Experiences - Asus Transformer Tablet with openSUSE
by
, 20-Nov-2011 at 02:01 (9570 Views)
I successfully connected my Asus Transformer Tablet PC via a USB connection to my 64-bit openSUSE-11.4 PC (running KDE-4.6.0) to copy files to/from. The Asus Transformer is running Android 3.2.1 and my openSUSE-11.4 is running KDE-4.6.0.
To interface the Transformer to my desktop PC, I used the USB/power cable that comes with the Transformer, which is a cable that plugs into the Transformer's Tablet section output-jack for the 'Dockingstation/keyboard' on one end, and it has a male USB jack on the other end.
This male 'USB' end of the cable nominally plugs into the AC power adapter, and instead I plugged the USB end into my Desktop PC.
Before connecting any cables thou, on my openSUSE-11.4 PC's operating system I installed mtpfs that is packaged by Packman Packagers. According to the mtpfs web site MTPfs is a FUSE filesystem that supports reading and writing from any MTP device (as supported by libmtp). I've read this works as the Asus Transformer can be treated as an MTP device when connecting via this USB cable.
After mtpfs was installed, I followed the method which is posted on many blogs and forum threads for other GNU/Linux distributions, which is to create the directory:
followed by modifying its permissions:Code:mkdir /media/transformer
its quite possible 'chmod 775' is superior (as that is what I have nominally read), but I wanted to give all 'users' write access, and not just a specific user from my nominal desktop login.Code:chmod 777 /media/transformer
I then switched ON my transformer, and I plugged in the USB cable. It took me a while to succeed, and as I attempted this multiple times, I had mixed results here, with the device being recognized as either
orCode:Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0b05:4e1f ASUSTek Computer, Inc.
The time it was recognized as 4e3f was a surprise, and I had no access to the Asus from my openSUSE on that occasion. I noted these lines with the 4e3f in the dmesg:Code:Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0b05:4e3f ASUSTek Computer, Inc.
which puzzled me ... I was not able to mount the acer with the mtpfs command with the 4e3f recognition.Code:[ 181.331646] usb 1-4: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3 [ 181.476876] usb 1-4: New USB device found, idVendor=0b05, idProduct=4e1f [ 181.476880] usb 1-4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3 [ 181.476883] usb 1-4: Product: EeePad [ 181.476885] usb 1-4: Manufacturer: ASUS [ 181.476887] usb 1-4: SerialNumber: 37c7043415f42d7 [ 190.880979] usb 1-4: USB disconnect, address 3 [ 191.156091] usb 1-4: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4 [ 191.301317] usb 1-4: New USB device found, idVendor=0b05, idProduct=4e3f [ 191.301320] usb 1-4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3 [ 191.301323] usb 1-4: Product: EeePad [ 191.301325] usb 1-4: Manufacturer: ASUS [ 191.301327] usb 1-4: SerialNumber: 37c7043415f42d7 [ 191.347501] usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_ether [ 191.365560] rndis_host 1-4:1.0: usb0: register 'rndis_host' at usb-0000:00:1a.7-4, RNDIS device, ee:6c:c8:e7:7f:c9 [ 191.365587] usbcore: registered new interface driver rndis_host [ 191.400635] cfg80211: Calling CRDA to update world regulatory domain [ 191.420383] usbcore: registered new interface driver rndis_wlan [ 191.456744] cfg80211: World regulatory domain updated: [ 191.456746] (start_freq - end_freq @ bandwidth), (max_antenna_gain, max_eirp) [ 191.456748] (2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm) [ 191.456750] (2457000 KHz - 2482000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm) [ 191.456751] (2474000 KHz - 2494000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm) [ 191.456753] (5170000 KHz - 5250000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm) [ 191.456754] (5735000 KHz - 5835000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
around 5 minutes later when I could not get the interface to work, I unplugged the USB cable and plugged it back in again. This time I obtained this from the dmesg:
...Code:[ 709.197436] usb 1-4: USB disconnect, address 4 [ 709.197473] rndis_host 1-4:1.0: usb0: unregister 'rndis_host' usb-0000:00:1a.7-4, RNDIS device [ 724.043010] usb 1-4: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 5 [ 724.188228] usb 1-4: New USB device found, idVendor=0b05, idProduct=4e1f [ 724.188232] usb 1-4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3 [ 724.188234] usb 1-4: Product: EeePad [ 724.188236] usb 1-4: Manufacturer: ASUS [ 724.188238] usb 1-4: SerialNumber: 37c7043415f42d7
I then sent the command (which I had read about in blogs and on other distribution's forums):
after which I obtained the error:Code:mtpfs -o allow_other /media/transformer
and despite this error I was then on my openSUSE-11.4 PC able to navigate to /media/transformer with dolphin in KDE and copy and paste files into/from the transformer's directories.Code:Device 0 (VID=0b05 and PID=4e1f) is UNKNOWN. Please report this VID/PID and the device model to the libmtp development team
I don't have this mount methodologyreliably figured out yet, but this success is good.
To unmount the Transformer, the command is:
I have also read it may be necessary to tune UDEV to recognize the transformer, creating the file /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules with the content of that file something like:Code:umount mtpfs
orCode:SUBSYSTEMS=="usb",ATTRS{idVendor}=="0b05",ATTRS{idProduct}=="4e3f",MODE="0666",GROUP="users" #Asus Transformer
...Code:SUBSYSTEMS=="usb",ATTRS{idVendor}=="0b05",ATTRS{idProduct}=="4e1f",MODE="0666",GROUP="users" #Asus Transformer
Note I probably would try: GROUP="users" ... although on other blogs I have read the suggestion to use: OWNER="<your user name>" instead of GROUP="users" .
To reload the UDEV rules, instead of restarting one can purportedly send the command:
Code:udevadm control --reload-rules
... and some information:
I found the mounting is not always reliable, and sometimes after a failed mount attempt I need to send the umount command to the Transformer, disconnect the cable, plug the cable back in and remount. So I am still trying to sort better the 'cause and effect' behaviour, so as to improve my reliable repeatability of this interfacing.Code:oldcpu@corei7:~> df -Th Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on rootfs rootfs 29G 6.5G 22G 24% / devtmpfs devtmpfs 3.0G 280K 3.0G 1% /dev tmpfs tmpfs 3.0G 1.9M 3.0G 1% /dev/shm /dev/sda2 ext4 29G 6.5G 22G 24% / /dev/sda7 ext4 1.2T 970G 166G 86% /home /dev/sda1 fuseblk 98G 29G 69G 30% /windows/C /dev/sda6 ext4 34G 4.0G 29G 13% /home/oldcpu/sandboxhome mtpfs fuse.mtpfs 27G 3.5G 24G 14% /media/transformer
Still, I guess the bottom line is SUCCESS as I was able to copy files back and forth using this USB connection.