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Dan wrote:

I have run OSX very successfully in VMware. Its definitely outside the Apple eula though! For that reason, you will have to look in unofficial places to find the VMware image. Goo0gle “osx on vmware” and you (may) find…

Thanks, does it run well inside VMware or does it it lag? Is it usable enough considering the hardware capabilities?

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Ubuntu 17.10 from 10 September with v4.13.0-9 Kernel

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Pettrus wrote:

Hello guys i don’t own a ezbook 2, instead what i have is the Chuwi LapBook 15 which is pretty similar to the ezbook, i tried a bunch of version o ubuntu and linux mint, some of them i got bluetooh working and wifi but they freeze after some time, or no freeze but got nothing working good enough, i tried respinning the ISOs but got no good result. So i tried the new ubuntu, the one who ditched unity in favor of gnome(17.10 Artful which still in beta by the way), no respin or anything just a clean iso from the ubuntus website, and almost everything works fine.

• Wifi works out of the box, sometimes i get really low speeds or disconnects for no apparent reason but overrall is ok
• Touchpad is pretty good all the commands seem to work, 2 fingers scroll, zoom in and out, 3 fingers tab change, but it sometimes gets confused and zoom in instead of scrolling down
• Baterry indicator works good, without charging it has no problem, but when i plug the cable it says its fully charged
• Bluetooh does not work, but i did not try to fix since is not a big deal for me
• No sound, which is the one that bothers me the most :(, Also i play a youtube or netflix video it looks like its 1.5 or 2x the actual speed for some reason

I am going to try to plug a bluetooh usb adapter and some bluetooh headphone and see if i can get sound, i will post back if i get any success. One last thing, this is my sudo inxi -xxAv6AA to compare with you guys System

That’s great news! So Ubuntu is finally updating to officially support our devices. Maybe sound will work with the stable release.
As for bluetooth, you could try to start the driver manually with
sudo systemctl start rtl8723bsbt.service
or
sudo systemctl start brcmbt.service 
I don’t know if your laptop has the same bluetooth hardware but maybe it will work 🙂

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c chandel wrote:

Hi, Can someone check whether the file /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/nvram-74b00bd9-805a-4d61-b51f-43268123d113 is available? An alternate is to get it from the the win partition at \windows\system32\drivers\4345r6nvram.txt. This is a required file to get the wifi working. I’ve overwritten my win10 partition – so I don’t have access to this file. Perhaps someone can help by sharing it? Thanks

I checked, there is no such file in /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/ on Lubuntu, sorry.

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GilDev wrote:

Alright, I’ve respun(?) the last Lubuntu 17.04 ISO: sudo ./isorespin.sh -i lubuntu-17.04-desktop-amd64.iso --atom -u --upgrade. Still no touchpad nor WiFi. As Ricardo suggested, I used Android USB network tethering to get internet and install inxi. The output of my sudo inxi -xxAv6 is attached to my post because it won’t let me write copy and paste it here. Weird… I also attach the screenshot showing the same thing but like Jump did. Overall, the Machine section looks quite different…

GilDev wrote:

Fingers crossed! I’m not giving up so soon, although it’s pretty deceiving to see it works for Jump but not for me. Still so many unresolved mysteries…

The only difference is in the BIOS, I have American Megatrends, you have Insyde . I didn’t know there were different revisions for this laptopt.
It seems I’ve got the right version to run linux by chance.

I agree with Ricardo, hopefully you’ll be able to run linux on your ezbook2 sooner or later,maybe with future updates to the linux kernel.
After all, support for Intel atom devices was added just two months ago with kernel 4.12, so there is time! 🙂

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GilDev wrote:

Jump: Oh thanks, I thought it was something that needed to be installed on the client. There’s no other options to give to isorespin.sh for the EzBook 2? I thought there would be more. I don’t have a Windows computer available, I can use other writing software but the problem does not seem to come from this. I guess I’ll try respinning the latest Lubuntu image now. I really really hope I will be able to make it work on my EzBook!

Ricardo Simões wrote:

May I suggest you both run “sudo inxi -xxAv6” in your terminals and compare results? You should be able to tell if there are some hardware differences.

inxi isn’t pre-installed on the distros I have tried and I have no WiFi. Maybe I can install it while respinning an ISO.

A complete list of options is available here, but the script has been updated, and the option ––atom takes care of everything. The option -u updates the kernel. They’re the only one you need in my opinion, however you could use the option -p to install some packages or -r to add repositories, but you can also do this later.

EDIT: Here’s a screenshot of my hardware info.

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GilDev wrote:

Sure, I want to keep Windows. Although it’s too bad we don’t have a Windows ISO for this computer. I have written the image with dd. I wrote a lot of images like this in the past. I only tried with the “linuxium-v4.13-rc2-lubuntu-17.10-alpha2-desktop-amd64.iso” you provided. I got the same CPU as you. I tried again a few times (this time with only one root partition), but I still get this error at the end of the install: “The ‘grub-efi-amd64-signed’ package failed to install into /target/. Without the GRUB boot loader, the installed system will not boot.”, then then installer crashes. At all times, the touchpad doesn’t work, on the Lubuntu installer drive and on the Lubuntu installed drive. I tried with different USB drives. Your advice on using VirtualBox is a great idea, but when I try, it gets really slow with the USB drive plugged in (it’s probably because it works in USB 1.1 mode. For USB 2.0 or 3.0 you need to install some kind of extension package on the client). I’ve set a permanent filter on the USB drive so it only goes on the VM and not my host. While the installer’s partitioning tool detects the USB drive, it won’t let me create a new partition table on it, it just says “Error opening /dev/sda: No media found”. I’m trying to install the system in French, but I also tried in English I guess now I will try with the Ubuntu image you provided. EDIT: Alright the Ubuntu image booted great, but it seems to have rEFInd installed with it because it just launched rEFInd when booting for the drive using the internal boot manager. Sadly, still no touchpad, nor WiFi… What is happening?

VirtualBox needs the Extension Pack, you can download it here. Just click on it and it will install. You’ll be able to properly use USB2 or USB3.

Sadly I have no idea why it does not work on your laptop. It seems you’re doing everything correctly. It would be nice to hear some feedback from someone else.

One last thing you could try is to respin the ISO yourself using the isorespin script on a Linux system (either a real pc or in virtualbox).
1) Download your favourite linux distro from the official website. You can choose one of the following: official desktop 64-bit Ubuntu (http://releases.ubuntu.com), Ubuntu flavoured ISOs (https://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu-flavours), Linux Mint ISOs (https://www.linuxmint.com/download.php), KDE neon ISOs (https://neon.kde.org/download), Peppermint OS (https://peppermintos.com/) and BackBox Linux (https://backbox.org/)
2) Download the script
3) Type in a terminal:
sudo ./isorespin.sh -i OFFICIAL_DISTRO_NAME.iso –atom -u
where OFFICIAL_DISTRO_NAME is the name of the linux distro you downloaded.

It will generate a new ISO compatible with the ezbook2, with wifi bluetooth and trackpad working and with the latest kernel available.
I used it to add Kali Linux packages on Lubuntu 16.04 and it works fine (to me, at least).

Then install the ISO as usual and see if it works. Try to use Rufus for windows to create the bootable usb (using GPT partition scheme for UEFI).

I hope it will fork for you, if not I don’t know what else you can do.

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GilDev wrote:

Alright tonight I’ve put Lubuntu on a USB drive. Touchpad wasn’t working but I was able to install it on another USB 3.0 drive with an external mouse. At the end of the installation, I got an error message where it couldn’t install a file related to GRUB. I only did a 2 GB swap partition and an ext4 root partition with the remaining space, installing the bootloader directly on the drive (/dev/sda for me). After that, at the same time it told me that the installer crashed and the installation was finished… Who should I belive? =) The boot manager doesn’t detect the newly installed Lubuntu on the USB drive, but having the drive plugged in seems to slow the boot manager’s startup time quite a lot. Maybe it’s because it’s searching in all the 32 GB drive a boot point. I then have put rEFInd on another USB drive, booted on it with the boot manager but if my Lubuntu drive is plugged in, all I get is a black screen with a fixed cursor, and after quite some time, the computer reboots. If the Lubuntu drive isn’t plugged in, rEFInd shows up. Plugging in the Lubuntu drive back does nothing, I don’t know if rEFInd auto-refresh the OS list when something is plugged in. So Jump, did you have a similar experience, especially the error at the end of Lubuntu’s installation? What is your partition layout? Now I guess I’m going to try installing rEFInd directly onto the computer. EDIT: I’ve rebooted with everything plugged in, boot manager loaded quite fast, rEFInd too and it showed my Lubuntu drive and I was able to boot on it. Woot! I think the next thing is to try installing Lubuntu onto the internal SD and see if rEFInd likes it. Then, I’ll probably end up installing rEFInd to the computer anyway to make things easier. Altough it would be nice to install it on a small partition of my Lubuntu drive, just for testing a bit. EDIT2: Okay so touchpad, WiFi, Bluetooth and probably sound doesn’t work. What is happening? I don’t think that’s related on where rEFInd is used…

In my opinion you should not remove windows 10, it would be difficult to reinstall it if you ever need it again.

What program did you use to create the bootable USB drive?

What is the name of the ISO file you used? 

When you boot from installation USB drive, TouchPad must work, otherwise there’s something wrong.

I installed lubuntu on a 32GB USB 3.0 lexar without any swap partition, just 1 ext4 partition with mount point / .  I installed bootloader on /dev/sdb (the main USB 3 partition) although grub never worked.

I don’t know why you have problems with wifi, trackpad and Bluetooth, I personally installed and tested Ubuntu and Lubuntu from the link I posted earlier (Linuxium) on my Jumper ezbook 2 and everything (except audio) works out of the box.

I thing that every ezbook 2 is the same, there are not different hardware revisions, are they? My CPU is Intel Atom x5-Z8300, yours?

One thing you could try is to install lubuntu on the USB from another computer or from VirtualBox, and than boot the USB on the ezbook 2. I did have one problem finishing the installation once, the Jumper screen went black and wouldn’t turn back on during install,  and I solved with VirtualBox. I booted the ISO on a virtual machine and selected the USB as install drive.

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GilDev wrote:

Alright thank you Jump. No luck booting from the micro SD slot?

Nope, that was the first thing I tried, MicroSD with linux installed does not show up in BIOS boot manager.
However that was before I installed REFInd. I haven’t tried to boot MicroSD from REFind, as I switched to USB.

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GilDev wrote:

Would rEFInd installed on a USB drive boot using the boot manager? I remember I made a rEFInd USB drive like this a few years ago for my Mac.

In theory it should work, however when I tried, the REFind USB could not see my USB 3 with linux, hence I wasn’t able to boot. I don’t know why it didn’t work.
As I said, the only method that worked for me without problems was installing REFind on win.
You could always try though 🙂

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GilDev wrote:

Thanks a lot, Jump! =) I’ll try that as soon as I can. Even if I am able to boot my Lubuntu drive from the boot manager, it still isn’t very practical I guess. rEFInd gives a nice interface to choose where to boot from and could also be nice if I want to easily try other Linuxium distributions in the future.

Exactly! 🙂
This is how REFInd looks when you boot, if you’re curious. (There are a lot of themes, the one I’m using is Regular theme )

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GilDev wrote:

Okay I don’t have my EzBook 2 with me right now but I will in a few days. Please tell me if I’m wrong. I had success before booting Linux from an USB drive by going to the boot manager of the BIOS. So, if I want to install the Lubuntu 17.10 Jump gave on a USB 3 drive without removing Windows, I guess I need to write this image to an USB drive, boot on it like I did before (by going in the boot manager by pressing escape at boot) and install Lubuntu on my other USB 3 drive. Then, will I be able to boot directly on it via the boot manager (just to try) or do I really need to install rEFInd, since the installation drive would have booted fine?

That’s exactly what I’ve done.
I made a bootable usb with Lubuntu (using Rufus on windows), booted it (by going in the boot manager by pressing escape at boot) and installed it on another USB 3, because I wanted to keep windows 10 on main drive.
The problem was that I could not boot the USB 3 with lubuntu via the boot manager, because when I tried it booted on EFI shell.
I solved by installing REFind on windows, and I don’t have any problems now.

You could try to boot usb with lubuntu from boot manager. If it works for you, you’re done, that was easy! Otherwise install refind with this guide, it’s pretty easy 😉 http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/installing.html#window

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mike wrote:

Okay, I admit, I don’t know what I’m doing. I installed Lubuntu from the link above. It won’t install grub and abandon ship. Says it will not boot. So, I went and got the latest Ubuntu 17.10 test 64 bit test build. Did an erase and intalled directly to the hard drive. It boots and runs just fine but no touchpad, no wifi, etc. — just like before. Now I wished I didn’t wipe Windows because I had everything working. Any advise would be appreciated. Thanks.

As I wrote above, after installing linux in dual boot with windows, you MUST install REFind on windows, otherwise it won’t boot.

 

I think you installed the wrong version of Ubuntu, the one from the official website, but that one is not compatible with intel atom devices.

Here’s Ubuntu 17.04 for EZBook 2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B99O3A0dDe67UVdxSGtld28tYUU/edit

Here’s Lubuntu 17.10 if you prefer it: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B99O3A0dDe67X1NkeEpiejBvNGs/edit

Both versions works for me on the EZBook 2 without problems except for audio.

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Jean wrote:

Hey, just got here So did you guys managed to get the touchpad, wifi and sound working ?

To sum up: Linux now works on the EZBook 2 thanks to Linuxium, a script that allows Ubuntu and derivatives to run on Intel Atom devices.

Everything works except Audio. You can find the latest Ubuntu ISO here. More versions on the website.

If you install Linux on a USB, you must install REFind on Windows in order to boot from the USB. Instructions here: http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/installing.html#windows

 

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To anyone interested, I tested various linux versions over the last month:.

Lubuntu works really well on the EZBook 2. Download here. It is the best right now in my opinion.

Ubuntu works, but sometimes it freezes.

ElementaryOS does not work, it freezes after a few minutes of use.

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