Installation on UEFI tablet with firmware disabled USB boot option

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Installation on UEFI tablet with firmware disabled USB boot option

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Started 5 years ago by chemeleon
Latest reply from kultex
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chemeleon

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Hi. I'm attempting to boot (hopefully) Slitaz on my Acer Iconia W3-810, which appears after some googling to not be able to handle booting anything from USB other than Windows installation media. (I've no idea of the exact reasons for this). It's 32 bit UEFI with no 64 bit OS support.

I'm a Linux amateur and have not set up grub manually before, so not familiar with the obvious things to try, but so far I have :

Tried a Wubi install of Xubunu (which installed an EFI bootloader successfully but hangs before the kernel loads)

Tried to install Slitaz from a Virtual Machine with access to the physical drive of the Tablet (which didn't work as it just messes up the NTFS journal I think, also VERY slow running a VM on this machine)

Installed Grub 2.02 for Windows (this including configuration was successful and simple).

* Tried extracting ISO to drive / chainloading iso. The most successful I was with this was getting to a point where my grub.cfg menu entry wasn't throwing errors, but it hung like Xubuntu did when attempting to boot, before kernel was loaded. This have something to do with ISOLINUX maybe?

At this point, I'll be happy to see any sign of life, even if it doesn't boot completely.

I've been following the thread http://forum.slitaz.org/topic/my-attempts-to-install-slitaz-on-a-uefi-tablet-pc, but I think that would mostly help after a successful boot / installation from the ISO.

Any ideas? I'd be happy booting in to an installation but if I can boot the live media from the HD, I can do some more from there.

Posted 5 years ago #
kultex

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Key Master

I never had a Clovertail CPU in hands, but I think it could work with SliTaz Rolling

https://lore.kernel.org/patchwork/patch/427919/

Newer Atoms dont work with rolling

when you say you tried to install Xubuntu - this means you can boot from USB - when you can boot from USB, then you should be able to boot SliTAz

Posted 5 years ago #
chemeleon

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Thanks for the clarification about Clovertrail CPUs. From what I understand the Z2760 is fairly unique in it's class in that it only supports 32 bit OS's, but I had just assumed it'd work.

when you say you tried to install Xubuntu - this means you can boot from USB - when you can boot from USB, then you should be able to boot SliTAz

To clarify, I used the Ubuntu Wubi installer which does a frugal install of your selected *buntu distribution from inside Windows, which managed to install an EFI bootloader on to the HDD successfully (but not successfully enough to boot). On this machine, attempting to boot anything besides Windows from USB media throws an error. There's no legacy mode in the BIOS settings either. If there is a way to boot from a generic USB, I haven't been able to find it.

I'll try some other stuff and report back here.

Posted 5 years ago #
kultex

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Key Master

Then I think, the best way is the rEFIind boot manager - SliTaz should work with it (I did not test it until now, because I have only laptops, where I can switch to legacy mode)

http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/installing.html

Posted 5 years ago #
chemeleon

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Thanks for the tip - I installed rEFInd and it works. However, with both bootloaders, the tablet appears to hang the moment a kernel is loaded. My usb hub loses power and it doesn't get as far as outputting any text, just remains on the last visible grub / rEFInd screen.

I've tried Slitaz, Ubuntu, Puppy, Gentoo, and various others. Tried partitions on the drive and the SD card. Usually extracting the contents of the .iso to a partition will mean it is successfully detected, and it'll get as far as the grub menu, but the system won't boot. All have the same problem of hanging whenever it attempts to load a kernel.

I'm not familiar with kernel parameters, or much about this stage of the boot process at all really. Am I missing something obvious that could apply to this tablet?

Posted 5 years ago #
kultex

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Key Master

Try the Linuxium Iso

http://linuxiumcomau.blogspot.com/2019/03/ubuntu-announced-new-point-releases-for.html

maybe try both - also the 16.4

I think it should work (it should be your tablet) - see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc2XN6lUgY8

Posted 5 years ago #

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