Hi,

You are doing well.. good job!!
I'll take responsibility for the current problem..

The failed command 'sudo cp ~/Downloads/shell.efi /mnt' expands (for you) to 'sudo cp /home/alisanna/Downloads/shell.efi /mnt'.
For me, it would expand to 'sudo cp /home/bob/Downloads/shell.efi /mnt'. All well and good so far.
The error returned is stating that the file 'shell.efi' cannot be found in '/home/alisanna/Downloads/'.

You've forgotten that filenames in Linux are case sensitive. 'Shell.efi' is different to 'shell.efi'.
There is a reason that I asked you to rename the file which I'll cover in the 'EFI Shell' post (coming soon).

I'll add this to the guide shortly.. Give me 5 mins.. I should have made this clear, my apologies..

Happy New Year to you & yours..

B.

Hi,

The EFI Shell:
Basic Use:

The EFI shell can be used to start or alter the boot process on a UEFI computer where the bootloader configuration has become corrupted or misconfigured.
It can also be very useful for starting OS's on external devices where the UEFI Bios is found to be "problematic" when detecting certain storage devices.
There are other EFI tools available for use with the EFI shell. The 'built in' commands are perfectly adequate for basic booting tasks. Enter 'help' when mapped to a drive to see a list of the supported shell commands.

The EFI shell looks like an MSDos command prompt or Linux terminal. It can be run on a UEFI computer and is available for use before the computer operating system has started.
Some UEFI Bios's come with an 'internal shell' and others rely on an external shell file which must be placed at the top directory level within the 'ESP' (fat32) filesystem.
There are no functional differences between the internal and external shells.. All this means is that one is 'built in' and the other run from a user supplied file.
Note: It is possible for a poorly configured system or one with a failed installation to boot directly to the EFI shell. If a required external shell file was missing from the ESP/EFI then this system would probably either lockup or "boot loop". Some familiarity with the basic use of the EFI shell here can literally "save the day".

The 'shell', is invoked from a Bios boot setting or using a keyboard 'Boot override' key. The option will be called something like "Start/Boot internal shell" or "Start/Boot external efi shell" or similar.
Note: a 32-bit UEFI Bios requires a 32-bit external shell program. A 64-bit UEFI Bios requires a 64-bit external shell program. This assumes that an internal shell is **not** available.

See pic1. This shows the EFI shell just after it has been started. I ran the EFI shell within VirtualBox. The screen capture program has included the full window decoration.

Here we are only interested in ESP filesystems (The fat32 EFI partition that holds the initial bootloader files.).

See pic2. This shows one detected fat32 ESP filesystem. This is identified as 'fs0:'. A second detected fat32 ESP/EFI filesystem would be identified as 'fs1:'. Ignore any other detected filesystems.
Note: The directory separator here is a '\' (backslash).
To display the mapping table again, enter 'map -r' at the command prompt.

To work on a particular filesystem, make the drive 'current' by entering 'fs0:' or 'fs1:' etc. (no quotes) at the command prompt.
NOTE 'fs0:' is identical to 'FS0:' here.

See pic3. This shows a file & directory listing of the following:- 'fs0:\', 'fs0:\EFI\' and 'fs0:\EFI\ubuntu\'.
Below, you'll see a diagram of the file and directory structure of a standard Ubuntu/Mint ESP/EFI filesystem. This is totally standard, apart from the added 'shell.efi' and 'grubx64.efiORIG' (my addition..). You should be able to match the listed files to this diagram.
The UEFI specification states that the EFI shell is **not** case sensitive. Running a file (e.g. 'grubx64.efi') as 'GRUBX64.EFI' will correctly invoke & run the file (assuming that this file is in the current directory location.).
See pic4 and pic5. Pic4 shows the directory '\efi' as both '\efi' and '\EFI'. The directory listing shows identical contents.
Pic5 shows a file in 'fs0:\EFI\ubuntu\', i.e. 'grubx64.efi' being run by entering 'GRUBX64.efi'.

Everything here is performed using very basic shell commands e.g:-

cd - Change directory.
mkdir - Make directory
rm - Remove directory
cp - copy (file from, to)
etc.

Potential "Gotchas":

Some UEFI Bios's require the shell executable to be named as 'shellx32.efi' or 'shellx64.efi' and will not recognise 'shell.efi'.
Simply rename the file or have a second copy named to suit. (i.e. (for 64-bit UEFI.) 'shell.efi' and 'shellx64' in the same location.)

There are also a very few UEFI Bios's that require the shell executable to have a filename that is totally lower case. This is why I asked you to rename the shell executable.
This problem is now quite rare, as Bios updates have often removed this restriction.

For anyone who wants it:
Link for the 64-bit shell:
https://github.com/tianocore/edk2/bl.../X64/Shell.efi
Save as 'shellx64.efi' so you can distinguish this file from the 32-bit version.

B.

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Hi
The command 'rsync' is a file copying tool that is sometimes more useful than the basic 'cp' or 'mv' commands. You are transferring about 2 or 3 GB of data from your computer to a slow device (the flashdrive). This can take 10 minutes or more. The actual time taken depends on the speed of your hardware and devices. It is important to wait for the data transfer to finish and to **check** that it actually has.

The copy process here is started in a terminal. You have manually selected what you want copied and where you want it copied to.
When the copy process has started, the terminal command prompt disappears.. indicating that one or more user processes are running.

The system uses data caches (temporary data stores) to reduce the time that parts of the system are "busy". Data is copied "from the source", to the cache(s). The system then moves data from the cache(s) to the target device. A slow device is a "bottleneck", so the overall copy process is moved to a "running in the background" mode. This can take a "good while" if large amounts of data are being copied. After this, the system now appears "fully ready" for normal use.
Note: At this stage, the flashdrive copy procedure **has not** completed.

As the "bottleneck" to the data transfer rate is how quickly the flashdrive can receive data, then it important to check that the data cache(s) have been emptied (i.e. the copy process has **fully** completed).

The use of the 'sync' command checks that all/any cached writes to permanent storage have actually completed. What this means, from the user's point of view, is when the prompt returns (after the 'sync' command has been invoked) **all data writes have now finished**. You can now unmount and remove the flashdrive.

B.

Hi, Bodge,

OK, so it looks like I have managed to make an installation USB. (It still appears in the 'disks' thingy as Verbatim storage rather than Linux anything, but when I tried plugging it into the tablet, via an adapter/splitter, of course, and chosing the USB option from the BIOS, I got a Linux desktoppy thing!
However.... I can't work out how to use the USB keyboard to get into gparted, or anything else for that matter. The tablet doesn't seem to recognise a USB mouse, as if I plug it in (having disconnected the keyboard) and wiggle it around, I get no response from the arrow on the screen. The touchscreen, as expected, doesn't seem to work, nor does the rotation - I've had the tablet placed in landscape orientation, but the screen is portrait (I'm afraid it's only just now that I've realised I should have tried tipping the tablet into portrait orientation to see what happened on the screen.)

Thoughts, please (whenever's convenient for you, of course!)
Thanks (again),
clueless
ps. still no response from Admin as to why CluelessLass was placed on the naughty step. But then if LassClueless seems not to be broken, I ain;t going to risk trying to fix it!

Hi,

Well done for creating your first bespoke installation flashdrive.. It would appear to be working, or you wouldn't have been able to boot to a Linux desktop at all.
Note: If you have access to a 64-bit Uefi computer, then you can also boot this computer from your flashdrive.

Does the USB keyboard work properly when the tablet has booted to Linux?
Are you using Linux Mint Xfce?

It's not unknown to see minor hardware compatibility problems with USB hardware on tablets until the system is fully installed and updated.
Hardware support in Linux is very good overall.. but be aware, some hardware subsystems don't work properly or at all in Linux.
There are workarounds for most things. The only easy way to find out is to try them. e.g. Some tablet accelerometers (used to detect screen rotation) are not supported.
We're not there yet.. One step at a time.

If your keyboard is working with your tablet then you should be able to navigate and use gparted with just the keyboard.
You **should** be able to do every task on a computer just using the keyboard, although some applications are programmed better than others.. YMMV.

Basic keyboard Desktop Environment usage:

'Windows' key - This should bring up the main system menu.
Cursor up/down, left/right. - menu navigation.
'Enter'. The same as a mouse 'double click' on a selectable item.
'alt' + 'tab' - Cycle between open windows.
'tab' - Cycle between selectable elements within a window.
'Ctrl' + 'alt' + 't' - Open a terminal.

When in a 'gparted' window, press and hold the 'alt' key. Look at the menu titles 'GParted', 'Edit', 'View' etc. You should see an underscore appear somewhere under a letter in each menu entry. See the attached picture. These underscored characters indicate how to invoke each menu by using the 'alt' key + trigger character.

Example: To open the 'Device' menu. (With the 'gparted' window open & active). Press 'alt' + 'd'. The cursor keys allow you to navigate this menu.

You should be able to complete any 'gparted' tasks by just using the keyboard.

Can you report here **exactly** when the keyboard works and/or stops working please..
We'll go from there.

B.

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I had a similar problem but had minor hardware compatibility issues with USB hardware! But then I fixed it!

Hi,

The problem seems to be with how and when the USB controllers are initialised/reinitialised.. This is very common with tablets.
Sometimes a powered USB hub is needed for maximum stability. Things should be better once an installation is achieved.

Another way of doing this is to install the full system to a flashdrive, modify it for 32-bit UEFI, update it and then boot the tablet from this flashdrive. This would at least give some indication as to what hardware works properly.. It's then possible to transfer a copy of the flashdrive installation to the tablet.
An additional advantage here is that the latest Ubuntu mainline kernel can be easily tested..
More work though..

If you would like to try this as an alternative approach, then just ask here and I'll write something up.

Once some sort of stable Linux boot is achieved, we can look at exactly what hardware in the tablet. One step at a time.

B.

Hi, Bodge!

OK, so I have got stuck at "Multimedia Codecs", and got a message: "You need at least 16.1GB disc space to install Linux Mint. This computer has only 15.5GB."

And it's taken me a while to get even this far...

It looks like my splitter thing will charge, or at least run off electricity and allow the USB/s to work at the same time - at least the 'charge'/mains icon, rather than the running-off-battery one, appears even when I have Linux on the screen.

The touch screen worked enough for me to access the terminal, and I used the keyboard (which worked too) to do the gparted stuff you told me to do.

I got the Linux desktop on the screen, and after a couple of false starts trying to touch the 'install' icon on the screen (which seemed to respond but not properly) I found the 'install' option on the start menu.

I've used it several times - and strangely (to me, at any rate), although I've never managed to complete the process, each time I seem to have got a little further along it, even though I've disconnected the USB and everything after the last attempt, so really I should have been starting from scratch, shouldn't I?

On the first attempt/s I got the little wheel thing on the Linux desktop then the screen went dark. The tablet was still 'working', though, as in a darkened room I could the screen was still giving off light, but when, as far as I could tell, it had stayed that way for maybe three hours, I thought it must have frozen or something, so kept pressing the power button until it went properly off. I did that maybe three times. The next couple of times I got as far as being able to tell it to install in English (UK) then got the dark-screen-for-hours thing again, so switched it off using the power button.

Today, I got to the English (UK) screen, watched the little wheel go round and then after a while, the screen go dark, but then, after, I don't know, maybe 20 minutes, I got the message about multimedia codecs and not having enough disc space.

Oh yeah, in its Windows incarnation I've always used the tablet with a 16GB SD card. I remembered it was in there and removed it maybe when I was first trying to install Mint (I've had so much too-ing and fro-ing, I'm afraid I can't really remember!), but I'd put it back in before I started to try to install using the Start menu - would it have made any difference? Can I make it make a difference?

As I always say, no worries about getting back to me asap, just whenever is good for you is fine for me!

Thanks, again!
Clueless

PS, Hello, Alex (if you see this)! It's so nice to know that Bodge's response/s to my badgering haven't been noticed by just me!

Hi,

Well done for getting this far!

Looking at the latest problem:
Welcome to the world of "software bloat". I'm guessing that you are installing Mint Xfce 21.1.. (requires 16.1 GB). If memory serves, 21.1 was in early beta (test release) when we started this.
Mint Xfce 21 requires a minimum of 14.1 GB space.
This version (21) would just fit.. You would then remove surplus software to free up some space (e.g. Libreoffice). Your SDcard would give some extra space for user files etc.

One of the reasons that you've hit this problem now is due to the direction software development is moving in some parts of the Linux world.
To reduce the amount of development & release time (i.e. the total amount of work), some software is now no longer released in multiple versions for the various Linux's out there. A standard "compartmentalized" version is sometimes used. This has two main advantages and several disadvantages:

(++, for the developers & maintainers)
The software developers only need to release one version (apart from source code for the "purists".).
It's easier (read this as "less work") for the Linux distribution maintainers to actually provide this software.

(--, for the user.)
The software package is larger, sometimes considerably so.
The performance of the software is often worse (i.e. slower to start and run.).

I personally dislike all versions of this (snap, flatpak etc.), but I **do** understand why it is used. I'm involved with maintaining a small math/physics based Linux (evolved from "Linux From Scratch", about 7 years ago.). I don't make decisions.. I just compile & test software, test & repair hardware and help with software package creation & testing.

Anyway, back to your problem..

Options::

It would be possible to install Mint 21.1 to your tablet if we use your SDcard as part of the Linux file system. It would be possible to use the SDcard to hold one of the main system directories.. This would work, but would give a further hit to system performance.

Revert to Mint 21.

Abandon Mint and use one of the "light weight" Linux distributions. I'll have a look for you if this would help.

The work that you've done so far hasn't been wasted. You are gaining experience and learning some of the jargon. It might not seem like it yet, but you've done more "low level" stuff in a few days than some Linux folk do in a decade.

Don't worry.. I'm here until everything is sorted, as far as is possible, anyway.

How would you like to proceed?

B.

Hi,

Have a look at AntiX - https://antixlinux.com/

I've not looked at this one for quite a while, so I thought I'd install this one into VirtualBox (Supplied system resources 1 GB memory with 1 allocated processor core.).
The fully updated system comes in at 4.64 GiB (approx 4.98 GB). I would add a 1 GB swapfile for system stability reasons. This means you would have a fully working system at around 6 GB in size.. loads of spare room..

The system runs very nicely indeed, I'm going to try this one for tablet use here.

Please see the attached piccy.

B.

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Hi,

I've been playing with AntiX on a Linx 10 tablet. As AntiX is a lightweight distro, certain less common hardware isn't supported (initially) by the default release.
i.e. some of the tablet hardware needs extra software to make it work.

So far, I've enabled/fixed the wifi (now stable), manual screen rotation and the audio (now working).

Please see the attached piccy.

B.

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Hi, Bodge,

I'm sooooo sorry! I got summoned for work at the last minute on Tuesday and I've only just got back (fun stuff, not being lifeboat crew or something!) . I'm going to pick up where I left off with the tablet and post an update shortly (ish). I'm sorry for appearing to fall off the face of the earth - I've not had proper access to the internet while I've been away so I couldn't even tell you why I'd disappeared, but I'm back now and looking forward to tackling this tablet again.

Clueless

Hello Bodge and Clueless,

I have come here to thank you both for creating meaningful updates to the issue after having randomly revisited this thread after years.

I am currently installing Linux Mint XFCE 21.1 on a Toshiba Encore 8 WT8-A 102.

I wanted to confirm Bodge's method for creating the USB drive is working, at least for my model, and also to advise against downgrading to Linux Mint XFCE 21 from 21.1. I had this weird issue where i couldn't launch anything, it threw an "couldn't start child process, input/output error". Installing 22.1 fixed the issue.

When i finish up the installation [ hopefully the battery doesn't die in the middle of it like it is about to ] i will update on what's working and what isn't for reference for anyone with an Encore 8 tablet.

Dez

I have a wt7, which I think is same, except only 16 GB (vs your 32) SSD and 7" screen, so if I could get myself to be motivated&diligent, someday I too will try to follow your instructions!

Somebody is selling a custom 2GB RAM wt8 version, in lots of 5 or 20 (but @$40US seems high)

I remember reading some issue about the UEFI being 32-bit on a 64-bit CPU...

I like the idea of AntiX, but I'm very pessimistic about its touch screen support. IDK: has anyone tried a touch screen with AntiX?
microUSB-connected &BT kbd works with M$Win8.1

Best wishes to all here.

Hi,

Thanks to everyone who has taken an interest in this thread.. I think it might be an idea to continue covering Mint 21 (for those with 32GB storage) as well as AntiX (for those with 16GB storage.)

I intend to post a guide on making an AntiX flashdrive (i.e. a rewrite of the Mint one.).

Re: touchscreen support. If a particular touchscreen is supported on **any** Linux, then it can be made to work on any other. All we need is specific hardware info from a working system..

CluelessLass:
I'll post some more basic info soon which should help with understanding a few things.

Such as:

Terminal command completion and command history.
Manual mounting of devices.
Basics of a directory structure.
How a system boots, important system files ('grub.cfg', 'fstab', the kernel & initrd.)
How to manually boot a system using the Uefi shell.

More soon..

B.

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