Arch Linux on Tablets?

esko997 · 2014-01-13 06:43:09

Hey all,

Hope this is the right area to be posting -- my apologizes if its not. Was just wondering if any of you had any experience installing Arch Linux on a tablet? Right now I have Arch running on my Lenovo s400 touch laptop and was very impressed with how nicely Arch interacts with the touch screen. This got me thinking about maybe installing Arch on my Dell Venue 8 Pro I picked up a few weeks ago. I read also on some guys blog about how he installed Fedora on his Dell tablet but was having problems obtaining propritery touch drivers or something.

Anyways I bought a micro-USB to USB cable and had a crack at trying to boot my Arch USB on the tablet but I ran into some problems trying to disable secure boot. I'm still going to poke around on there and see what I can do -- I'm sure its possible I just have to figure it out. If I make any more progress I will update this post/thread. In the meantime though was just wondering if any of you guys on here had had any luck booting an Arch ISO on a tablet, any tablet really and if you managed to get an install up and running. I'd be really interested to hear. I did see this wiki article: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Tablet_PC but that'll be more helpful after the install is done.

Cheers guys,

Esko

nomorewindows · 2014-01-13 13:53:51

I booted a tablet via PXE into a Arch diskless installation (it doesn't have a CD-ROM) and was able to ssh into it from another computer (with a keyboard!) and get it installed. It *HAD* to use X, in order to use the serial wacom tablet, with an onscreen keyboard. I haven't confirmed mileage on Secure boot with PXE, but it would probably be worth a try (if I could ever get ahold of one).

esko997 · 2014-01-13 16:36:30

nomorewindows wrote:

I booted a tablet via PXE into a Arch diskless installation (it doesn't have a CD-ROM) and was able to ssh into it from another computer (with a keyboard!) and get it installed. It *HAD* to use X, in order to use the serial wacom tablet, with an onscreen keyboard. I haven't confirmed mileage on Secure boot with PXE, but it would probably be worth a try (if I could ever get ahold of one).

This is awesome dude. Just to clarify -- so you actually got the Arch base installed right? Using X did the touchscreen work fine? Also, what wacom tablet was this and what BIOS was it? Some more information would be awesome dude -- thanks for the reply.

Cheers,

Esko

nomorewindows · 2014-01-13 17:18:12

It wasn't a touchscreen, which I heard that someone was able to get touchscreens working in Ubuntu the other day. Don't have one available, but this was a pen tablet. Doesn't seem to want to work under *BSD, even though there might be some benefits to that, so it stays with Arch, and works fine. Not sure what I was doing wrong with *BSD, but FreeBSD was the only one that might've come close to getting it to work. Under Arch, I had to use xf86-input-wacom and it works fine. Finally figured out how to get it to work under AwesomeWM with xvkbd (I have to use the focus button alot). Programming the keys wasn't too bad, but I have it to where the basic menu functions come up under just the buttons available. At times the keyboard disappears and the keys don't respond. So then I have to press the reset (ctrl+alt+del) button, and the keys respond again.

ANOKNUSA · 2014-01-13 18:25:43

I'm currently attempting to get Arch set up on a Galaxy Tab 3 10.1, an Android tablet with an Intel Atom processor (rather than an ARM one). Seems I'll need to build a custom kernel to get it to boot to a block device, but in theory there (probably) shouldn't be any real technical barrier. Folks have already managed to get Arch and Debian booting on Samsung ARM tablets natively, so I know it's possible. After figuring out how to get the initrd to boot, I'll need to account for everything needed to make the thing actually useful (bluetooth, wifi, power saving, etc). University classes just started back up today, so I can't say when I'll actually manage to do all this.

esko997 · 2014-01-14 16:25:35

ANOKNUSA wrote:

I'm currently attempting to get Arch set up on a Galaxy Tab 3 10.1, an Android tablet with an Intel Atom processor (rather than an ARM one). Seems I'll need to build a custom kernel to get it to boot to a block device, but in theory there (probably) shouldn't be any real technical barrier. Folks have already managed to get Arch and Debian booting on Samsung ARM tablets natively, so I know it's possible. After figuring out how to get the initrd to boot, I'll need to account for everything needed to make the thing actually useful (bluetooth, wifi, power saving, etc). University classes just started back up today, so I can't say when I'll actually manage to do all this.

Awesome dude. I'd imaging that installation will be the hardest part -- afterwards with the correct packages I'm confident pretty much everything will just work, but maybe this is misguided. Please let me know if you make any progress!

Cheers,

Esko

sandy8925 · 2014-01-16 19:41:45

I sort of have a tablet - it's the Acer Iconia W500. I've installed Arch, Fedora and Ubuntu on it, they all worked fine.

It's more like a "convertible" tablet - with a keyboard dock that I can attach the tablet to. There's no UEFI or SecureBoot on it though.

David López · 2014-01-22 23:50:34

I've used arch in my wetab tablet for more than one year. It's an intel based tabet, so there's no problem in installing linux distros on it. I bought it with ubuntu preinstalled (I think it was 11.10) with gnome-shell, but it was almost unusable, so I move to unity. I wrote a blog with all the tweaks I made:

http://ubuntutablet.blogspot.com.es/

Unfortunately when I upgraded to ubuntu 12.04 it was terribly slow. I tested gnome, kde and xfce, but IMHO lxde is by far better for a tablet, so I moved to lubuntu. But I had lots of problems with the touchscreen and I decided to install arch. It was my first contact with arch, and everything was great (now I also use arch in my 2 PC's). The only problem is with xf86-input-evdev, I'm stucked at 2.6.0 version without mtdev. But the performance is in the tablet great, much better than ubuntu/lubuntu versions I used

I use easystroke gestures for a lot of things: launch the keyboard (onboard), rotate the screen (xrandr), scrolling, mouse's right button, moving to another desktop, press INTRO... a good collection of easystroke movements is very important for me. I use faenza icons to get a 'tablet-style' desktop

I'm afraid I don't know how does arch work in arm tablets, by my experience in an intel based one is very, very positive

esko997 · 2014-01-23 00:51:28

David López wrote:

I've used arch in my wetab tablet for more than one year. It's an intel based tabet, so there's no problem in installing linux distros on it. I bought it with ubuntu preinstalled (I think it was 11.10) with gnome-shell, but it was almost unusable, so I move to unity. I wrote a blog with all the tweaks I made:
http://ubuntutablet.blogspot.com.es/
Unfortunately when I upgraded to ubuntu 12.04 it was terribly slow. I tested gnome, kde and xfce, but IMHO lxde is by far better for a tablet, so I moved to lubuntu. But I had lots of problems with the touchscreen and I decided to install arch. It was my first contact with arch, and everything was great (now I also use arch in my 2 PC's). The only problem is with xf86-input-evdev, I'm stucked at 2.6.0 version without mtdev. But the performance is in the tablet great, much better than ubuntu/lubuntu versions I used
I use easystroke gestures for a lot of things: launch the keyboard (onboard), rotate the screen (xrandr), scrolling, mouse's right button, moving to another desktop, press INTRO... a good collection of easystroke movements is very important for me. I use faenza icons to get a 'tablet-style' desktop
I'm afraid I don't know how does arch work in arm tablets, by my experience in an intel based one is very, very positive

Thanks very much for the reply man.Glad to hear Arch is working great on your tablet. I've been very busy with work lately so I havent gotten any time to get back to my Arch tablet but hopefully it will be as good of an experience when I get around it.

nomorewindows · 2014-01-23 14:07:03

How do I reboot again?

TheRealSid · 2014-03-11 09:06:06

I just stumpled randomly over this thread.... I have no idea how to boot arch from the Venue 8 Pro .
But maybe you are interested in this:
A colleague of mine and i are currently working on a working Arch Linux ARM Userspace for the Tegra Note 7 (currently with Tegra 4 / 1 GB RAM, soon with Tegra K1 / 2 GB RAM). We already got a working Kernel (and hopefully future support) from Gnurou@Github https://github.com/linux-shield/kernel. We are doing this, because we think that ARM is the better Platform for mobile Computing...
There is a long way to go, but maybe you want to stay informed (Or contribute to this project)...Give me a hint then.

nomorewindows · 2014-03-11 18:30:00

TheRealSid wrote:

I just stumpled randomly over this thread.... I have no idea how to boot arch from the Venue 8 Pro .

You'd need some touch screen drivers for that.

TheRealSid · 2014-03-13 12:18:04

nomorewindows wrote:

TheRealSid wrote:
I just stumpled randomly over this thread.... I have no idea how to boot arch from the Venue 8 Pro .
You'd need some touch screen drivers for that.

Are you referring to the Venue 8 Pro or the Tegra Note 7?

nomorewindows · 2014-03-13 12:37:46

TheRealSid wrote:

nomorewindows wrote:
TheRealSid wrote:
I just stumpled randomly over this thread.... I have no idea how to boot arch from the Venue 8 Pro .
You'd need some touch screen drivers for that.
Are you referring to the Venue 8 Pro or the Tegra Note 7?

Whichever one needs it. I'm not aware of any touch screen drivers in Arch, but Ubuntu has supposedly had some.

idiotgenius · 2015-02-21 16:17:35

Any updates on the Dell Venue 8 Pro? I ordered a used one on ebay the other day, and I'm planning on installing Fedlet and to install Arch by using chroot from there. It's also coming with a bluetooth keyboard, has anyone had any luck figuring out what the chipset for the wireless is or does it work out of the box? Any tips?

Arch Linux

#1 2014-01-13 06:43:09

Arch Linux on Tablets?

#2 2014-01-13 13:53:51

Re: Arch Linux on Tablets?

#3 2014-01-13 16:36:30

Re: Arch Linux on Tablets?

#4 2014-01-13 17:18:12

Re: Arch Linux on Tablets?

#5 2014-01-13 18:25:43

Re: Arch Linux on Tablets?

#6 2014-01-14 16:25:35

Re: Arch Linux on Tablets?

#7 2014-01-16 19:41:45

Re: Arch Linux on Tablets?

#8 2014-01-22 23:50:34

Re: Arch Linux on Tablets?

#9 2014-01-23 00:51:28

Re: Arch Linux on Tablets?

#10 2014-01-23 14:07:03

Re: Arch Linux on Tablets?

#11 2014-03-11 09:06:06

Re: Arch Linux on Tablets?

#12 2014-03-11 18:30:00

Re: Arch Linux on Tablets?

#13 2014-03-13 12:18:04

Re: Arch Linux on Tablets?

#14 2014-03-13 12:37:46

Re: Arch Linux on Tablets?

#15 2015-02-21 16:17:35

Re: Arch Linux on Tablets?

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