICE:

This app is developed and tested on fedora only. Support is not provided for Arch or Arch based distros.

NOTICE: The following is not required for 5.11 kernel versions, as this version includes all the required patches.

This program requires the kernel patch here to be applied. Alternatively you may use the dkms module for 'hid-asus-rog` from one of the repositories here.

The patch enables the following in kernel:

• All hotkeys (FN+Key combos)
• Control of keyboard brightness using FN+Key combos (not RGB)
• FN+F5 (fan) to toggle fan modes

You will not get RGB control in kernel (yet), and asusd + asusctl is required to change modes and RGB settings.

Many other patches for these laptops, AMD and Intel based, are working their way in to the kernel.

Discord

Discord server link

SUPPORTED LAPTOPS

Most ASUS gaming laptops that have a USB keyboard. If lsusb shows something similar to this:

Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0b05:1866 ASUSTek Computer, Inc. N-KEY Device

then it may work without tweaks. Technically all other functions except the LED and AniMe parts should work regardless of your latop make. Eventually this project will probably suffer another rename once it becomes generic enough to do so.

Implemented

• System daemon
• User notifications daemon
• Setting/modifying built-in LED modes
• Per-key LED setting
• Fancy LED modes (See examples)
• Saving settings for reload
• Logging - required for journalctl
• AniMatrix display on G14 models that include it
• Set battery charge limit (with kernel supporting this)
• Fancy fan control on G14 + G15 thanks to @Yarn1
• Graphics mode switching between iGPU, dGPU, and On-Demand
• Toggle bios setting for boot/POST sound
• Toggle bios setting for "dedicated gfx" mode on supported laptops (g-sync)

FUNCTIONS

Graphics switching

A new feature has been added to enable switching graphics modes. This can be disabled in the config with "manage_gfx": false,. Additionally there is an extra setting for laptops capable of g-sync dedicated gfx mode to enable the graphics switching to switch on dedicated gfx for "nvidia" mode.

The CLI option for this does not require root until it asks for it, and provides instructions.

This switcher conflicts with other gpu switchers like optimus-manager, suse-prime or ubuntu-prime, system76-power, and bbswitch. If you have issues with asusd always defaulting to integrated mode on boot then you will need to check for stray configs blocking nvidia modules from loading in:

• /etc/modprobe.d/
• /usr/lib/modprope.d/

Power management udev rule

If you have installed the Nvidia driver manually you will require the data/90-asusd-nvidia-pm.rules udev rule to be installed in /etc/udev/rules.d/.

fedora and openSUSE

You may need a file /etc/dracut.conf.d/90-nvidia-dracut-G05.conf installed to stop dracut including the nvidia modules in the ramdisk. This is espeically true if you manually installed the nvidia drivers.

# filename /etc/dracut.conf.d/90-nvidia-dracut-G05.conf
# Omit the nvidia driver from the ramdisk, to avoid needing to regenerate
# the ramdisk on updates, and to ensure the power-management udev rules run
# on module load
omit_drivers+=" nvidia nvidia-drm nvidia-modeset nvidia-uvm "

and run dracut -f after creating it.

KEYBOARD BACKLIGHT MODES

Models GA401, GA502, GU502 support LED brightness change only (no RGB).

If you model isn't getting the correct led modes, you can edit the file /etc/asusd/asusd-ledmodes.toml, the LED Mode numbers are as follows:

0   STATIC
1   BREATHING
2   STROBE
3   RAINBOW
4   STAR
5   RAIN
6   HIGHLIGHT
7   LASER
8   RIPPLE
10  PULSE
11  COMET
12  FLASH
13  MULTISTATIC
255 PER_KEY

use cat /sys/class/dmi/id/product_name to get details about your laptop.

Keybinds

To switch to next/previous Aura modes you will need to bind both the aura keys (if available) to one of: Next

asusctl led-mode -n

Previous

asusctl led-mode -p

To switch Fan/Thermal profiles you need to bind the Fn+F5 key to asusctl profile -n.

BUILDING

Requirements are rust >= 1.40 installed from rustup.io if the distro provided version is too old, and make.

Ubuntu:* apt install libdbus-1-dev libclang-dev libudev-dev

fedora: dnf install clang-devel dbus-devel systemd-devel

Installing

Packaging and auto-builds are available here

Download repositories are available here

Alternatively check the releases page for f33 RPM.

---

Run make then sudo make install then reboot.

The default init method is to use the udev rule, this ensures that the service is started when the device is initialised and ready.

If you are upgrading from a previous installed version, you will need to restart the service or reboot.

$ systemctl daemon-reload && systemctl restart asusd

You may also need to activate the service for debian install. If running Pop!_OS, I suggest disabling system76-power gnome-shell extension and systemd service.

If you would like to run this daemon on another non-ASUS laptop you can. You'll have all features available except the LED and AniMe control (further controllers can be added on request). You will need to install the alternative service from data/asusd-alt.service.

Uninstalling

Run sudo make uninstall in the source repo, and remove /etc/asusd/.

Updating

If there has been a config file format change your config will be overwritten. This will become less of an issue once the feature set is nailed down. Work is happening to enable parsing of older configs and transferring settings to new.

USAGE

NOTE! Fan mode toggling requires a newer kernel. I'm unsure when the patches required for it got merged - I've tested with the 5.6.6 kernel and above only. To see if the fan-mode changed cat either:

• cat /sys/devices/platform/asus-nb-wmi/throttle_thermal_policy or
• cat /sys/devices/platform/asus-nb-wmi/fan_boost_mode

The numbers are 0 = Normal/Balanced, 1 = Boost, 2 = Silent.

Running the program as a daemon manually will require root. Standard (non-daemon) mode expects to be communicating with the daemon mode over dbus.

Commands are given by:

asusctl <option> <command> <command-options>

Help is available through:

asusctl --help
asusctl <command> --help

Some commands may have subcommands:

asusctl <command> <subcommand> --help

Daemon mode

If the daemon service is enabled then on boot the following will be reloaded from save:

• LED brightness
• Last used built-in mode
• fan-boost/thermal mode
• battery charging limit

The daemon also saves the settings per mode as the keyboard does not do this itself - this means cycling through modes with the Aura keys will use the settings that were used via CLI.

Daemon mode creates a config file at /etc/asusd/asusd.conf which you can edit a little of. Most parts will be byte arrays, but you can adjust things like mode_performance.

User NOTIFICATIONS via dbus

If you have a notifications handler set up, or are using KDE or Gnome then you can enable the user service to get basic notifications when something changes.

systemctl --user enable asus-notify.service
systemctl --user start asus-notify.service

OTHER

DBUS Input

See README_DBUS.md.

AniMe input

You will want to look at what MeuMeu has done with https://github.com/Meumeu/ZephyrusBling/

Supporting more laptops

Please file a support request.

Notes:

• If charge limit or fan modes are not working, then you may require a kernel newer than 5.6.10.
• AniMe device check is performed on start, if your device has one it will be detected.
• GA14/GA401 and GA15/GA502/GU502, You will need kernel patches, these are on their way to the kernel upstream.
• On fedora manually installed Nvidia driver requires a dracut config as follows:

# filename/etc/dracut.conf.d/90-nvidia-dracut-G05.conf
# Omit the nvidia driver from the ramdisk, to avoid needing to regenerate
# the ramdisk on updates, and to ensure the power-management udev rules run
# on module load
omit_drivers+=" nvidia nvidia-drm nvidia-modeset nvidia-uvm "

License

Mozilla Public License 2 (MPL-2.0)

Credits

• flukejones, project maintainer.
• tuxuser
• aspann
• meumeu
• Anyone missed? Please contact me