The ASUS "Bay Trail" T100 Is Not Linux Friendly

[stiiixy]

This is really bad advice. Just run a 32bit OS with a 32bit bootloader; it might work to run a 64 bit OS on a 32bit UEFI, but you'll get all sorts of unexpected behavior because you're not supposed to be able to mix and match according to the UEFI spec.

Also, AFAIK Arch and Gentoo are the only two distros with support 32bit UEFI, and both require someone with linux experience to get them working.

In a land made of gingerbread coated in sweet fruity icing, with liqourice allsorts and theories made of ideas, having a 64-bit UEFI BIOS that can detect a 32-bit bootloader (which has been proven thus far to be the ONLY method) containing the 64-bit kernel and subsequent 64-bit OS should actually be feasible. On that tasty gingerbread surface, anyway. I feel as if I'm mising something deailish, but yeah. Mmmm, lollies.

[ArneBab]

Also, AFAIK Arch and Gentoo are the only two distros with support 32bit UEFI, and both require someone with linux experience to get them working.

For Gentoo all you need is time and the patience to follow the (excellent) guides. And the will to resist dabbling with all the options you get and to just choose the default ways ☺

[ArneBab]

I would not call the weekend a waste: It led to you being able to report the experiments you did. It means that with the T100 you’re currently in the experimental-science state (experiments which might work - or not) and not yet in the engineering state (experiments which might work out better or less well - but which are likely to always provide some direct benefit).

Thanks for doing these tests!

[crymsonpheonix]

if the UEFI on the device only looks at /efi/boot/bootia32.efi (based on it's behaviors, it looks like this is true), then you NEED a 32-bit (grub) bootloader for every OS... ubuntu x64 seems to be fine with me using a 32bit efi grub

it does complain in dmesg

[ 0.000000] efi: No EFI runtime due to 32/64-bit mismatch with kernel

This is really bad advice. Just run a 32bit OS with a 32bit bootloader; it might work to run a 64 bit OS on a 32bit UEFI, but you'll get all sorts of unexpected behavior because you're not supposed to be able to mix and match according to the UEFI spec.

Also, AFAIK Arch and Gentoo are the only two distros with support 32bit UEFI, and both require someone with linux experience to get them working.

[rdnetto]

Fire up a puppy

Puppy is overkill. I have the latest version of Sabayon KDE running on an old Centrino with 768 MB of RAM. Admittedly, KDE is lighter on resources than Unity (not sure how it compares to Gnome 3).
I also used to run Kubuntu on an Asus Transformer TF101. That worked pretty well too, although it did have quite a few driver issues due to the custom kernel (the TF101 was an early ARM (Tegra 2) tablet/netbook).

[GreatEmerald]

From my understanding, most (all?) pc's use 64bit UEFI environments, with the exception of macintosh pc's.

Nope. My Oak Trail tablet is 32-bit, and so uses a 32-bit UEFI as well.

[conathan]

So the Asus T100 is using a 32bit UEFI?


From my understanding, most (all?) pc's use 64bit UEFI environments, with the exception of macintosh pc's.

http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/26734.html has a nice article on the situation.

There is no option to boot a MBR style bootloader with the Asus uefi?

Can the T100 run 64bit operating systems? (I thought it could, but they opted to use 32bit windows due to some driver only working on 32bit)


It comes with 32bit Windows 8, and from what I read there was no UEFI bootloader for 32bit windows 8... (Could be new in 8.1 I suppose).

[paperwastage]

So it's a hardcoded UEFI set by Asus? Also, as an aside, are you confirming you can install a 32-bit bootloader system (GRUB etc) and have it then boot in to a 64-bit (hell, 16-bit DOS!) OS'ii? I've never actually bothered to try that.

i'll try to find utilities to decompile the AMI UEFI/BIOS

I haven't actually installed any grub yet... been testing only live USBs at this point (ubuntu 13.04 boots to GUI if I remove the VESA_DRV.mod from x11)

there isn't much information about UEFI + 32-bit mode on the internet unfortunately... most people only about 64-bit mode

need to go to sleep now, playing around with this too much for the past 5 days

[stiiixy]

if the UEFI on the device only looks at /efi/boot/bootia32.efi (based on it's behaviors, it looks like this is true), then you NEED a 32-bit (grub) bootloader for every OS... ubuntu x64 seems to be fine with me using a 32bit efi grub

it does complain in dmesg

[ 0.000000] efi: No EFI runtime due to 32/64-bit mismatch with kernel

So it's a hardcoded UEFI set by Asus? Also, as an aside, are you confirming you can install a 32-bit bootloader system (GRUB etc) and have it then boot in to a 64-bit (hell, 16-bit DOS!) OS'ii? I've never actually bothered to try that.

[paperwastage]

Is it possible to set up the bootloader with 32-bit components initially (it appears that's what works for now), then reboot in to a 64-bit install (whatever method fickles your tancy) using the bootloader options?

if the UEFI on the device only looks at /efi/boot/bootia32.efi (based on it's behaviors, it looks like this is true), then you NEED a 32-bit (grub) bootloader for every OS... ubuntu x64 seems to be fine with me using a 32bit efi grub

it does complain in dmesg

[ 0.000000] efi: No EFI runtime due to 32/64-bit mismatch with kernel