Lenovo Ideapad S10-3t

[thevillage88]

Regarding the wifi, Broadcomm has a linux driver for the chipset on their support page. Does this driver not work? According to the Lenovo forum, the wifi uses the Broadcomm BCM4313 11 b/g/n chipset.

These drivers will likely work fine. The only thing is, that they need to be compiled from source, which from my own experiences typically lands me in dependency hell. Although Ubuntu's Software Center has added Source Code to the list of software sources, indicating that the necessary development tools are probably present.

Currently, ndiswrapper is mostly working for me, so I've shifted my focus to getting the touch screen working. Since Quick Start already has a working touch screen driver, it seems logical to try using existing drivers.

By the way, the S10-3t's that were released last month did not have Quick Start 2.0 installed as advertised. However, Quick Start 2.0 has been released and can be downloaded at http://consumersupport.lenovo.com/au...Show_2578.html. I've tried it, and the wifi drivers are now working just fine.

Anyway, I've located the xorg.conf file for Quick Start, and this is what it says:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Cando Touch Panel"
Driver "evdev"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/touchscreen"
Option "ReopenAttempts" "81"
EndSection

So it appears that Quick Start is using a multi-touch mouse driver for the touch screen. I've checked /dev/input for the touchscreen device, and it is absent in Ubuntu, so it's not as simple as just plugging it into xorg.conf. Wouldn't that be nice.

Quick Start's filesystem is contained in four squashfs files. Since the newer version of squashfs will not mount older versions of sqx files, we have to instead, extract them to the hard drive. Here's what I did:

- I made sure the universe and multiverse repositories were enabled in Software Manager. Just in case.

$ sudo apt-get install squashfs-tools

$ unsquashfs -d ~/Desktop/qstart /media/c drive/QSTART.SYS/bs-persist.sqx

$ unsquashfs -d ~/Desktop/qstart /media/c drive/QSTART.SYS/bs-xorg-1.6.0.sqx

$ unsquashfs -d ~/Desktop/qstart /media/c drive/QSTART.SYS/va-FF-3.0.sqx

$ unsquashfs -d ~/Desktop/qstart /media/c drive/QSTART.SYS/va-pack-LVSPCS20.sqx

Somewhere, hidden in these files, is our answer to getting the touch screen working. I'm going to continue looking, but if one of you figures it out that's great. I can use all the help I can get.

[mtate5000]

I really have my heart set on this ideapad, but before i purchase anything, i would really love to hear of some good luck with these driver issues. I've been using karmic with netbook-laucher as a desktop shell for some time now. It was just to try out for a little while, but i managed to fall in love with the interface. I agree that it does indeed scream for a touch screen. Has anybody gotten the netbook interface to work any sort of touchscreen devise? I will keep searching for a solution.

[thevillage88]

I really have my heart set on this ideapad, but before i purchase anything, i would really love to hear of some good luck with these driver issues. I've been using karmic with netbook-laucher as a desktop shell for some time now. It was just to try out for a little while, but i managed to fall in love with the interface. I agree that it does indeed scream for a touch screen. Has anybody gotten the netbook interface to work any sort of touchscreen devise? I will keep searching for a solution.

Don't let the lack of hardware support be a deterrent from buying the S10-3t. This is a really great netbook. And Ubuntu runs incredibly fast on it. This netbook has only been available for a little less than two months, so there is no surprise that some things don't work.

In this case, the only things that don't "just work" out of the box are the wifi and touch screen. We've already discussed that there are two methods to installing the wifi drivers. I can tell you that the wifi is working, because I'm currently using it to send this message. That just leaves the touch screen.

Quick Start is a custom version of Linux for Lenovo products. The touch screen driver is working fine in QS, so it's only a matter of time before we figure out how to get it working in Ubuntu. Go ahead and buy your computer, it will be ready for Linux in no time.

[thevillage88]

Sorry to double post, but I have found the device in Ubuntu, and it appears to be working! Sort of.

It seems that the touch screen is located at /dev/usb/hiddev0. You can demonstrate this to yourself by opening a terminal window and typing:

$ sudo cat /dev/usb/hiddev0

You will notice that when you touch the screen, some garbage will begin to appear in the terminal window. This is a very good sign!

Now it comes down to loading he evdev driver in xorg.conf and figuring out what the calibration values need to be. again.

[manthony121]

Looking at the "Splashtop" website (www.splashtop.com), where splashtop seems to be the same as "Quickstart", which is a pre-loaded Linux OS (in BIOS? On disk?), it indicates that the touchscreen works perfectly. Thevillage88 confirms that the touchscreen works under QS. Ergo, there is a linux driver that is working just fine. That is very good news. I have sent an email to Lenovo asking if they could provide any info about the driver, but I'm not holding my breath.

I think I will go ahead and order a S10-3t and join the struggle to get the driver out into the open where it can be used with Ubuntu instead of Win7.

[kayrozen]

Looking at the "Splashtop" website (www.splashtop.com), where splashtop seems to be the same as "Quickstart", which is a pre-loaded Linux OS (in BIOS? On disk?), it indicates that the touchscreen works perfectly. Thevillage88 confirms that the touchscreen works under QS. Ergo, there is a linux driver that is working just fine. That is very good news. I have sent an email to Lenovo asking if they could provide any info about the driver, but I'm not holding my breath.

I think I will go ahead and order a S10-3t and join the struggle to get the driver out into the open where it can be used with Ubuntu instead of Win7.

There's an opensource section with sourcecode.

http://www.splashtop.com/open_source.php

Hope this will helps you out. I would like to have fully supported s10-3t in ubuntu.

[manthony121]

That is excellent. I am not a master programmer by any means, but I do have a passing knowledge of C and C++. I am downloading the source file (616 MB), and I'll have a look-see. Perhaps the driver code is in there that *somebody* (not me) might be able to use to get complete functionality of the 10-3t touchscreen under Linux!

[Roman Shuvalov]

I'm going to buy netbook with touchscreen. Candidates are Asus EEEpc T91 and this Lenovo S10-3t. Looks like Lenovo is better but problems with touchscreen driver is bad news.

I can't download 616 MB of QS source code, manthony121, maybe you can send me index of archive? unpack it into any folder, open terminal and write:

 tree NameOfFolder > ~/file_list.txt

List of all files will be saved in file_list.txt in your home directory so you can send it to me (romanshuvalov {at} gmail dot com). When I'll see this list I will ask you to send me some files that will help me to compile the driver.

I'm not professional programmer but I will try to do it. My choice between Asus and Lenovo depends on success of getting this touchscreen driver

P.S. what is touchscreen brand name? lsusb

P.P.S. vote for getting touchscreen driver here

[kayrozen]

If this helps the panel is a CANDO Touch panel

http://consumersupport.lenovo.com/au...Show_2422.html

[Roman Shuvalov]

I've just send 2 letters to CANDO (by email and by form in their site) about linux driver. Linux driver EXISTS so I hope Cando help us to get it.