slackware install on asus vivotab note 8 (m80ta) or other bay trail tablet.

ElfShotTheFood · 08-11-2014, 03:58 PM

well, i guess the bootia32.efi is programmed to look for grub.cfg in /boot/grub/ i managed to get a grub menu on my slackware flash drive with the boot options that i have been using with files taken from the ubuntu disk. not that i can get any farther, but now i can get just as far without typing the whole boot cmd line.... a small bit of progress is better than no progress.

now to finish learning how to make an initrd i guess.

Didier Spaier · 08-11-2014, 05:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ElfShotTheFood

now to finish learning how to make an initrd i guess.

This is the script I use to unpack an initramfs (called an initrd as a habit):

Code:

#!/bin/sh
if [ ! "$#" = "2" ]; then
  echo "unpack an initrd in /tmp/initrd-<suffix>
  usage: ./unpack_initrd.sh <path/to/initrd> <suffix>"
  exit
fi
if [ ! $UID -eq 0 ]; then
  gettext "Please execute this script as root."
  echo
  exit
fi  
TMP=/tmp/initrd-$2
INITRD=$1
if [ -e $TMP ]; then
  echo "$TMP already exists."
  exit
fi
mkdir $TMP
(
cd $TMP
gunzip -cd $INITRD | \
cpio -i -d -m -H newc --no-absolute-filenames
) 1>>$TMP/log.txt 2>>$TMP/log.txt

After having modified the content you could repack it this way, assuming you exported TMP and INITRD:

Code:

(cd $TMP
find . -print | cpio -o --owner root:root -H newc | gzip -9 > $INITRD
)

Be aware that in Slackware's /isolinux/initrd.img Pat ships in /lib/modules less kernel modules than in an installed Slackware. My guess (only a guess) is he doesn't ship those built-in the huge kernel, and maybe not those that wouldn't be useful at boot time (again, this is pure speculation), to save space.

PS In the UEFI specification (version 2.4 errata B, page 77, § 3.4.1.1 Removable Media Boot Behavior) I see this:

Quote:

A media may support multiple architectures by simply having a \EFI\BOOT\BOOT{machine type short-name}.EFI file of each possible machine type.

So if I understand well I could have put BOOTIA32.EFI and BOOTx64.EFI side-by side in /EFI/BOOT and in /isolinux/efiboot.img.

ElfShotTheFood · 08-12-2014, 09:41 PM

decided to rebuild the 3.16 kernel in the huge.s slackware style, got the latest .config from current and did make oldconfig. almost two hours later, it is still building all those modules...

at this rate i will be asleep before it finishes.

ElfShotTheFood · 08-15-2014, 06:31 PM

Haven't had a lot of time to work on this lately. Built the kernel and its modules, but every time I make an initrd it puts in the root partition of sda5. Which is the root partition on my laptop. Gotta figure out how to leave that blank because booting on the tablet fails every time with a 3.16 initrd.

Didier Spaier · 08-16-2014, 05:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ElfShotTheFood

every time I make an initrd it puts in the root partition of sda5.

Just to make sure we understand each other, assuming that you speak about the initrd in /syslinux in the ISO image, of course you have to put it in in its place before rebuilding the ISO image.

To make things crystal clear, there is no point here in using mkinitrd to make an initrd as would be needed in case the kernel wouldn't have the drivers needed to boot built-in, as a -generic one

ElfShotTheFood · 08-20-2014, 05:22 PM

For most of my efforts have been on a live USB flash drive. I have not made any isos, just copied the files to the USB drive. For an efi boot disk it works just fine as far as I can tell.

As for initrd, I tried unpacking, adding the modules, and packing it back up as well as building from scratch, and I have yet to successfully boot a 3.16 kernel with modules....

I did make some discoveries in other areas. Elilo32 and Refind32 also can boot on this tablet. Refind is currently in charge of the efi partition, but does not have touch support.

I need to stop messing with this when I should be sleeping. I managed to make my laptop unbootable for a little while one night.

I do actually have Slackware files on the mmcblk0, but only because I installed a, ap, and d series to a flash drive partition and dd'ed them over with the Ubuntu disk.

Working both jobs until saturday. Should have free time then.

ElfShotTheFood · 08-23-2014, 09:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ElfShotTheFood

Haven't had a lot of time to work on this lately. Built the kernel and its modules, but every time I make an initrd it puts in the root partition of sda5. Which is the root partition on my laptop. Gotta figure out how to leave that blank because booting on the tablet fails every time with a 3.16 initrd.

i should have said here that when i made the initrd it would add in the root=/dev/sda5 boot option to the initrd, so every time i tried to use one, the kernel would panic that it couldn't mount root on sda5.

anyway, i have made a new 3.16 kernel with the mmc and input stuff built in, no modules required, and used the setup initrd, and i actually got setup to run but it was rather slow due to errors about the mmc, similar to the errors that the ubuntu live cd had.

setup went through ok up until actually installing packages. midway through the ap series packages start failing to install because the 14gb partition is full!!!!

ain't that a kick in the head.

dmesg and lsblk txt files attached

edit, the dmesg file is not all that useful, i ran it after setup failed, will run another with a fresh boot soon. gonna do some efi partition setup before i reboot the tablet from slack setup.

edit2 the 2nd dmesg file is not that useful either. just mmcblk sdio errors and then evbug messages, gotta get the debug stuff out of the kernel.

i also noticed that slack setup added partitions to the fstab as mmcblk07, mmcblk06, not like mmcblk0p7 that lsblk lists them as. also, it doesn't recognize the efi partition.

sure hope i get this sorted before dr who premieres tonight.

ElfShotTheFood · 08-23-2014, 01:18 PM

here is a much better dmesg file.

now i have to wait for the tablet to charge.

ElfShotTheFood · 08-23-2014, 03:46 PM

had no trouble getting through setup when installing to a microsd card that i borrowed from my rasberry pi.

still doesn't mount root when booting.... gotta figure out what i am doing wrong...

ElfShotTheFood · 08-26-2014, 07:51 PM

i may actually be close to a login prompt

using th 3.16.0 kernel with the mmc and input stuff built in, and the setup initrd i can run and get through setup when installing to the 32gb sdcard i got yesterday. if it try to boot the installed filesystem with the root=/dev/mmcblk1p3 the kernel will panic because it cannot mount root. apparently the mmcblkrpmb errors and other stuff take a while to settle down. so booting with a normal (non setup) initrd gives things almost enough time to quiet, but it says,
"mount: no /etc/mtab
ERROR: No /sbin/init found on rootdev (or not mounted). Trouble ahead
You can try to fix it. Type exit when things are done"

and it drops me to a busybox shell where i can successfully mount mmcblk1p3 ro and type exit to actually begin to boot init version 2.88. but it hangs after module dependencies up to date, not sure if it is trying to do module stuff or whatever the next step is. going to dig through bootup scripts i guess. i have a hunch it is trying to load the network module. the system does not hang, but it does stop booting i waited a half hour but it did not finish booting. i shut it down when i got some temp warnings....

gotta let it charge before i try again.

edit; a well placed "sleep 30" in the initrd.gz's init file worked to avoid the "trouble ahead".

ElfShotTheFood · 08-26-2014, 09:36 PM

well, it is something in the rc.modules that stops booting. i commented out the portion of rc.S that calls rc.modules and got to log in finally.

X does not start, but that is a later date issue. gotta get things booting correctly and hopefully unassisted. it sure would be nice to use the bluetooth keyboard that is part of the tablet case. carrying around the logitech k400r is a pain.

but anyway, thats probably all the progress i will make tonight. next steps will probably be to run xconfig on the laptop and trim out as many options as i can, then build a kernel and necessary modules on the tablet.

ElfShotTheFood · 08-28-2014, 09:30 PM

The tablet is currently making 3.16.1 modules. With any luck, x will start when I have working modules.

I got the efi boot loader mostly squared away. I can now press the power button and eventually get a login prompt with no intervention required.

Getting closer each day. I should be able to make an iso featuring a kernel and initrd made on the tablet, that anyone can use to install Slackware current to their tablet.

And apparently I didn't turn off the v4l modules when I pruned the kernel...... Lots of media modules being made.......

Edit: I didn't prune the wireless modules either...... Doh

ElfShotTheFood · 08-29-2014, 05:03 AM

The new kernel booted just fine, modules loaded, x started.

The xfce default layout never looked so good. The touchscreen is not detected.

ElfShotTheFood · 09-13-2014, 10:35 PM

ok, i have not dropped off the face of the earth, or given up on this project, just haven't had much good news to report. i also managed to make a bunch of bone head moves that have slowed things down here and there. but anyway, i did manage to get slackware installed on the ssd instead of the sd card, but not through the regular setup method. i installed the a series to the sd card, formatted the partition on the ssd and copied the files over, booted the new system from the ssd and finished installing the other package sets.

unfortunately i still cannot get the atmel_mxt_ts touchscreen module, or the i2c_wacom module to load automatically. they both have identical errors.

i2c_hid i2c-WCOM0004:00: probe
i2c_hid i2c-WCOM0004:00: could not register for WCOM0004:00: interrupt, irq = -1, ret = -22

substitute ATML1000:00 for WCOM0004:00 for the touchscreen error. i have tried 3.15.10, 3.16.1, 3.17rc 2 & 4, they all error the same. i have tried a bunch of kernel patches for different baytrail tablets, but none have worked, apparently none of the devs have the vivotab note 8, which isn't a big surprise as it came out many months after the rest of the baytrail tablets.

https://github.com/AdamWill/baytrail.../master/kernel is where i had gotten a bunch of patches earlier in the week, a bunch of them had failures on the newer kernels. now i see most of them have been updated in the last 2 days..... back to the usr/src/ directory i go for another round of patches and bzImages... edit; the patches not related to the ath6k all applied correctly to the 3.16.2 kernel, now to compile it and pray.

i will say at the beginning of this journey, i thought the whole efi bios thing was a big pain in the butt, after knowing the rules a bit better it actually makes things a bit easier than the old lilo method. i just wish this tablet had more than 100 mb for the efi partition. having the kernels and initrds on the efi partiton made moving from booting the sdcard installation to the ssd installation just involved changing the root=/dev/mmcblk option in the grub cfg from mmcblk1p3 to mmcblk0p7

hopefully my next post in this thread will be from the tablet, using the stylus.

Didier Spaier · 09-13-2014, 11:22 PM

I am happy to see that you didn't give up and made obvious progress. I hope you'll contribute your findings to http://docs.slackware.com as that will interest more and more people to be able to install Slackware on a tablet.

Just one little remark: the expression "EFI BIOS" is kind of an oxymoron as explained here. Sorry to be a bit pedantic at times

One more off topic remark: it's nice to have Grub able to make EFI images, but from an aesthetical point of view using it as boot manager in case of EFI firmware hurts my eyes, as somehow it's like having a boot manager (Grub) on top of another boot manager (EFI boot manager). I'd prefer as much as possible set the NVRAM variables using efibootmgr, for instance, so that to have the relevant boot entries directly in EFI boot manager's menu. Maybe you could try that as an exercise when you will be done installing, as efibootmgr is shipped in Slackware? (but I won't buy you another tablet in case that damages the firmware, of course...)

Please continue to let us know how that goes.

Cheers,