Omni10 tablet : How to install Linux?

[Ochrin]

The touchscreen of my old Omni10 is not working anymore.

I have followed the instructions here: https://www.quora.com/SOLVED-To-all-owners-of-HP-Omni-10-Is-your-touchscreen-working and this solved this issue, but after some months the problem was coming back. Now after a new fix  the problem is coming in less than 3 weeks. This makes my tablet useless.

I would like to install Linux on it and use it as a server or as a media player.

I have searched the web but did not find instructions on how to install Linux on it.

Does anyone know?

[Ochrin · Accepted solution]

I auto reply to myself as I found the solution and hope it will help anyone who face the same problem.

Disclaimer:

- Please backup all your files on your tablet before following this procedure.

- There is a chance that it does not work for you and your tablet may be useless, so follow the next steps if your don't mind losing your table.

Notes:

- My bios version is Version F.0E Rev. A

- I was not able to install Ubuntu as it seems that at least you need a 32bit UEFI which is not available with Ubuntu, that's why I used Debian.

Install Debian  

1. Download small image for i386: debian-10.5.0-i386-netinst.iso from https://www.debian.org/distrib/netinst 
2. Create a USB key 
   1. Win10: Use Rufus with default settings to create a USB key (GPT, ...)
      
   2. Linux: sudo dd bs=4M if=debian-10.5.0-i386-netinst.iso of=/dev/sd? conv=fdatasync status=progress 
3. Insert your USB key with a USB OTG cable 
4. Boot your Omni10 to bios 
   1. Press volume down while pushing button power on 
   2. Change order of booting (usb key first) and reboot  
5. This will install Debian  
   1. Skip ethernet/wifi detection as it won't work, we will fix this later.
   2. In the end Debian should be installed and should boot 
   3. But, I could not login as some characters are added each time you press a key preventing from entering a correct password. To solve this we must install a graphical environment 
6. Download live LXDE debian with non free firmware: debian-live-10.5.0-i386-lxde+nonfree.iso from https://cdimage.debian.org/images/unofficial/non-free/images-including-firmware/10.5.0-live+nonfree/... 
7. Repeat step 2 for this iso and connect this new key to your tablet.
   
8. Reboot your Omni10 
9. Once live CD is started, click on install Debian icon 
10. This will install Debian but will fail when installing grub. It is not a problem as grub as been already installed with previous installation 
11. Reboot and you should be able to login with graphical interface 
12. Make wifi working (see https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Asus/T100TA for more details)
    
    1. Open a terminal in Debian on Omni10 and type: 
    2. sudo cp /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/nvram-74b00bd9-805a-4d61-b51f-43268123d113 /lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac43241b4-sdio.txt 
    3. sudo modprobe -r brcmfmac && sudo modprobe brcmfmac 
13. Connect wifi 
    1. Type in a terminal 
    2. sudo ip link set wlan0 up 
    3. Edit file /etc/network/interfaces (with vi) 
    4. In the end the file should look like this above: 
    5. source-directory /etc/network/interfaces.d 
       allow-hotplug wlan0 
       iface wlan0 inet dhcp 
           wpa-ssid SSID_OF_YOUR_WIFI 
           wpa-psk PASSWORD_OF_OUR_WIFI 
14. Check wifi is working (reboot before or restart driver?) 
    1. Type in a terminal 
    2. sudo ifup wlan0 
    3. sudo iw wlan0 link 
    4. ip a 
    5. You should have an IP address 
    6. sudo apt update should work. 
15. Configure your wifi router to assign a fix ip to your omni10 based on its mac address. It will be simpler to login with ssh later on.
    
16. Optional actions 1 
    1. Install ssh: sudo apt install ssh 
    2. Remove /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-live-media.list 
    3. Install htop: sudo apt install htop 
17. Optional actions 2 (to have more space on disk by removing some packages) 
    1. Remove libre-office 
    2. sudo apt-get remove --purge libreoffice* 
    3. sudo apt clean 
    4. sudo apt autoremove 
    5. Remove graphical environment and reinstall only lxde-core 
    6. sudo apt-get remove --purge live-* 
    7. sudo apt clean 
    8. sudo apt autoremove 
    9. Reboot 
    10. Connect with ssh 
    11. sudo apt install lxde-core 

Some steps may lack of description. Let me know and I will edit to add more explanations.

[Ochrin]

Fix the mmcsd interface read only issue.

Problem:

Each sd card inserted in the omni10 will be readonly. There is no way to change this. This is due to an inverted write-protect state

Solution:

Create a new file sdhci.conf in folder /etc/modprobe.d

The file should contain this line:

options sdhci debug_quirks=0x10000

Quirks are used by sdhci driver to modify the driver behavior. See https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v4.19.110/source/drivers/mmc/host/sdhci.h#L393 for a list all possible quirks.

Then type command (it may takes some minutes to execute):

sudo update-initramfs -u -k all

and reboot.

[Ochrin]

Bluetooth missing files.

Retrieve file BCM4324B3.hcd from https://github.com/Asus-T100/firmware/blob/master/brcm/BCM4324B3.hcd

and copy it to /lib/firmware/brcm/