Ubuntu (or other Linux) on the Asus Transformer Book T1. This post is now out of date — see the latest update, here. The T1. 00 is a nice little convertible tablet/netbook. My aim is to get a “perfect” Ubuntu installation on the T1. GLXGears in tablet mode. Unfortunately Linux support right now is quite rudimentary, and installing it requires us to jump through a few hoops.
The situation is improving rapidly however. So I will keep updating this How- to as new drivers become available and things improve. See the latest update. Warning. Eventually I expect hardware support for the T1. In order to get the best support possible, we will be using bleeding- edge builds and the latest Linux kernels.
If you’d just prefer an easy life, come back in October and just install Ubuntu 1. That said, this little convertible is a lovely machine, and Ubuntu/unity works very nicely on it — finally Unity has a purpose! The more people get on for the ride now, the quicker we can test and iron out bugs.*** This post will constantly be updated as in- kernel support improves ***Current status (updated 2. I’ll update this whenever I manage to get new things working. I will only add items to the How- to below that are confirmed to work well. Graphics: Working with accelerated (3. D) graphics 7/1. 0Wifi: Working, but often drops connection .
Light sensor works with custom driver 5/1. Touchpad: Working, no multitouch yet 8/1. Shutdown / reboot: Working, with patches 9/1. First steps: Preparing for the Ubuntu Install.
First things first, update using Asus Live. Update to the latest “BIOS” available. At the time of writing, that is v.
Do any backing up of Windows / recovery partitions. I’ll leave the details of that up to you. Before we attempt to boot Linux on the T1. Windows. Download the latest daily AMD6. Ubuntu 1. 4. 0. 4 from here. Download the Rufus USB bootable image creator, and “burn” your downloaded ISO to a spare USB stick. In Rufus, for “Partition scheme and target system type”, choose “GPT partition scheme for UEFI computer”.
For “File System”, choose “FAT3. At the bottom, check “Create a bootable disk using: ISO Image” and select your downloaded Ubuntu image, then hit “Start”. When your USB stick is ready, close Rufus. It should now be browseable in Windows. Browse to the EFI\Boot directory, and place this bootloader (named bootia. This bootloader was compiled from source using the latest Grub. If you don’t trust random downloaded files from the Internet (and you shouldn’t), you can find the instructions for building it yourself here.
Booting the Live Image. Now, insert the USB stick and reboot to the firmware (BIOS). You can do this in Windows by holding shift when pressing “restart”, then touching Troubleshoot . Once there, disable Secure.
Boot, then visit the boot options, and ensure the USB stick is the first in the list. Press F1. 0 to save settings, and after a few seconds you will be in the GRUB bootloader. Before the timeout, immediately hit CTRL- ALT- DEL. This will reboot the computer again, but this time you will have the laptop’s native resolution (rather than being stuck at 8. In the editing screen, scroll down to the command line options, where it says “quiet splash”. Delete “splash” and replace it with: video=VGA- 1: 1.
Then press F1. 0 to boot. You should get all the way to the Desktop. Installing the distro.
Click the “Install Ubuntu” desktop icon to install Ubuntu permanently. The partitioning scheme you choose is up to you — but you will need to preserve the EFI partition, so don’t just partition the entire disk for Ubuntu. In addition to the EFI partition, I prefer separate /, /home and /boot mount points; but that is up to you. You could squish down the Windows partition and created the additional partition(s), or just delete the Windows partition altogether if you don’t need it. When done, reboot, leaving the USB stick in. First boot. Ubuntu won’t boot yet.
We’ll need to compile our own bootia. Grub. To do that we really need a wireless connection. So we’ll boot manually, fix up wireless, and fix Grub. Boot back to the Grub welcome screen on the USB stick. First, the path to the kernel: linux (hd. VGA- 1: 1. 36. 8x. Here, (hd. 2, gpt.
Partition numbering begins at 1 and disk numbering begins at 0). This will vary depending on how yo uinstalled and your T1. On my 3. 2GB model, Grub assigns the USB stick as hd.
The root=/dev/mmcblk. It will be your root partition. Unfortunately this can’t be auto- completed, so if you can’t remember your partition setup, you’ll need to try by trial and error. To complete the line, press Enter. Then you need to specify the location of your initrd. This is easy, it’s in the same place as the kernel: initrd (hd. Then Enter. Then boot with: boot.
Here's the definitive guide to making the transition. Download AMD Drivers & Software for Radeon, FirePro, APU, CPU, desktops, and laptops.
With luck after hitting Enter, you’ll boot through to Ubuntu. If not, don’t be disheartened — keep trying. Enabling wifi To get further, we’ll need wifi.
However internal wifi on the T1. Linux yet. If you have access to another wifi dongle, you might want to try that until you’re fully set up. The driver is already included, but it needs some firmware and a copy of your system’s wifi nvram: Grab the Wifi firmware here (from the Linux- wireless repository).
Copy it to /lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac. The NVRAM is difficult to get right now, as 3. EFI runtime services aren’t yet available on 6.
But you can use my NVRAM — get it here and copy it to /lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac. You’ll now need to reboot using the same procedure again, and wifi should be working. Call Of Duty 2 The Big Red One Pc Download.
However, I found wifi performance to be very poor — there are some bugs in the driver. This is improved somewhat with the latest kernel, which we will upgrade to in a later step.
Explains how to play MP3s, play DVDs, install Flash, see PDFs and other useful tips for Fedora users.
I managed to improve performance somewhat by using the NVRAMs from other platforms, and splicing in some of the missing variables. You can see my tries here. In all cases, copy them to /lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac. If you find a firmware/nvram combination that works really well, please share.
Completing the installation. We can’t keep rebooting like this. This assumes you now have a working Internet connection. We’ll need some build tools — install them: sudo apt- get update & & sudo apt- get install git bison libopts. When done, hit ctrl- o to save then ctrl- x to exit.
Then, to update Grub: sudo update- grub. Congratulations! Upgrading to the bleeding edge to improve hardware support. There are still a lot of things to get working. The best way to improve hardware support further is to use the latest development branches of the kernel. Unfortunately (as at the time of writing), even the latest development Linux kernel (3.
Baytrail tablets. But we can improve that by pulling in latest patches for sound. We’ll also compile in a new experimental feature for accessing 3. EFI services from a 6. Finally, we’ll pull in the latest wireless fixes and the latest power management changes. We need to power management changes for our battery patch. I recommend you compile this on a fast desktop computer with a decent network connection.
You could do this on your tablet, but it would be extremely slow. For the following instructions, I assume you’re using a recent 6. Ubuntu on a desktop. If you’re using 3. I’ll leave that up to you (and Google). On your compiling machine, install the packages you’ll need to build a kernel: sudo apt- get install git build- essential fakeroot crash kexec- tools makedumpfile kernel- wedge libncurses.
Then create a working directory, step into it, and download the sources you’ll need: mkdir kernelcd kernelgit clone git: //git. Then merge the updates from sound, efi mixed- mode, power management and wireless onto the mainline kernel: git merge sound/topic/intelgit merge efi/efi- for- mingogit merge pmfixes/linux- nextgit merge wifinext/master.
There are still some patches we need to apply. Step back and create a patch directory, and download some patches into it: cd .
Now apply the patches: cd ./sourcegit apply ./patches/linux- asus- t. They should all apply without error. Now we’re almost ready to compile. Before we do, we need a .
The Ubuntu guide for displaced Windows users. With Windows 8 pushing a “touch- first” desktop interface—Microsoft’s words, not ours—and with Valve’s Steam on Linux beginning to bring much- needed games and popular attention to the oft- overlooked operating system, there’s never been a better time to take Linux out for a test drive. You can install it alongside your current Windows system, or even try it without installing anything at all. For the most part, Ubuntu just plain works. It sports a subtle interface that stays out of your way. It enjoys strong support from software developers (including Valve, since Steam on Linux only officially supports Ubuntu).
And you can find tons of information online if you run into problems. After downloading the ISO file, right- click it, and you can then burn it to a writable CD or DVD. If you’d rather put Ubuntu on a USB drive, first take a moment to look over our guide to this procedure. If you run into any trouble creating a Ubuntu USB boot drive, consult the Ubuntu website for troubleshooting tips.
It should automatically boot into the live Ubuntu environment. At this point, you can play around with Ubuntu without installing anything on your computer—though it will run slower—or you can move on to installing it.
If you install Ubuntu alongside Windows, you’ll see a boot menu that asks you to choose your operating system whenever you boot your computer. Wubi lets you install Ubuntu from within Windows, just as you would any other program. But because its files are stored on the Windows file system instead of on its own dedicated Linux partitions, Ubuntu won’t run as quickly as in this setup as it would by itself.
That's something to keep in mind if you plan to play demanding games or use Ubuntu all the time. On the other hand, Wubi enables you to uninstall Ubuntu very easily—directly from the Windows Add/Remove Programs control panel. Everything necessary for using it is included in the base operating system. You don’t have to hunt down driver installation packages on your computer manufacturer's website, as you do with Windows. If you have an Nvidia or ATI card, Ubuntu may prompt you to install your manufacturer’s proprietary graphics drivers for maximum 3. D graphics performance. Even then, you can complete the process in a few clicks after Ubuntu alerts you.
For additional items, you'll have to delve into the Linux software repository. Instead, Linux maintains software repositories, which are similar to app stores (although Linux had them many years earlier.). The Ubuntu Software Center hosts a multitude of apps, most of them free. The Ubuntu Software Center is full of free, open- source applications compiled for Ubuntu, as well as some commercial applications available for a small fee. The Ubuntu Software Center acts as a user- friendly front end to Ubuntu’s software management tools, which you can also access from other applications or with terminal commands.
Double- click a . Ubuntu will prompt you to install it. When updates are available in Ubuntu’s repositories, the Software Updater will appear. When you install third- party software like Google Chrome or Steam, the source of the application adds its own software repository, and updates will appear in the Software Updater. Linux lets you experiment with different options until you find the one that's right for you. Here are the main Unity features you should know about. Its a Windows 7- style taskbar (known as the dock) appears on the left side of the screen.
Like the Windows taskbar, it shows both running and not- running application and has right- click jump lists (known as “quick lists”). Unlike the Windows taskbar, the dock’s location can’t be changed to another edge of the screen. To open the dash so you can reach other applications, click the Ubuntu icon in the upper- left corner of your screen, or press the Windows key (known as the Super key in Linux).
The dash allows you to search and browse your installed applications and files, among other things. Use the search feature to find an installed application, or click the Applications icon at the bottom of the dash to browse all of your installed applications.
You can right- click icons to lock them to and unlock them from the dock, just as you can pin and unpin them on the WIndows taskbar. So if you’re using Firefox, you’ll find the File/Edit/View menus on the panel at the top of your screen, not in the Firefox window itself. This is where you store your personal files, just as you would on the C: \Users\Name folder in Windows. But unlike in Windows, your user account doesn’t have write access to areas in Ubuntu outside your home folder, so get used to storing your files here. A virtual desktop is essentially its own self- contained workspace with a different set of open windows. You can switch between workspaces with hotkeys by pressing Ctrl- Alt- arrow key. You can move windows between workspaces in any of three ways: right- click their title bars and use the options in the context menu; drag and drop them in the workspace switcher; or press Ctrl- Alt- Shift- arrow key.
To activate it, press Alt and start typing a command that appears in a program’s menu. For example, if you want to activate the View > Show Hidden Files menu option in the file manager, you can press Alt, type Show Hidden, and press Enter to activate the menu option. You can also use this feature to search for and find menu options. You’ll find them in the upper- right corner of your screen.
In Ubuntu, as in Windows, applications that you install can add their own indicator applets. Use the options under the gear icon in the upper- right corner of your screen to shut down your computer or to access the System Settings window, which corresponds to the Windows Control Panel. We haven’t discussed using the terminal (it’s an amazing power- user tool once you get used to it), and we haven't looked at any of the many other desktop environments you can try if you don’t like the way Unity works. Linux is so flexible that you can make Ubuntu look more like Windows 7 than Windows 8 can. Ubuntu's flexibility is refreshing after extended exposure to Windows 8's one- size- fits- all approach to the desktop, which takes options away from desktop users in order to unify the Windows ecosystem and (ultimately) serve Microsoft’s bottom line. Linux takes the opposite approach, providing options and letting you make your own decisions.