10 Years Later, Linux Getting A Touchscreen Driver For A Once Popular Tablet

[phoronix]

Phoronix: 10 Years Later, Linux Getting A Touchscreen Driver For A Once Popular Tablet

The mainline Linux 6.4 kernel is set to see a new touchscreen driver for supporting the Novatek NVT-ts, which is used by at least a once popular Intel Atom powered Android tablet from a decade prior...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Novatek-NVT-ts-Linux-Driver

[trex]

• Always nice seeing support in Linux for older devices

[kpedersen]

• Always nice seeing support in Linux for older devices

Indeed. And frankly Gnome 3's aging tablet style interface looks well suited to these older devices (if it wasn't so wasteful of resources)

[Eirikr1848]

• Always nice seeing support in Linux for older devices

Phosh, Plasma Mobile or GNOME mobile (once it gets there) would look nice on here!

[stormcrow]

• Always nice seeing support in Linux for older devices

Dev familiar with writing kernel drivers probably bought one at a garage sale or had one passed down from a friend or family member that got one (probably for free with a service contract of some kind) thinking it was actually useful then stuffed in a junk drawer for 9+ years when they found it out they're not. That's how I inherited the ones I have... and they're still largely useless :P

[bezirg]

I have one of this acer B1-750 tablets, but I have no idea how to install Linux on it and give it a new life. Isn't the bootloader locked or something?

[stormcrow]

I have one of this acer B1-750 tablets, but I have no idea how to install Linux on it and give it a new life. Isn't the bootloader locked or something?

If it's like some other Atom based tablets, then no because all they are is a standard x86 based system with a touch screen for input. But, you will need a wired keyboard so you can get at the firmware options screen. Attach a powered USB hub to the USB port, add a keyboard and your install/live flash drive, set it to boot from USB. I warn you though, these tablets aren't practically useful kludged like this as it's probably missing other drivers. The only device in this class I own that's remotely useful is a Lenovo Win 8 era device that I can also run radio software on - and that's because it has a separate power port from the single USB A port. Otherwise they're just a pretty awful experience with really short legs - more so if they're missing their OEM model-specific power profiles.

[bezirg]

I found this blogpost from Hans De Goede himself, i will give it a try. https://hansdegoede.dreamwidth.org/25653.html

hansdegoede do you have any other resources on how to boot Linux for this device?

[Vistaus]

If it's like some other Atom based tablets, then no because all they are is a standard x86 based system with a touch screen for input. But, you will need a wired keyboard so you can get at the firmware options screen. Attach a powered USB hub to the USB port, add a keyboard and your install/live flash drive, set it to boot from USB. I warn you though, these tablets aren't practically useful kludged like this as it's probably missing other drivers. The only device in this class I own that's remotely useful is a Lenovo Win 8 era device that I can also run radio software on - and that's because it has a separate power port from the single USB A port. Otherwise they're just a pretty awful experience with really short legs - more so if they're missing their OEM model-specific power profiles.

Bootloaders can still be vendor-locked. My Motorola Razr i with Intel Atom was locked too and I had to unlock it by requesting an unlock from Motorola. Also about 10 years ago.

[hansdegoede]

I found this blogpost from Hans De Goede himself, i will give it a try. https://hansdegoede.dreamwidth.org/25653.html

hansdegoede do you have any other resources on how to boot Linux for this device?

I'm afraid actually getting Linux on this tablet is rather tricky. Here is what I wrote down for myself as notes:

1. Needs DNX mode trick to enter fwsetup (see: https://hansdegoede.dreamwidth.org/25262.html)
2. Then really quickly directly after pressing enter on "fastboot boot empty-aboot.img" switch cable to PC with otg hub with kbd + USB disk
3. Then need to select boot from file -> select USB -> select grubx64.efi.
   booting through bootx64.efi (shim) does not work, the BIOS refuses to boot
   from efi/boot/bootx64.efi on USB even with secureboot disabled
   (unless it is signed with Acer's Android key?).
4. So far so good, but this is where the real problems start, quoting my notes: "The EFI seems to throw the USB-mux to device mode on ExitBootServices, so booting from USB requires a new enough x86-android-tablets module and the x86-android-tablets + extcon-intel-int3496 modules must be in the initrd!". So basically you need to first do a x86_64 UEFI install to an USB drive, then update the kernel to linux-next. So this means building a kernel from source either from: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux...og/?h=for-next or from: https://github.com/jwrdegoede/linux-sunxi/commits/main and then generate an initrd for that linux-next kernel with the 2 mentioned modules. Then boot from that USB disk and manually copy the Linux system over to the eMMC of the tablet.

So yeah I hope to have this working ootb once you are at step 4 with Fedora 39. But ATM it is still very rough around the edges. If you decide to try this anyways you will also need to place this file: https://fedorapeople.org/~jwrdegoede...yde-VESPA2.txt under /lib/firmware/brcm/ to get the wifi working. I still need to see if I can get 5GHz wifi to work (I think the chip should support it) and then I'll submit this file to linux-firmware.