Asus X205TA hardware support in Ubuntu

[khm25]

I tried your script with Manjaro and it worked great!
Thank you for making this!

[Yochanan]

@harryharryharry: Thanks for the updated script! This little netbook is still fun to play with.

[joshua123456]

Hi people! I don't know how many people are still relying on the isos/kernels I host (the server logs show there are a few of you left), but I wanted to let you know I'll be upgrading my server soon, and I don't plan to put the files up on the new server. If any of you need them, please download them now (if you read this message after I closed down my server, shoot me a PM; maybe I can somehow supply the iso you need).

Having said that, I have a pretty good alternative: I managed to make a standalone script (yes yes, another one) that can very quickly modify a stock linux iso to incorporate an efi image (which it builds on-the-fly) that has 32bit boot capabilities (which the x205ta needs). This script exclusively relies on pretty standard linux tools (like syslinux, isoinfo, mkdosfs, xorriso & rsync) without the need for external config/boot files, so in the long run it'll probably be a lot less error-prone and a lot more future-proof than my previous script. Which is nice, because I won't be putting a lot of effort in maintaining the script. Right now I've tested the script with ubuntu (including mint, elementary), fedora, opensuse, manjaro.

Another advantage over my previous script(s) is that the iso this scripts outputs can be written to a usb with any imagewriter (for example dd, or win32 disk imager). Of course the isos will no longer be carrying my custom kernels, but I think that is a good thing; my kernels are probably horribly outdated feature-wise and security-wise.

Hi Harryharryharry, first a thousands thanks for all the great work you have done so far for the X205TA. I am running Ubuntu 18.04 with your 5.0.1 kernel. When I use your 5.3.6 kernel it will not give me any sound unfortunately.

So my main question is how do I get sound up and running if I use your new script to build a iso from scratch? Is there an easy guide to maintain my own kernel or keep my kernel up to date?

[harryharryharry]

Thanks for the feedback @khm25 & @Yochanan !

@joshua123456 I'd not use my kernel anymore, it's old. When I tried out the isos I created with my new script, audio just worked out of the box (you can try it out while live booting the usb), I guess newer kernels have addressed the audio problem that was an issue around 5.0.1/5.3.6 (iirc audio still needed some configuration of /usr/share/alsa/ucm/chtrt5645/HiFi.conf back then). The new script modifies nothing but the efi file that is needed to boot from usb on the x205ta. So the iso will carry the kernel that comes with the distro (which is probably for the best, because it is maintained by people who know how to).

If you really want to maintain your own kernel, you can try to follow this guide (but I haven't updated it since 4.18):
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread....3#post13625163
(skip the patches section, they aren't needed anymore, and probably will not apply without error anymore anyway)
(tip: instead of downloading a kernel config from my server (at step 4), which isn't possible anymore soon; run 'make localmodconfig' from the kernel source directory and you'll get a barebones kernel config, based on the modules you're using at that moment)

But I'd say maintaining your own kernel is not worth the hassle, all functionality that will ever be available on the x205ta is probably already in the kernels most distros carry.

[joshua123456]

Thanks for the feedback @khm25 & @Yochanan !

@joshua123456 I'd not use my kernel anymore, it's old. When I tried out the isos I created with my new script, audio just worked out of the box (you can try it out while live booting the usb), I guess newer kernels have addressed the audio problem that was an issue around 5.0.1/5.3.6 (iirc audio still needed some configuration of /usr/share/alsa/ucm/chtrt5645/HiFi.conf back then). The new script modifies nothing but the efi file that is needed to boot from usb on the x205ta. So the iso will carry the kernel that comes with the distro (which is probably for the best, because it is maintained by people who know how to).

If you really want to maintain your own kernel, you can try to follow this guide (but I haven't updated it since 4.18):
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread....3#post13625163
(skip the patches section, they aren't needed anymore, and probably will not apply without error anymore anyway)
(tip: instead of downloading a kernel config from my server (at step 4), which isn't possible anymore soon; run 'make localmodconfig' from the kernel source directory and you'll get a barebones kernel config, based on the modules you're using at that moment)

But I'd say maintaining your own kernel is not worth the hassle, all functionality that will ever be available on the x205ta is probably already in the kernels most distros carry.

It is not my intention to have my own kernel. I'd love to run a mainline kernel. The problem I have is only your 5.0.1 kernel gives me sound, I tried your 5.3.7 but no sound. Today I removed all Harry kernels with your script. I then enabled HWE, I am on Ubuntu 18.04 at the moment so after updating I booted in to kernel 5.4.0-45-generic, I do have sound at startup but the sound is gone once I logged in. Any idea what goes wrong or what I do wrong?

[khm25]

I'm not getting wifi to work (also tried with your custom config).
It didn't work under Windows 10 either so my wifi card might be broken.
When running:

journalctl -xb -p err

I get this...

x205 kernel: brcmfmac: brcmf_fw_alloc_request: Unknown chip BCM58343/2
x205 kernel: brcmfmac: brcmf_sdio_htclk: HT Avail timeout (1000000): clkctl 0x50
x205 kernel: brcmfmac: brcmf_ops_sdio_probe: F2 error, probe failed -19...

Not sure what's up, I don't find any info on that chip or error message.

[joshua123456]

It is not my intention to have my own kernel. I'd love to run a mainline kernel. The problem I have is only your 5.0.1 kernel gives me sound, I tried your 5.3.7 but no sound. Today I removed all Harry kernels with your script. I then enabled HWE, I am on Ubuntu 18.04 at the moment so after updating I booted in to kernel 5.4.0-45-generic, I do have sound at startup but the sound is gone once I logged in. Any idea what goes wrong or what I do wrong?

I solved this issue with:

apt install git
git clone https://github.com/plbossart/UCM.git
sudo cp -rf ~/UCM/chtrt5645 /usr/share/alsa/ucm
echo "blacklist snd_hdmi_lpe_audio" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist_snd_hdmi_lpe_audio.conf
sudo alsa force-reload

I have sound now, with the generic kernel. I am a happy person now...

Next step is trying to build a 20.04 iso with harry's installation script.

[joshua123456]

Hi people! I don't know how many people are still relying on the isos/kernels I host (the server logs show there are a few of you left), but I wanted to let you know I'll be upgrading my server soon, and I don't plan to put the files up on the new server. If any of you need them, please download them now (if you read this message after I closed down my server, shoot me a PM; maybe I can somehow supply the iso you need).

Having said that, I have a pretty good alternative: I managed to make a standalone script (yes yes, another one) that can very quickly modify a stock linux iso to incorporate an efi image (which it builds on-the-fly) that has 32bit boot capabilities (which the x205ta needs). This script exclusively relies on pretty standard linux tools (like syslinux, isoinfo, mkdosfs, xorriso & rsync) without the need for external config/boot files, so in the long run it'll probably be a lot less error-prone and a lot more future-proof than my previous script. Which is nice, because I won't be putting a lot of effort in maintaining the script. Right now I've tested the script with ubuntu (including mint, elementary), fedora, opensuse, manjaro.

Another advantage over my previous script(s) is that the iso this scripts outputs can be written to a usb with any imagewriter (for example dd, or win32 disk imager). Of course the isos will no longer be carrying my custom kernels, but I think that is a good thing; my kernels are probably horribly outdated feature-wise and security-wise.

I am trying to build a Ubuntu 20.04 iso using your new script. But I can;t get my head around this error:

Aborting: isohdpfx.bin not found, please install syslinux and make sure this script points to isohdpfx.bin

(Syslinux has already been installed)

[harryharryharry]

Hmmm this message means my script can't find isohdpfx.bin, which it needs to make a bootable usb. The location of isohdpfx.bin depends on your host system (and its version of syslinux). The script already searches in multiple locations, but distro and/or the syslinux maintainers seem to like rearranging things.

From which linux distro are you trying to run the script?
Maybe you can find the isohdpfx.bin location by running:

sudo find /usr -type f -name 'isohdpfx.bin'

[harryharryharry]

@khm25
This indeed doesn't sound good (especially since windows also can't recognize the chip). The chip your system reports doesn't seem to exist, something (some hardware firmware?) might be corrupted.

this is my output:

$ sudo dmesg | grep brcm
[   31.162869] bluetooth hci0: Direct firmware load for brcm/BCM43341B0.hcd failed with error -2 
[   31.162878] Bluetooth: hci0: BCM: Patch brcm/BCM43341B0.hcd not found 
[   31.541602] brcmfmac: brcmf_fw_alloc_request: using brcm/brcmfmac43340-sdio for chip BCM43340/2 
[   31.542687] usbcore: registered new interface driver brcmfmac 
[   31.574226] brcmfmac mmc0:0001:1: Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43340-sdio.ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.-X205TA.txt failed with error -2 
[   31.574274] brcmfmac mmc0:0001:1: Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43340-sdio.txt failed with error -2 
[   31.574437] brcmfmac: brcmf_fw_nvram_from_efi: Using nvram EFI variable
[   31.755668] brcmfmac: brcmf_fw_alloc_request: using brcm/brcmfmac43340-sdio for chip BCM43340/2 
[   31.755742] brcmfmac: brcmf_c_process_clm_blob: no clm_blob available (err=-2), device may have limited channels available 
[   31.756208] brcmfmac: brcmf_c_preinit_dcmds: Firmware: BCM43340/2 wl0: Feb 20 2015 12:54:17 version 6.10.190.55 (r536162) FWID 01-6cb01dcc