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#1 2018-12-15 11:41:19

ThanosApostolou
Member
From: Athens, Greece
Registered: 2017-03-26
Posts: 7

Installing ARCH on Toshiba Satellite Click Mini tablet!

I just wanted to share my adventure of installing arch linux on Toshiba Satellite Click Mini tablet. I have been using manjaro for the latest years and I have been maintainer to some community editions there. I had used several arch based distros, but I had never installed pure arch before. This tablet is one of those which has x64 cpu, but a 32bit uefi. I had installed Fedora on it since it supports 32bit uefi out of the box (the only other bootable iso was debian multiboot) but I never really liked Fedora. So, I took the decision to install arch!

1) First, I created a bootia32.efi file as described here https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ASUS_x205ta and I just had to put it at efi partition of the usb to which I wrote the iso with gnome disks, under EFI/boot. Of course I had also to install grub with --target=i386-efi at the end.

2) I couldn't set up my wifi with wpa_supplicant, so I found it easier to remaster the arch ISO using this guide https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Re … nstall_ISO including the package networkmanager and just use nmtui (I really wish that networkmanager was included by default at the official iso).

3) I had to install missing firmware from AUR through the packages aic94xx-firmware, wd719x-firmware, rtl8723bs-bluetooth-firmware-git. The bluetooth firmware still throws errors but it seems to kinda work properly.

4) I installed gnome which has the best support for touch screens. I kept using the Wayland session which I find it really stable. For hidpi, at first I used monitor scaling at 175%  by enabling `gsettings set org.gnome.mutter experimental-features "['scale-monitor-framebuffer']"`. Later i just disabled it since it's still experimental feature and just used the lowest 16:10 resolution available with a bit increased fonts dpi.

5) The Micro SD on the tablet (not the one with the adaptor) was recognized as read only. To fix this I added the kernel parameter `sdhci.debug_quirks=0x10000` at grub (don't know what it does exactly, found it on some fedora forum post).

6) The hardest problem was that I was getting often crashes, especially under heavy load, like when building AUR packages. After many days searching (since I wasn't seen any relevant errors at journal) I came to the conclusion that the problem was that I was using systemd-swap. The default chunk size is 512MB it creates a new one only if less than 15% is free by default. So, when building packages with -j4 sometimes the memory increased too fast and I suppose that it was creating the new chunk too late, leading to memory corruption. I just changed `swapfc_free_swap_perc=40` at /etc/systemd/swap.conf and all the crashes stopped (I will experiment with lower values like 25-30 in the future).

Here's the outcome:

https://i.imgur.com/KiTh9s0.jpg

What does not work?
1) The cameras are not working. I don't have much time to dig into this. I remember when the tablet had came with windows 8 and I had updated to windows 10, the drivers from toshiba's site weren't working. So, I had been searching for weeks to find all 3 drivers with specific versions that work with each other (1 for front cam, 1 for rear cam and 1 for the device that does the switching between those 2). So, I'm guessing that it will be a real pain to make these work at linux, but if I can at least get the front camera working so that I can do video calls then I'll be satisfied.

Hope you enjoy this reading smile


Mod Edit - Replaced oversized image with link.
CoC - Pasting pictures and code

Last edited by Slithery (2018-12-15 16:22:27)

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#2 2018-12-15 12:04:04

Lone_Wolf
Member
From: Netherlands, Europe
Registered: 2005-10-04
Posts: 11,868

Re: Installing ARCH on Toshiba Satellite Click Mini tablet!

Nice job, some comments :

I couldn't set up my wifi with wpa_supplicant

You have tried with wifi-menu before you remastered the install iso ?

I had to install missing firmware from AUR through the packages aic94xx-firmware, wd719x-firmware, rtl8723bs-bluetooth-firmware-git.

aic94xx-firmware and wd719x-firmware are only needed if you have that hardware in your system.
The chance they're present in this laptop (and most modern systems)  is about the same as for winning the lottery without buying  a lottery ticket.


Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.


(A works at time B)  && (time C > time B ) ≠  (A works at time C)

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#3 2018-12-15 13:11:55

ThanosApostolou
Member
From: Athens, Greece
Registered: 2017-03-26
Posts: 7

Re: Installing ARCH on Toshiba Satellite Click Mini tablet!

Lone_Wolf wrote:

You have tried with wifi-menu before you remastered the install iso ?

Wow thx! I tried it and it's piece of cake to set the wifi up with wifi-menu and netctl. I had in mind that it was really hard to set up or that it only supported wep and not wpa/wpa2 or something, leading me to believe that wpa_supplicant was the only way in arch default ISO. But I guess I was wrong smile

Lone_Wolf wrote:

aic94xx-firmware and wd719x-firmware are only needed if you have that hardware in your system

I was getting warnings about those whenever I was running mkinitcpio, so I guess they are needed somewhere (I believe the wd719x is needed for th sd card reader on the removable keyboard, not sure about aic94xx)

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#4 2018-12-16 06:56:06

tydynrain
Member
From: Lower Puna, Big Island Hawai'i
Registered: 2017-10-26
Posts: 115
Website

Re: Installing ARCH on Toshiba Satellite Click Mini tablet!

I was getting warnings about those whenever I was running mkinitcpio, so I guess they are needed somewhere (I believe the wd719x is needed for th sd card reader on the removable keyboard, not sure about aic94xx)

As far as I am aware pretty much everyone (me included, on two separate systems) gets those missing firmware warnings when the fallback initramfs files are being created. They are for old hardware that most modern systems do not have, hence, you don't need the firmware for them.


Registered Linux User: #623501 | Arch Linux Principles: Simplicity - Modernity - Pragmatism - User Centrality - Versatility => KISS
Arch Linux, the most exciting thing since Linus created Linux and married it with GNU/GPL.
Arch Linux for Life, Arch Linux Forever!

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#5 2018-12-16 08:11:43

eschwartz
Fellow
Registered: 2014-08-08
Posts: 4,097

Re: Installing ARCH on Toshiba Satellite Click Mini tablet!

The firmware in question matches an optional kernel module included in the linux kernel package for the sake of being complete. But the firmware for it is not in the linux-firmware package, which means the module in question simply won't work without the firmware being installed.

The kernel includes *lots* of modules, most of which you will never need, but someone else out there might need. If you build a custom kernel using localmodconfig to only build the bits your hardware needs, then you will almost certainly not have kernel/drivers/scsi/aic94xx/aic94xx.ko.xz or kernel/drivers/scsi/wd719x.ko.xz and coincidentally you will also not have the mkinitcpio warning.

BTW you will know if you needed that firmware, because your very unusual HDD would be unable to be read and most likely your device would totally fail to boot.

mkinitcpio emits the error message anyway, because when building the fallback initramfs, it has no way to programmatically tell that those kernel modules will not actually be getting loaded. The fallback initramfs by design includes lots of things that will not be loaded, because it is meant to include lots of things that were detected as not being needed but it is there in case the autodetection ever fails

Last edited by eschwartz (2018-12-16 08:13:03)


Managing AUR repos The Right Way -- aurpublish (now a standalone tool)

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#6 2018-12-16 13:13:36

ThanosApostolou
Member
From: Athens, Greece
Registered: 2017-03-26
Posts: 7

Re: Installing ARCH on Toshiba Satellite Click Mini tablet!

You are right, I removed those firmware packages and everything seem to work fine, so they weren't needed. The only firmware I need from AUR IS rtl8723bs-bluetooth-firmware-git for my bluetooth.

I noticed that the bluetooth is not functioning properly though. I can receive files from my android phone, but I get errors when I try to send files. Also, still no luck on getting any of those cameras to work. I'll wait for a few kernel and linux-firmware releases to see if the situation improves by itself, before I start trying again.

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