installation on tablet

English Hardware
#1

I’d like to run Linux on a tablet. I don’t mind too much which Linux or which tablet. I have tried a couple of permutations so far without success.

I have read an article (http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/install-linux-on-your-x86-tablet-five-distros-to-choose-from-1162825) that shows Opensuse working successfully on an Acer Iconia W500. The problem is that that particular tablet is too large for me, I really need one of about 8" max. However, running Opensuse looked pretty good, and there is clearly a pre-configured tablet install option which looks promising, plus the documentation has a chapter covering tablets, so Opensuse seems like a good choice of distro (plus it is one I have used before, so some prior experience).

The W500 has an AMD chipset which maybe avoids some of the problems that Intel chipsets set up (because of EUFI boot) but I have got hold of an Acer W3 with an Atom chipset in it - seems like it should be easier than dealing with the newer Baytrail chipsets, and I have successfully run Linux on Atom-based motherboards before.

So, I have a choice of distro that has been shown to work on a tablet, and a tablet with an Intel chipset, and I am hoping someone can offer some help to get the W3 to run Opensuse. I have been able to run it on the W3 in Vbox under Windows: it looks ok and everything works but it is hopelessly slow.

I have tried installing it from a DVD via USB, but even with Secure Boot disabled and USB-DVD set to first in boot sequence, it does not boot the DVD. As an alternative, I have tried installing via unetbootin. This has successfully installed a boot loader which offers Windows or Unetbootin as bootable operating systems. It boots Windows ok, but if I choose the Unetbootin option - obviously hoping that it will boot Opensuse - it does nothing for several seconds and then comes up with a Windows Boot Error screen. The boot loader does appear to be doing something, but not successfully booting Linux: I presume this fails and an attempt is made to boot Windows but from some location that doesn’t contain some necessary file(s).

I’d be grateful for any help anyone can offer to sort this out. I don’t really want Windows but happy to either dump it or keep it as an alternative, if either option makes things simpler.

Alternatively, if it is not possible to get Opensuse to run natively on the W3, can anyone tell me of any tablet (of about 8 inches or less screen size) that it will actually run on.

Many thanks!

#2

Have you tried using SUSE ImageWriter to create a bootable USB?

#3

unetbootin and any other Linux boot helper program will not work with openSUSE. It is made to be boot ready

For the DVD did you copy the ISO as and iso image and not just a file???

For USB you need to do a simple binary copy. But you did not say what OS you are working from so it can be difficult to make recommendations

Here is the basic instruction on USBs

https://en.opensuse.org/Live_USB_stick

if making image from Win8 or above this program will work

http://www.osforensics.com/tools/write-usb-images.html

#4

Sorry, should have made it clear that I am trying to boot from a DVD. The device will not boot directly from a USB stick, only a USB DVD or HDD. The DVD I am using is definitely bootable. I have also tried a known bootable HDD, and I have disabled the Secure Boot option in the BIOS. However, it does not seem to want to boot from any external device, which is why I thought I would try unetbootin, since that would work on the disk from within a running Windows environment.

I have many years experience of using unix/Linux so happy poking around at command line level, moving files around, etc, so if there is some fix I can apply to whatever unetbootin has done, I’d be willing to try it.

#5

Assuming you copied the openSuse ISO to a thumb drive with “dd if=opensuse-13.2.iso of=/dev/sdb” or “dd if=opensuse.iso of=/dev/mmcblk0”, then the USB thumb drive should be bootable.

All these modern tablets, usually Baytrail-T based, have UEFI bioses, and you’ll need to disable secure boot using the UEFI firmware setup built into the machine (what would once have been the BIOS setup).

When installing, you should find an EFI partition on the device’s flash (eMMC), mount that as /boot/efi - the openSuse installer should find it automatically.

edit: to help the forum search tools, adding a few keywords: silvermont baytrail atom eMMC UEFI

#6

My understanding (which could be wrong), is that tablets with atom processors use 32-bit UEFI. And that will give headaches. Most linux UEFI support is for 64-bit.

I have not tested this (I don’t have such a tablet), but the recently released Debian 8 claims to support 32-bit UEFI for installing 64-bit linux. That’s probably what is needed with some of these atom-based tablets.

#7

You’re part right. Although this newer generation of Silvermont Atom processors have 64 bit compatibility, the UEFI firmware is broken on the majority of these tablets, and only runs in 32 bit mode and will only load the 32 bit grub EFI, so you can’t install 64 bit linux. There is a work-round, and Fedlet uses it, with an intermediate stage.

I can confirm that Debian-8-i386 iso will boot on these devices (I am using Win-8-i386-with-bing at this moment on my new Toshiba Click Mini). It will even have a valiant go at installing, but doesn’t do the right thing with EFI and there’s no way to boot into debian without using rEFind, and even then doesn’t properly start. Still a work in progress:
https://forum.toshiba.eu/showthread.php?82516-Linux-on-Satellite-Click-Mini-L9W-any-experience

#8

Have you tried “debian-8.0.0-amd64-i386-netinst.iso” (bi-arch/32bit+64bit)? I think that’s what they are recommending.

#9

I’ll take a look at that. I had to return the borrowed USB ether adaptor, so I can’t do net installs at the moment. I’ve got one on order, will be able to try again when it arrives.

#10

On 2015-05-11 20:56, speculatrix wrote:
>
> Assuming you copied the openSuse ISO to a thumb drive with “dd
> if=opensuse-13.2.iso of=/dev/sdb” or “dd if=opensuse.iso
> of=/dev/mmcblk0”, then the USB thumb drive should be bootable.
>
> All these modern tablets, usually Baytrail-T based, have UEFI bioses,
> and you’ll need to disable secure boot using the UEFI firmware setup
> built into the machine (what would once have been the BIOS setup).

I’m curious. How do you reach a boot screen or bios screen in a tablet?
Or how do you find out?

I only have a cheap tablet, Intel based, with Android, and I’m curious
to find out if it is possible to install something else. I have no idea
how to find out such a thing… Pointers, perhaps?

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.

(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))

#11

On Tue 12 May 2015 01:04:06 AM CDT, Carlos E. R. wrote:

On 2015-05-11 20:56, speculatrix wrote:
>
> Assuming you copied the openSuse ISO to a thumb drive with “dd
> if=opensuse-13.2.iso of=/dev/sdb” or “dd if=opensuse.iso
> of=/dev/mmcblk0”, then the USB thumb drive should be bootable.
>
> All these modern tablets, usually Baytrail-T based, have UEFI bioses,
> and you’ll need to disable secure boot using the UEFI firmware setup
> built into the machine (what would once have been the BIOS setup).

I’m curious. How do you reach a boot screen or bios screen in a tablet?
Or how do you find out?

I only have a cheap tablet, Intel based, with Android, and I’m curious
to find out if it is possible to install something else. I have no idea
how to find out such a thing… Pointers, perhaps?

Hi
Normally power off, then press the volume key down and press power
button…

Visit the xda-developers forum cover pretty much all devices.

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° LFCS, SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 GNOME 3.10.1 Kernel 3.12.39-47-default
If you find this post helpful and are logged into the web interface,
please show your appreciation and click on the star below… Thanks!

#12

On 2015-05-12 03:30, malcolmlewis wrote:

> Hi
> Normally power off, then press the volume key down and press power
> button…

Wow! :slight_smile:

It certainly works. I got to a “droidboot provision os” screen.

> Visit the xda-developers forum cover pretty much all devices.

Thanks. Now I have something else for investigating :slight_smile:

I don’t know if I’ll try it or not (installing Linux), but at least now
I know there is a possibility. Perhaps when it gets time to replace it
with another one, so that it doesn’t matter much if I brick it.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.

(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))

#13

google has failed me, I’ve tried many different searches and not found debian-8.0.0-amd64-i386-netinst.iso

#14

I found another discussion which should prove relevant:
https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/501032-openSUSE-Intel-Bay-Trail-ASUS-Transformer-Book-T100

#15

Try http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/8.0.0/multi-arch/bt-cd/and look for the torrent link near the bottom of that page.

#16

thanks very much for your help.

#17

in case anyone comes here and wonders how they can download the debian multi-arch ISOs, now at

http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/8.2.0/multi-arch/bt-cd/
http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/multi-arch/iso-dvd/

FYI, I’ve got Linux mostly working on my Baytrail (3735F) based tablet, a Toshiba Click Mini. I booted the ISO off a USB CD driver (well, a Zalman virtual drive) using a USB combo hub with integrated ethernet and card reader. That allowed me to partition the card, and access the internet to let the install proceed.

I added a boot partition in the eMMC disk which contains grub plus suitable kernel modules/drivers, with the root partition on a microSD card in the tablet (but it can also use the dock’s SD slot). The grub-efi loader is then put in the main EFI partition.

I had to roll my own kernel to get the keyboard dock to work, I first went to 4.1 because there were baytrail patches, am now on 4.3-rc1.

Things which work: screen, touchscreen, keyboard dock, tablet microSD slot, tablet microUSB port (for OTG), dock SD slot, dock USB port.

Things which don’t work: bluetooth, screen brightness control, sound, cameras, bluetooth, side buttons, acpi power/battery, suspend & resume.

Things which partly work: the internal WiFi is a Realtek SDIO based thing, and the driver isn’t stable, the kernel panics or locks solid.

So, I would say stay away from Baytrail tablets if you want to run linux all the time and intend to wipe Windows. It’s been the complete opposite experience of my Dell E7440 Ultrabook, which runs linux perfectly and I’ve never needed to lift a finger to make it work.

#18

Thanks for the update.

I’ve been interested in the problem. But I don’t have such a tablet to try it myself. So your report fills in some of the missing details.

#19

I believe people have had more success with some models of the Asus Transformer TA100, though the TA100TA and TA100TAF have different chips so they need their own tweaks and hacks, but overall a lot more works, the internal networking, sound and network for example.

There’s a thing called the TA100 Magic Stick which is a good place to look for a working distro
https://plus.google.com/communities/117853703024346186936