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View Full Version : [ubuntu] 14.04 on HP Split x2



shane-u
July 10th, 2014, 11:26 PM
Hi All,

Recently I upgraded my old Sony Vaio and on a whim purchased an HP Split x2. The price was right and I liked the fact that the screen detaches and becomes a tablet. I'm glad that I didn't research it as there is very little info and much of it not good about installing Ubuntu, however for those out there contemplating purchasing one all I can say is go for it, it's a great little machine and Ubuntu, mostly, works well.
Installation is via USB and there are plenty of posts on how to do that so I wont repeat it here except to say that I could'nt get it to recognise Windows * and dual boot, but that did not concern me but you do need format the smaller drive to get rid of the windosws partitions with the partition manager in the live usb. There are 2 drives, you need to install Ubuntu in the (on my machine) 64GB which is in the tablet, mine has a 500GB data drive in the dock.

After installation what doesn't work (or work so well)...
Touchscreen - it works but is unusable due to being way out of calibration
Touchpad - no response
Wifi - constantly drops out on N band - unusable if your router is a newer one.

Fixes...
Touchscreen:
You will need to plug in a USB mouse to navigate around. The problem with the touchsreen is that the system detects a 'ghost' second sreen so navigate to 'system settings' 'displays' select the unknown screen and disable it. Touchscreen should now work perfectally. The only issue is there appears to be no way to imitate a right-click in Ubuntu. The usual long press doesn't work and after much searching and trying various recommendations on the web nothing is satisfactory to emulate this (a lot of people seem to be confusing a two-fingered click, which works for the touchpad but does not work on the touchscreen) Hopefully Ubuntu will add this soon as it is the one of the two things that stops you using the tablet to it's fullist. The other is that some drop down boxes on websites do not respond to a click ie you can't select the dropdown menu.

Touchpad:
To fix you need to load the latest kernels. This is quite simple and can be done from the terminal.

"wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.15-rc6-utopic/linux-headers-3.15.0-031500rc6-generic_3.15.0-031500rc6.201405211835_amd64.deb"

"wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.15-rc6-utopic/linux-headers-3.15.0-031500rc6_3.15.0-031500rc6.201405211835_all.deb"

"wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.15-rc6-utopic/linux-image-3.15.0-031500rc6-generic_3.15.0-031500rc6.201405211835_amd64.debhttps://ssl.gstatic.com/ui/v1/icons/mail/images/cleardot.gif"

sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.15.0-*.deb linux-image-3.15.0-*.deb

Do a complete shut down and then restart your machine and it should be working fine. I found that the 'right-click' on the right hand bottom of the pad was flakey, sometimes it would work but mostly it would perform a left-click. I am not sure if this is a sensitivity, hardware or software issue but I just use a 2 finger tap to emulate a right-click and actually prefer it to using the button.

Wifi:
By performing the above kernel update you partially fix this. It is not a complete solution but gets it working at about 80%, not as fast as I would like but at least it stops the constant drop-outs and makes it usable when using newer routers.
There is a better solution of installing the Rt3290 drivers that looks very promising but unfortunately it caused Kernel panics on my machine everytime a connection was made so, at this stage, no good. Hopefully with newer kernels there will be a fix?

Just a note. Whenever you do an update it takes you back to the older kernel and you will need to run the


sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.15.0-*.deb linux-image-3.15.0-*.deb

line again, I suggest that you keep it in a document on your desktop so that you have easy access to it just in case you can't get onto the net. If anybody knows how to make this permanent (and able to update to any newer ones) then I would be grateful if you could post it here.

Also any solutions to the kernel panics and touchscreen emulation would also be appreciated.

Thanks and I hope that this helps someone.

Shane

PCV_LZ_Inst._of_Tech.
August 16th, 2014, 12:29 AM
I picked up this laptop about a month ago and, in addition to needing to RMA it, finally gave in to killing Windows 8.1. Much like you did, I ended up digging through a thousand posts to get this up and running. Although I just found your post, I want to say thank you and let you know that I wished I had found it sooner.

Danilo_Amoroso
October 5th, 2014, 04:58 PM
Hello and thank you for sharing.

I too would like to make kill windows 8.1 on my split x2, but since I am not an expert Linux user and I use this machine to work I am afraid the change could impair my ability to work for quite some time.

Do you find the machine is completely usable a reasonable amount of time after install? Is it possible to revert to windows should I not be able to overcome and fix what needs fixing? (I would like to install ubuntu on the SSD, so the recovery partition should not be touched and could be used to bring the machine back to factory, am I right?)

Thank you for your help.
Dan