Linux On A Toshiba Click Mini...

[Paul Mansfield]

There appears to be four of us able and interested in getting linux
work better than the "runs without crashing too soon".

So I am appending the most recent communications I have had with
Nicolas H, who I am hoping will be able to build a kernel which is
quite stable. I will then reinstall my Tosh Click Mini with 64 bit
debian and use that.

So far on my TCM, I've had the following working:
* tablet hardware: screen, touch-screen, microUSB, wifi, microSD card slot
* dock hardware: dock keyboard, touch pad, USB, SDHC card slot

Not working:
* hardware: sound, front camera, back camera, bluetooth, volume
control, screen brightness
* software: suspend/resume

I've found the Asus T100 community has sometimes been helpful as there
are some similarities:
   https://plus.google.com/communities/117853703024346186936

I also used ideas from Fedlet:
   https://www.happyassassin.net/category/fedlet/


But the main resource for Baytrail patches has been hadess rtl wifi:
    https://github.com/hadess/rtl8723bs


If you guys have discovered any great linux-on-baytrail resources, do
please circulate them!

regards
Paul

On 28 January 2016 at 11:01, Nicolas Huillard <nicolas at huillard.net> wrote:
> Hi Paul,
>
> Thank you very much for your answer. I'll try to get a working amd64 4.4
> or 4.3 kernel, with minimal diff against Debian config, and I'll provide
> the binary and diff (working keyboard/touchpad first, then wifi, then
> mmc, then the details about re-docking, sleep, etc.). We'll find a way
> to host it (I have an ugly website).
> We can enter a group discussion, maybe via email at first, because I do
> not have a lot of time, and tend to spend it on this project after other
> tasks (and I still use the 2006 laptop the Mini is meant to eventually
> replace).
>
> I'll keep you informed of my progress ! I bet on an ACPI issue related
> to declaring how the devices are tied to the i2c busses.
>
> Le mercredi 27 janvier 2016 à 22:25 +0000, Paul Mansfield a écrit :
>> Hello Nicholas,
>> thanks for the email. answers interleaved below.
>>
>> On 27 January 2016 at 17:50, Nicolas Huillard <nicolas at huillard.net> wrote:
>> >
>> > I was able to recompile Debian jessie's bpo 4.2.6 kernel, and my goal is
>> > to have a single easy install kernel image package, containing
>> > everything needed for the device (64 bits with btrfs). I've not been
>> > able to have the keyboard working on my 4.4 kernel, which is a
>> > show-stopper ;-)
>>
>> When I first started, I used 64 bit debian kernel and it seemed less
>> stable than the 32. That's probably more due to not having applied the
>> baytrail patches. I haven't had the time to start over.
>>
>> > My questions are :
>> > * which module is the driver for the keyboard ? I think that the
>> > touchpad is elan_i2c (even though it seems to only work in PS/2 mouse
>> > emulation in your kernel), and I think the keyboard is also connected to
>> > some i2c bus, maybe even driven by the exact same chip,
>>
>>
>> When I built my first kernel I streamline it and the dock didn't work,
>> so I turned a few things back on, and thereby discovered that the
>> touchpad is indeed I2C, as is the touchscreen and keyboard... I simply
>> enabled all the likely CONFIG_I2C_ entries in the kernel config!
>>
>> > * what options did you identify as driving some of the hardware in the
>> > machine (touchscreen, touchpad, keyboard, mmc ports, etc.)
>>
>> I didn't have to do anything magic to make the microSD or dock's SD
>> slot work, and once I re-enabled the I2C then those other devices
>> worked.
>>
>> That said, sometimes (maybe one in four) it starts up and doesn't see
>> the keyboard. My choice is to plug in a USB keyboard, or connect a USB
>> ether and ssh in, and shut it down completely, and then it should be
>> OK.
>>
>> Undocking and redocking stops the keyboard and touchpad from working too.
>>
>> > * according to https://github.com/hadess/rtl8723bs the sdio Wifi chip
>> > needs some patches to the MMC drivers (DMA incompatibilities ; your
>> > kernel didn't include them, as there was lots of kernel logging related
>> > to mmc errors)
>>
>> I applied all the patches form that git repo. But I'd also turned on
>> MMC logging because I had problems to try and see what they were
>> before I did the patching, and I didn't turn all of it off. Sometimes
>> my Tosh does freeze when running linux.
>>
>> I also had to do a hack to invert the signal on the microSD slot
>> otherwise the kernel sees it as read only. I can't remember if I wrote
>> that on the blog page, or just on the Tosh forum.
>>
>> > * is there a way to tweak/invert/disable the lid switch directly in the
>> > kernel, in order to avoid changing systemd to ignore it (which is a
>> > pita)
>>
>> Someone posted this here:
>>   https://www.happyassassin.net/fedlet-a-fedora-remix-for-bay-trail-tablets/
>>
>> " solved the problem by setting 'HandleLidSwitch=ignore' in
>> /etc/systemd/logind.conf"
>>
>> I switched away from using systemd to avoid the problem before I found
>> that, so I don't know if it will work for you.
>>
>>
>> > My goal is to have the latest kernel compiled, mainly because there are
>> > probably lots of baytrail improvements there... I may provide a diff
>> > against Debian source package (config + rtl8723bs + various patches)
>>
>> I'm pretty sure the hadess repo is the best place to get patches for
>> Baytrail. I've not had time to look at this for months and months, and
>> with nobody else showing any interest I'd pretty much given up!
>>
>> I've been very busy over the last two months with a new job in
>> December, big family christmas, and of course settling into the new
>> job, and just in the last few weeks my tax return.
>>
>> I did grab the latest 4.x kernels at the beginning of the week and was
>> going to start with a fresh 4.4.4 and an unbodged config (no debug
>> etc) and start all over with the hadess patches and try and make it
>> work better. So I would be very interested if you can build a stable
>> kernel.
>>
>> Please do let me know how you get on, and if you do get a good kernel,
>> 32 or 64 bit, I'll take mine down and point at yours. I am happy to
>> host your files if you don't have web space. Since I rarely boot my
>> click mini into linux, I'm happy to reinstall it with 64 bit if that's
>> what you get working well.