Chuwi vi8 plus Boot in USB to install Ubuntu

[Guillaume]

Hi everyone.

So i have made some big progress but the road has been quite long.

You can’t boot a USB Key that you created with Rufus or even the Windows software because of the Bios which is UEFI 32 bits for some reasons (that’s weird because we have a 64 bits proc and architecture). You need to put a file in the folder EFI/BOOT which is called bootia32.efi

Then, just go in your bios by pressing ESC at very startup and going in the last tab section and selecting your usb key in the section “boot override” (you can also change the boot order in the boot section).

My goal was to try Ubuntu Live. I could now get the grub menu and select “Try Ubuntu Live”. It seemed to load and then i got a black screen. From this point i tried all kinds of things in the bios until i made the BIGGEST mistake you could make on such devices. I DEACTIVATED the USB in the bios hence i couldn’t plug anything on the tablet or it would crash, i couldn’t reset the bios either because i couldn’t plug ANY keyboard as they are USB. The tablet was lost. I searched heavily on the web but this tablet is really recent so there’s not that much stuff on it on the web.

Long story short, after a lot of refection i downloaded the official rom from Needrom hoping that the bios would be in there and it was! I flashed it from the Windows and Voilà !!!

I decided to continue my researches to finally boot that usb key. I found a way to arrive at the login page of the Live Session!!

So i think that it will be soon possible to install Ubuntu (or any linux distrib) on this machine. After i try to login there an error and it goes back to the login screen so i think there are still a lot of things to do for it to work (wifi card doesn’t seem to be recognized for example, no touch screen etc…). I’m happy i managed to do it anyway and it opens doors for other ideas like Booting in “Remix OS” which is a desktop version of Android.

Let me know what you think about this, if it gives you ideas and if you want to help.

A bientôt.

Guillaume

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[Guillaume]

i have added “ubuntu” to the topic and it seems that all the other posts/answers have disappeared.

So far the only one that boots to the desktop is Xubuntu 14,04 and i really dont understand why. Why not the 14,10 or 15,04 or even 15,10, most likely related to the kernel.

I think that there are different issues but the main one seems to be related to “acpi”.

I don’t really know where to go from here. Maybe i should try to find drivers for the touchscreen, wifi, the audio and maybe the graphic card on the Xubuntu 14,04 which manage to boot.

[Sigurd Bøe]

I have made a lot of progress on getting Ubuntu to boot on Chuwi Vi8 (not plus) and I’ve made a guide where I try to have most steps explain how you do it if specs are different.

https://github.com/Manouchehri/vi8/blob/master/Ubuntu_instructions.md

Right now I think the Wifi will need a patch to the kernel on xenial, but the github repo I linked to hosts the patch. After Xenial is released I might be able to host a kernel specialized for Atom for now thats too time consuming to maintain.

[Guillaume]

Sigurd Bøe wrote:

I have made a lot of progress on getting Ubuntu to boot on Chuwi Vi8 (not plus) and I’ve made a guide where I try to have most steps explain how you do it if specs are different. https://github.com/Manouchehri/vi8/blob/master/Ubuntu_instructions.md Right now I think the Wifi will need a patch to the kernel on xenial, but the github repo I linked to hosts the patch. After Xenial is released I might be able to host a kernel specialized for Atom for now thats too time consuming to maintain.

Thank you for that Sigurd. I have, of course, found your instructions while traveling the web, very good. The problem is that the vi8 plus doesn’t seem to have exactly the same hardwares concerning Wifi, Touch Screen or maybe some bios settings. The different solutions i’ve found for the vi8 bay trail regarding Wifi doesn’t work on the vi8 plus. I have managed to install Xenial which you already can find in Alpha 2 (http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-mate/releases/xenial/alpha-2/).

I stopped a bit my researched after not managing to get the Wifi or Touch Screen (with the solutions i had found for the vi8). But i’ll give it another try this Week-End.

Thanks again!

[el Salmon]

Guillaume wrote:

Hello everyone and thanks for the website techtablets. I have bought a Chuwi vi8 plus that i’m using as i speak, i bought all kind of connectics and its perfect. I’d like to try a few things and for this i need to boot from a USB key. I have managed to go in the bios by pressing “esc” at startup and in the bios

Sorry, I cannot enter in BIOS by pressing Esc key. Sometimes I have entered in BIOS by pressing some volume keys, but I don’t know how to.

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