Linux Mint on Chuwi Hi10 & Hi12 Tablets

[Brad]

Just out today from Linuxium – could be helpful for getting Atom Cherry-Trail devices working…

http://linuxiumcomau.blogspot.com.br/2017/03/running-ubuntu-with-upstream-kernel-on.html

Wednesday, 29 March 2017
Running Ubuntu with an Upstream Kernel on Intel Bay and Cherry Trail Devices

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[Cedric]

Hi all I am new to the forum.

I was one of the first buyers of the BQ 10″ tablet back when it came out, but returned it 3 days after receiving it because It was by and large an unfinished job, as far as the Canonical implementation of Ubuntu was concerned. Today with the news that Canonical abandons Unity in favor of Gnome 3.0, I am extra glad I made that decision.

I am looking at buying a Chuwi Hi10 or 12 tablet.
What I mainly intend to do with the tablet is to use it to consult technical doc at work and stream movies w/ Netflix at home.
I am looking at installing Lx Mint on it, following steps detailed in this thread.
I did read most of all 49 posts here. Still I am left with a few of doubts/questions:
– do the touch screen and audio now work, without the need to use an external card for audio ?
– I’d be willing to actually wipe the internal drive clean to just have a Linux mint boot, instead of a dual or triple boot.  Is it a bad idea in any one experience ? (Apparently at least one OP reported a working touch screen when booting Lx from a live USB, and no touch screen on the same device, after wiping its storage medium clean and installing said Lx distro…)
Thanks to all.
-ced

$ printf "%s\n\n" "I like strawberries, therefore I am not a robot."
$ sed 's/.icrosoft/linux/g' World

[Brad]

I personally would go for something like the Jumper EZbook 3 with dual-core Celeron N3350 on sale for $199 –> http://www.gearbest.com/laptops/pp_607750.html?wid=21  The price about the same and the performance of the N3350 is the same as the Atom X5-8350.  And you’re probably gonna have a much easier time getting Linux Mint or some other Linux distro running well on the Jumper with an Apollo-Lake N3350 CPU than on a Chuwi with a Cherry-Trail Atom CPU.  While the Jumper does not have touchscreen, it has other advantages. If you have to have touchscreen and can spend more money Chris tested the Hi13 and shows in his video that Manjaro Linux 17 (Xfce desktop) was working with the touchscreen –> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuc6IHQf8K0&t=15s
Whatever you decide, I would not get the Hi10 or Hi12 unless you know for sure that the touchscreen is working on it.  Assuming touchscreen is a must-have for you.

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[palito]

Has anyone tried Feren OS? On their download page(http://ferenos.weebly.com/) they claim it is compatible with Chuwi Hi10 after disabling secure boot. It is based on Linux Mint 18.1. So does that mean that Mint 18.1 is compatible with Chuwi 18.1?

[Brad]

Claiming it boots or the installation succeeds does not necessarily mean that everything works.  Anyway, it’s based on Linux Mint so prob best to investigate how Mint (and it’s Kernel) runs on this device. Feren OS prob is just different UI for Mint with minor changes.

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[Brad]

This guy has many things working on his Jumper EZbook 2 (also uses Cherry-Trail Atom X5-Z8300) using the latest Kernel 4.12-rc1 …
https://techtablets.com/forum/topic/running-linux-on-the-ezbook-2/page/12/#post-66918 . No trackpad or audio working though (on his EZb2) but maybe the Hi10/Hi12 uses different hardware and drivers.

PS.  Kernel 4.12-rc2 is now just out as of couple days ago. And looks like the final release of upcoming new Ubuntu release will be good for Cherry-Trail devices…
https://techtablets.com/forum/topic/running-linux-on-the-ezbook-2/page/12/#post-67374

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[Jerror]

The Cherry Trail support in the new kernels looks great, but unfortunately I haven’t got video to work with any kernel since 4.8.13 on my Hi10 pro (X5-Z8300). Modesetting sends me right to a black screen. I’ve tried loads of pci and graphics-related kernel parameter tweaks and the only way to boot with video is through nomodeset on the new kernels, while the new intel drivers work fine with the old kernels. My best guess right now is bad EDID.

closest to 4.8.13 I tried was 4.10.1 (arch), no success; also tried 4.2.rc2 (ubuntu) with same error

[Brad]

Jerror wrote:

The Cherry Trail support in the new kernels looks great, but unfortunately I haven’t got video to work with any kernel since 4.8.13 on my Hi10 pro (X5-Z8300). Modesetting sends me right to a black screen. I’ve tried loads of pci and graphics-related kernel parameter tweaks and the only way to boot with video is through nomodeset on the new kernels, while the new intel drivers work fine with the old kernels. My best guess right now is bad EDID. closest to 4.8.13 I tried was 4.10.1 (arch), no success; also tried 4.2.rc2 (ubuntu) with same error

First thing I would do is verify that you have the latest BIOS updates. There have been many different Hi10 versions (via serial numbers) and corresponding BIOS firmware, and also depending if it’s a dual-boot or single-boot Hi10.  I’d also scan the Chuwi forum and ask if anyone else is seeing this same problem.
http://forum.chuwi.com/forum.php?mod=forumdisplay&fid=83&filter=typeid&typeid=1

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[el Salmon]

Brad wrote:

Jerror wrote:

The Cherry Trail support in the new kernels looks great, but unfortunately I haven’t got video to work with any kernel since 4.8.13 on my Hi10 pro (X5-Z8300). Modesetting sends me right to a black screen. I’ve tried loads of pci and graphics-related kernel parameter tweaks and the only way to boot with video is through nomodeset on the new kernels, while the new intel drivers work fine with the old kernels. My best guess right now is bad EDID. closest to 4.8.13 I tried was 4.10.1 (arch), no success; also tried 4.2.rc2 (ubuntu) with same error

First thing I would do is verify that you have the latest BIOS updates. There have been many different Hi10 versions (via serial numbers) and corresponding BIOS firmware, and also depending if it’s a dual-boot or single-boot Hi10. I’d also scan the Chuwi forum and ask if anyone else is seeing this same problem. http://forum.chuwi.com/forum.php?mod=forumdisplay&fid=83&filter=typeid&typeid=1

I have the same issue. I have installed Debian with kernel 4.9 but newer kernel versions fail always. To update the BIOS is not available in the Hi10 Pro because:

<span style=”color: red;”>To flash bios will erase the product key, so we don’t offer the Hi 10 pro bios in the forum. Besides, to flash bios is risky, it will brick your tablet if your use a incorrect bios. </span>

Source: http://forum.chuwi.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=2341

Any workaround is welcome

[Jerror]

I’m glad that 4.9 works! If there’s no fix for this then at least it’s convenient that the last good kernel is LTS. I’m running arch 4.9.30 right now, no problems yet.

There’s not much hope for a BIOS fix. I have the latest version before Chuwi changed the product line.

[Brad]

el Salmon wrote:

newer kernel versions fail always.

If you have any chance in getting help with fixing this you need to provide more information. How did it fail?  Do you have dmesg output or any other info that shows what the error is?

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[Jerror]

I tried to find something in logs when this first happened a few months back, but iirc there was no indication that anything had gone wrong in the journals. I could even log in (and I think I was able to succesfully run startx) by typing blind, according to the journal. The system didn’t seem to know anything was wrong but the screen was blank as of modesetting during boot (black but backlit).

Has anyone got a battery monitor working? That’s the last, crucial piece of this thing being usable…

[Brad]

Jerror wrote:

I tried to find something in logs when this first happened a few months back, but iirc there was no indication that anything had gone wrong in the journals. I could even log in (and I think I was able to succesfully run startx) by typing blind, according to the journal. The system didn’t seem to know anything was wrong but the screen was blank as of modesetting during boot (black but backlit). Has anyone got a battery monitor working? That’s the last, crucial piece of this thing being usable…

 FYI, recently I have heard lots of reports of black screens (or black with just an underscore cursor/prompt) when booting from a Live-USB.  Most of these reports that I have seen lately though were not on Atom Cherry-Trail devices but on Celeron Apollo-Lake devices and using various Linux distro’s and all fairy recent Kernel versions – I think 4.9-4.11, so dunno if this could be your problem, but maybe it’s something you should try? The solution for these non-booting systems was to use the rEFInd boot manager instead of Grub2.  I kinda get the impression that your problem is more about the display/video than a boot-BIOS problem, but who knows.  Good luck.

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[Brad]

Ubuntu 17.04 ISO with mainline v4.12-rc4 kernel, RTL8723BS Wifi/BT
http://linuxiumcomau.blogspot.com.br/2017/06/interim-ubuntu-1704-iso-with-mainline.html

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[Yoghurt]

What is the current status of Chuwi Hi10 (Plus) and Linux? I just found some posts about Linuxium but no recent post about what works and what not.

• Can I wipe the whole disk and just install it as on a normal desktop?
• What about other Linux distris? E.g. Arch Linux – https://github.com/danielotero/linux-on-hi10
• Are there any special steps I need to follow for installing Linux (other than doing it on a desktop device)?

 

Thanks for any answer

[Author]

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