Linux on Cube i7 Book

[Franzli]

I  thought there already was a thread about Linux on the Cube i7 Book, but couldn’t find anything anymore now. In case there is one already, you can close mine here, but would be thankful for pointing me to it.

This might be a place to collect information for anyone interested in running Linux on the Cube i7 Book.

Currently, I don’t have that much to say, just got mine, but am happy to say that running Linux here really seems to be much more straightforward than on the Baytrail (and probably Cherrytrail) tablets! I tried sparkylinux, which comes with a relatively recent kernel (I think around 4.4 or so), and on my short try so far pretty much everything seemed to be running out of the box (not sure if I tried sound though).

Wifi, Bluetooth, brightness control, even standby seemed to work fine. If anyone’s going to try this, it’s probably best to try and update the kernel to a newer version. If I remember correctly, the kernel versions from 4.5 onwards make far better use of skylake’s power safe mechanisms.

When I find some time, I’ll try and set up a triple boot with Linux, RemixOS and Windows.

[Girish]

I just received my Cube I7 Book. Will try and install Ubuntu once I receive the keyboard. I want to use Debian (not ubuntu) on it as it is my primary OS for very long time now. Will try to duel boot and update the progress.

 

 

[Franzli]

If you want to go for Debian, I can highly recommend sparky linux as mentioned above. It’s based on Debian testing, and seems to work pretty well out of the box (as far as I can tell now).

[Jakub]

Hello,

I’ve installed 64-bit Linux Mint 18 (Cinnamon edition). Everything works out of the box, including WiFi, Bluetooth, keyboard, touchscreen and touchpad (multi-finger gestures), and stylus. Suspend to RAM works also flawlessly. I’ve even tested HDMI output through USB-C. Rotation of the display and pointing devices can be configured using xinput and xrotate. The only exceptions to my complete satisfaction are the two cameras. They are identified as Omnivision OV5648 and OV2680, both connected to the I2C bus. Intel provides the Windows drivers. They are not yet supported by the kernel, although some of the older models from these series are.

[Franzli]

Nice to hear that HDMI output is also working, I’m planning to buy a USB C Hub sometime soon.

One thing I haven’t had time to look into concerns a comfortable multiboot setup. I’d like to have Linux, RemixOS and Windows installed, and it seems that you can change what  is being booted in the BIOS. However, you only get there with a keyboard attached, which will be unpractical as I’m planning to run this with a bluetooth keyboard (which obviously doesn’t work at that stage).

It seems to be possible to get into linux from Windows via the Settings and Boot from different medium (don’t remember the exact wording right now), but this requires you to first boot up Windows. Does anyone know of a more comfortable way of having a touch enabled bootloader on start (grub obviously won’t work without a keyboard)? Also, my RemixOS partition is not accessible from Windows in the same way. I suspect I’d have to doo something from Linux using efibootmgr, but I’ve got no experience with that (and at the moment no time to experiment).

Ideas and solutions very welcome!

[Andrew W]

I’m not so impressed with Remix 3.0 my device runs hot v slow albeit from a slow sd card and wifi was too unstable

Skylake runs much better on a 4.5+ kernel.

CM 13 9/24 2016 build seems to work ok… I want Heroes of Order and Chaos to work unfortunately I can only run it properly on memu emulator… but im just so unimpressed with Win10 as a tablet OS

 

[xjesus]

I’ve just ordered mine and I’ll create a special release of XJUbunTAB for this tablet with the last kernel available.

[Bob]

Hi,

I’ve just resurrected my i7 stylus after a battery failure. I’ve wiped Debian off and installed Mint 18.1 .

I’ve upgraded the kernel to 4.9.0 (compiled on Slackware to .deb packages).

Everything that I’ve tested so far works apart from auto screen rotation… I haven’t looked at this yet .. This is on the “to do” list.

Specifically, these work:-

wifi, bluetooth, touchscreen, audio (speakers), battery level & both cameras.

To do/check: hdmi out, headphone o/p, screen rotation, SD slot..

For those who want to compile their own kernel and don’t know how.. (also see your distro docs/forums for details.)

Overview:

Install required development packages (look for info for your specific distro).

Download the latest kernel archive from https://www.kernel.org/

Extract this to a build directory.

Copy your existing .config from your current kernel source tree to the root of the kernel source tree.

Open a terminal, move to the build directory and enter this:

    yes "" | make oldconfig

This accepts all defaults on newer config options when using a .config from another kernel version:

Now run

   make xconfig

Adjust options as required. Save the file and exit.

Now run this:

    sudo make deb-pkg

This will create the required files archived into deb packages. Mint/Debian/Ubuntu etc. distros can use these files directly.

It’s also possible to extract the contents of each deb package and copy the files over to the required locations manually.

Not quite the recommended method for non-Debian derivatives.. but it works! What you’ll take away from doing this is knowledge of exactly how/where the kernel, modules, header files and firmware files etc. are required to be placed.

I use this method as I use Slackware on my main machines with Mint and Debian on my tablets.

You’ll need to find out how to create your own initrd and how to update your boot loader.. This may be distro specific. See your distro docs/forums etc.

I can recommend grub-customizer for Grub.

B.

 

[Doug Lung]

If you are up to a long, manual install but with the most recent kernel and rolling updates, look at Arch Linux. It is working well for me. I installed rEFInd to select between Windows and Linux. There are step by step directions in the different wiki’s on the Arch web site. A good resource for Linux on tablets, for Arch or other Linux OS, is the wiki at https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Tablet_PC.  It has some tips on getting rotation working.

The major remaining issue is using the i7 in tablet mode. rEFInd is supposed to allow selection via a touchscreen but it appears the Cube’s touchscreen is not currently supported even when enabled in the rEFInd configuration file. I’m using SDDM as the display manager and haven’t got it to work with an on-screen touch keyboard yet. To minimize CPU load, I’m using Xfce as the desktop environment, which supports different on-screen keyboards. I use it mainly with the keyboard attached, so haven’t taken time to dig into the rEFInd and SDDM issues. I think LightDM offers an option to log in with a touch screen keyboard. I could also just eliminate the log-in password, but that wouldn’t solve the UEFI boot selection problem.

If anyone has found a UEFI manager that works with the Cube i7 touch screen, please let us know!

…Doug

[Bouke]

Archlinux is quite a nice distribution, you could even install it on a simple USB-stick and run Windows from the SSD, but this will be slower than installing on the SSD.

I like this tablet as it has mostly Intel stuff inside (Graphics, Processor, Wireless & Bluetooth) and Intel actively supports Linux so it all works relatively easy. I don’t expect the webcams to work easily soon, but well that is not one of the most important things.

An issue I had with Linux so far through is that I couldn’t get it to work properly with the HiDPI screen. Everything is so extremely small! I tried some suggestions in the Archlinux wiki but that didn’t help me sadly. Have you had similar issues or does the distribution recognised it correctly out of the box?

[Iahong Upoc]

In my experiance with Xubuntu, I haven’t found a flaw at all. Rotation doesn’t seem to do anything, but I don’t think that Xfce supports rotation anyways, so no biggie :).

My only problems have been with Android x86. I made a post about it (https://techtablets.com/forum/topic/android-x86-6-0-issues-on-cube-i7-book/), but I thought I’d share with you, that there are a few things not quite working in Android.

• Screen Rotation works, but is inverted. Which means, it’s always upside down 😀
• On Screen Keyboard does not seem to want to show up… ever, no matter what you try (only manual toggling works)
• Touch seems to be very unresponsive on most tasks. Where you would expect to “tap” something, you actually need to hold it for a second.

[Brad]

maybe try this disto or at least his solution for screen rotation… “Auto-rotate / rotation sensors”…
xjubuntu

Iahong Upoc wrote:

In my experiance with Xubuntu, I haven’t found a flaw at all. Rotation doesn’t seem to do anything, but I don’t think that Xfce supports rotation anyways, so no biggie :).

My only problems have been with Android x86. I made a post about it (https://techtablets.com/forum/topic/android-x86-6-0-issues-on-cube-i7-book/), but I thought I’d share with you, that there are a few things not quite working in Android.

• Screen Rotation works, but is inverted. Which means, it’s always upside down
• On Screen Keyboard does not seem to want to show up… ever, no matter what you try (only manual toggling works)
• Touch seems to be very unresponsive on most tasks. Where you would expect to “tap” something, you actually need to hold it for a second.

more about me here

[Brad]

Puppy Linux can also be run from a USB with data persistence mode (save files on the USB). Boots entirely into RAM and so runs fast and boots pretty fast too if your USB drive is fast. http://puppylinux.org/main/Overview%20and%20Getting%20Started.htm

Bouke wrote:

Archlinux is quite a nice distribution, you could even install it on a simple USB-stick and run Windows from the SSD, but this will be slower than installing on the SSD.

I like this tablet as it has mostly Intel stuff inside (Graphics, Processor, Wireless & Bluetooth) and Intel actively supports Linux so it all works relatively easy. I don’t expect the webcams to work easily soon, but well that is not one of the most important things.

An issue I had with Linux so far through is that I couldn’t get it to work properly with the HiDPI screen. Everything is so extremely small! I tried some suggestions in the Archlinux wiki but that didn’t help me sadly. Have you had similar issues or does the distribution recognised it correctly out of the box?

more about me here

[Brad]

I heard the Manjaro distro is based on Arch. Does it have some advantages over Arch? Manjaro is more popular too, #5 versus Arch #12 on DistroWatch.com

Bouke wrote:

Archlinux is quite a nice distribution, you could even install it on a simple USB-stick and run Windows from the SSD, but this will be slower than installing on the SSD.

I like this tablet as it has mostly Intel stuff inside (Graphics, Processor, Wireless & Bluetooth) and Intel actively supports Linux so it all works relatively easy. I don’t expect the webcams to work easily soon, but well that is not one of the most important things.

An issue I had with Linux so far through is that I couldn’t get it to work properly with the HiDPI screen. Everything is so extremely small! I tried some suggestions in the Archlinux wiki but that didn’t help me sadly. Have you had similar issues or does the distribution recognised it correctly out of the box?

more about me here

[Brad]

There is a script you might be able to use to add manual screen rotation and on-screen keyboard.
See number 7 on this page… 7. Add Screen rotation support on Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga

Bob wrote:

Hi,

I’ve just resurrected my i7 stylus after a battery failure. I’ve wiped Debian off and installed Mint 18.1 .

I’ve upgraded the kernel to 4.9.0 (compiled on Slackware to .deb packages).

Everything that I’ve tested so far works apart from auto screen rotation… I haven’t looked at this yet .. This is on the “to do” list.

more about me here

[Author]

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