Asus T91 linux installation

[onebir]

I'm trying to get gestures working without having to press a mouse button, by getting bezel button (usually used for screen rotation but often broken) to stand in, via a script called xdotool (http://www.semicomplete.com/projects/xdotool/). (It's available from the software centre.) This would make Easystroke gestures usable in tablet configuration - making that configuration a lot more useful.

It should be really simple, but unfortunately I haven't been successful so far. This is what I've tried.

Based on tips earlier in this thread, I put two event handlers in /etc/acpi/events/
1) asus-fake-mousedown:

event=hotkey (ATKD|HOTK) 0000007b
action=/etc/acpi/fakemousedown.sh

2) asus-fake-mouseup:

event=hotkey (ATKD|HOTK) 0000007d
action=/etc/acpi/fakemousedup.sh

In /etc/acpi I put 1) fakemousedown.sh

#!/bin/sh
#
# simulates mouse down action when bevel 
xdotool mousedown 1

and 2) fakemouseup.sh

#!/bin/sh
#
# simulates mouse down action when bevel 
xdotool mouseup 1

The xdotool commands work ok from the command line, as does invoking the shell scripts. Any ideas what the problem might be?

[HarrisonNapper]

Is anyone using 10.10 on the T91? The HardwareComponent... GMA500 driver wiki indicates that 10.10 works well, but for me when I install it to sdb and do an upgrade, it won't even boot. I get an error "invalid arch independent ELF magic. Aborted. Press any key to exit."

Furthermore, below are various operating systems and their results (yes, this has consumed a notable chunk of my life):

1. Ubuntu 0.0-9.10: If it supports poulsbo, there is a great deal of crashing; especially when using the touchscreen.
2. Jolicloud (any version): See above.
3. Ubuntu 10.04+ (EMGD enabled):
a. Ubuntu 10.04: I'm trying it next
b. Ubuntu 10.10: Install, upgrade, no boot
c. Lubuntu 10.10: Install, upgrade, no boot (but in a less expressive way), also has a tendency to install grub to first partition (very windowsy thing to do) even if use whole disk is selected for sdb (why the behavior differs in ubiquity, not sure)
d. Ubuntu 11.04: Once EMGD is installed, you CANNOT (read as "I wasn't able to") upgrade or downgrade the kernel. Also, it doesn't work. Which is really the more relevant part there. I tried this two ways: install, update, upgrade kernel, install emgd (emgd wouldn't install); and install, install emgd, upgrade kernel, <fails>
e. Lucid Puppy 5.2.8: Actually works pretty well except the wireless drivers are pretty bad, so it's impossible to download or install just about anything.

If anyone has ANY distro running on the T91 wherein:
1. The resolution is LCD-1024x600-24
2. The touchscreen works without crashing and is calibrated
3. It can run on an SD card (not the SSD) (in the case of the T91 this is generally /dev/sdb)

Please post a full installation guide from start to finish. I know that I would be very grateful and I'm sure there are others who will as well. Even if it's a high-level overview, that would work, too. I assume that all of these problems stem from trying to install to sdb since things seem to work for everyone installing to the SSD and the main problem so far has been boot problems.


EDIT: I'm still working on 10.10, so if that ends up being successful, I will post the full guide. At the moment, since it wouldn't boot, I wanted to use boot-repair (because it's easier), but apt hung on installing a ubiquity package, so trying to fix that to fix the repair install to fix grub to fix boot to install emgd and hopefully fix upgrading problems I've seen with emgd and other kernels/packages. In any case, it might be awhile, but will let everyone know.

UPDATE: 10.10 didn't work. I tried boot-repair livecd, both options, as well as one pass with the advanced mode. I think bottom line is that grub needs to be on /dev/sda. Because I am apparently a masochist, I'm now installing 10.04 to see if it behaves differently. So far pre-update everything works on 10.10 buntu installs, but once you update packages (200 or 300 depending on install), it gets nerfed. I assume it's a grub update, but that's one place to start in 300 packages.

[onebir]

1. The resolution is LCD-1024x600-24
2. The touchscreen works without crashing and is calibrated
3. It can run on an SD card (not the SSD) (in the case of the T91 this is generally /dev/sdb)

2 ish - the commands I found & posted above got the touchscreen calibrated in 11.04, but it seems to fall asleep or something. Very irritating when reading an ebook. Which is basically what I bought the bloody thing for. (But probably you meant 1 & 2 & 3...)

EDIT: I'm still working on 10.10, so if that ends up being successful, I will post the full guide. At the moment, since it wouldn't boot, I wanted to use grub-repair (because it's easier), but apt hung on installing a ubiquity package, so trying to fix that to fix the repair install to fix grub to fix boot to install emgd and hopefully fix upgrading problems I've seen with emgd and other kernels/packages. In any case, it might be awhile, but will let everyone know.

If you have any success, this fellow T91 victim would much appreciate any guidance you can offer!

(BTW, I have a vague impression the EMGD repos are dead. Or I can't access them for upgrades or something...)

[HarrisonNapper]

2 ish - the commands I found & posted above got the touchscreen calibrated in 11.04, but it seems to fall asleep or something. Very irritating when reading an ebook. Which is basically what I bought the bloody thing for. (But probably you meant 1 & 2 & 3...)

Yeah because unfortunately Windows couldn't install to the SD card (I haven't tried, but I've had bad experiences with this in the past), so it's on the SSD which is only the 16 GB one atm. The resolution is not as important, that's just a workflow thing, though I do highly prefer a legible resolution. All of this worked practically out of the box on puppy so if I can figure out how to fix the networking, I will post that as well, as that would be the best option for any eee.


Note to Googlers: if the length of this thread has not already convinced you, allow me to clarify: If you are considering purchasing an Asus EeePC T91SA (aka T91) or T91MT for the purpose of running Linux, look elsewhere, it will not work.

[bkruggel]

I wrote a pretty complete tutorial for Bodhi Linux, an Ubuntu spinoff, which should be perfectly applicable to Ubuntu Maverick.
It's here: http://www.bodhilinux.com/forums/ind...ch__1#entry168
Note to googlers: first hit with "T91 emgd"

If the problem is really booting from SD, then that won't help though.

Lucid had bad touchscreen support with this machine last time I tried. Bodhi is running pretty good, and loads very quickly (even from SD) - you might want to give it a try. All Ubuntu repos are still there, although they backport a lot by themselves. The base system is 2gb, so you might consider putting it alongside your 'other' system on the SSD.

The problem with the touchscreen going to sleep has to do with USB autosuspend. Turn it off and you're good.

Onebir: that's a neat idea! Maybe a DISPLAY variable problem? (xdotool wouldn't know 'where' to click?) Try and let me know!

[HarrisonNapper]

I wrote a pretty complete tutorial for Bodhi Linux, an Ubuntu spinoff, which should be perfectly applicable to Ubuntu Maverick.
It's here: http://www.bodhilinux.com/forums/ind...ch__1#entry168
Note to googlers: first hit with "T91 emgd"

I actually used that and cross-referenced https://launchpad.net/~gma500/+archive/emgd as well as the https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupp...eoCardsPoulsbo page on the Ubuntu wiki.

For the new user, use the guide above, as it should work fine for 10.10 (all derivatives of Ubuntu 10.10). When I installed 11.04 that didn't work and that was a default install to the SSD on /dev/sda

Lucid had bad touchscreen support with this machine last time I tried. Bodhi is running pretty good, and loads very quickly (even from SD) - you might want to give it a try. All Ubuntu repos are still there, although they backport a lot by themselves. The base system is 2gb, so you might consider putting it alongside your 'other' system on the SSD.

Quick load time is a big plus. And the battery life after power tweaks is similar to what I had running Lubuntu before I gave up on nix on the T91 the second time (this might be the third). I think it's just that grub for whatever reason will not work except running from /dev/sda.

[bkruggel]

When I installed 11.04 that didn't work and that was a default install to the SSD on /dev/sda

Nothing happened at all?

I think it's just that grub for whatever reason will not work except running from /dev/sda.

Actually just remembered that I did that. I put an Android live-distro in the front SD slot (sdc), installed it to the side SD slot (sdb) and then booted through the BIOS from the SD (sdb) into a grub menu and then into Android. Although that wasn't grub2 (what Ubuntu uses now). Did you try lilo or plain grub?
I don't exactly understand what you try to do (I assume keeping Windows?), but could you just install grub to sda and then boot from there to your SSD or to your SD? As in: have two choices, 1) boot Windows from sda, 2) boot Ubuntu from sdb.

I did: installed the distro, went into the terminal (Ctrl+Alt+F1 if even X fails to start, i.e. black screen after boot), downgraded the kernel to 2.6.35-24, installed the headers (!forgot that twice!), rebooted into the new kernel (!), installed the EMGD drivers for natty, run emgd-xorg-conf (forgot that once, nearly went crazy), and reboot. (removed old kernel)
Just remember, whenever you install a new kernel, install the corresponding headers as well and if it worked, run emgd-xorg-conf.
I'm sure with a few logs we could get through Maybe install ssh at some point in order to get into the PC if the screen is black.

[HarrisonNapper]

Nothing happened at all?

Booting after doing all upgrades and getting installation failure of either the kernel or emgd update resulted in a kernel panic.

Actually just remembered that I did that. I put an Android live-distro in the front SD slot (sdc), installed it to the side SD slot (sdb) and then booted through the BIOS from the SD (sdb) into a grub menu and then into Android. Although that wasn't grub2 (what Ubuntu uses now). Did you try lilo or plain grub?
I don't exactly understand what you try to do (I assume keeping Windows?), but could you just install grub to sda and then boot from there to your SSD or to your SD? As in: have two choices, 1) boot Windows from sda, 2) boot Ubuntu from sdb.

I did: installed the distro, went into the terminal (Ctrl+Alt+F1 if even X fails to start, i.e. black screen after boot), downgraded the kernel to 2.6.35-24, installed the headers (!forgot that twice!), rebooted into the new kernel (!), installed the EMGD drivers for natty, run emgd-xorg-conf (forgot that once, nearly went crazy), and reboot. (removed old kernel)
Just remember, whenever you install a new kernel, install the corresponding headers as well and if it worked, run emgd-xorg-conf.
I'm sure with a few logs we could get through Maybe install ssh at some point in order to get into the PC if the screen is black.

I have no doubt that I could have gotten things to work even with grub2, the kernel panics, the lack of independent arch for ELF magic (I deleted my EFI partition a long time ago, though side-note this does not give a grub console), but I was trying to find out what would install the easiest since I assume that something that supports the GMA500 chipset well out of the box will generally continue to do so.

As for the reason I didn't put grub on /dev/sda, I nearly had a computer bricked for having that configuration before. If you install Windows Vista SP1, install something alongside it (more accurately, if you move the MBR from the start of the HDD OR have another bootloader besides the windows loader), and do a SP upgrade, all sorts of wonky things happen.

Luckily, I was able to save most of my Debian partition and some of my Windows data, but ever since that relatively long process, I avoid it just in case when I can.

Also, I rather like the idea that the SSD isn't being accessed during the whole process and I'm routing to the SSD (/dev/sda) using grub. Long and short of it is this became more an effort of ideology (opposing forced install of grub to any particular location) for posterity, as I've been able to get things working on the T91 to my liking several times in the past.

In any case, 10.04 working just fine and will post the full report tomorrow for the benefit of the 3 people of the world who want to use this configuration.

[onebir]

In any case, 10.04 working just fine and will post the full report tomorrow for the benefit of the 3 special people of the world who want to use this configuration.

[bkruggel]

In any case, 10.04 working just fine and will post the full report tomorrow for the benefit of the 3 people of the world who want to use this configuration.

That some good news at last! I don't know if they fixed the touchscreen by now - I remember back then, typing "test" on an onscreen keyboard would give "tttessst". Replacing xserver-xorg-input-evdev with any version above 2.5.99 fixes it. (They have 2.5.99 at Xorg Edgers)

I assume that something that supports the GMA500 chipset well out of the box will generally continue to do so.

Wouldn't count on it. Better just lock the kernel version when you got it working. EMGD is made for MeeGo (thus your kernel panics with versions other than they tested), closed source (no out of the box) and generally unstable (2D works good, but 3D freezes after some time). No Intel never for me again.

I'm trying to get gestures working without having to press a mouse button, by getting bezel button (usually used for screen rotation but often broken) to stand in, via a script called xdotool.

Onebir, I played around with it and found the problem. Indeed it was DISPLAY. I am simulating a right click (an old topic in this thread) like this:

the event handler is /etc/acpi/events/asus-rotate

event=hotkey (ATKD|HOTK) 0000007b
action=/etc/acpi/mouse3.sh

(like yours)

and mouse3.sh is:

DISPLAY=:0 xdotool click 3

Funny - this idea came up two years ago.. now there's a solution

EDIT: re-read your first post, Onebir and suddenly doubt if I understood well... Did you try in Easystroke to go into Preferences and change the Gesture Button to 1? Gestures work then in tablet mode.