Exploring Software: Linux on the iBall Compbook

Join the author as he describes the challenges he faced when he used a Compbook to replace his netbook and then tried to make Linux work on it. He ruefully comments, “Making Linux work on a system with a Bay Trail Atom processor is still a work in progres

My netbook failed and the cost of repairing it was expected to be greater than the newly released iBall Compbook. Besides, the Compbook weighs just one kilogram. Someone suggested that Linux could be installed on it. Bay Trail Atom CPUs by Intel are widely used on Chromebooks and the ChromeOS uses Linux as its core. But still, I should have done more research before attempting to install Linux on the Compbook! The experience turned out to be unexpectedly complex and incomplete.

32-bit EFI BIOS

Fedora works fine with the EFI BIOS. I created the live USB and plugged it into the Compbook, with no luck at all! This led to the discovery that while the Bay Trail Atom CPU is 64-bit, it uses a 32-bit EFI BIOS. No distribution supports it out-of-the-box.

The simplest option is to install Grub2Win on Windows and make it the default firmware for booting. For this, the ‘Secure Boot’ option has to be disabled in the BIOS.

You will need to make space on the first disk for installing Linux. This can be done from Windows, before the Linux installation or during the installation.

I found that I could not use the 32GB microSD card for installation as the BIOS does not recognise it. So, the inbuilt 32GB disk has to be used.

I used the Grub2 commands to boot from the live USB. The live USB created by ‘Fedora Media Writer’ could not be used as the BIOS could only find the EFI partition but not the partition containing the installation files. Hence, I used Unetbootin to create the live USB, setting the partition label to ‘Live’. The following Grub commands were used for booting the live USB:

grub> ls (hd0) (hd0,msdos1) (hd1,gpt5) …

grub> ls (hd0,msdos1)/isolinux boot.cat … initrd0.img … vmlinuz0 … grub> root=(hd0,msdos1) grub> linux /isolinux/vmlinuz0 root=live:LABEL=Live ro rd.live. image grub> initrd /isolinux/initrd0.img grub> boot

Kernel parameters can be picked up from grub.conf in the efi/BOOT partition. It takes a while for GNOME 3 to load.

The installation itself was fairly straightforward, except that it is probably better to create and specify the installation partition, manually. The partition label for the Linux root was set as ‘Linux’.

‘Rufus’ worked well for creating a usable live USB on Windows.

Grub2Win configuration

For booting in linux, it is easier to add the Fedora boot option to the Grub2Win menu. The options are: OS Type: fedora Custom Script: set root=’(hd0,gpt5)’ linux /boot/vmlinuz-4.6.7-300.fc24.x86_64 root=LABEL=Linux verbose intel_idle.max_cstate=1

initrd /boot/initramfs-4.6.7-300.fc24.x86_64.img

The reason for the kernel option, ‘intel_idle.max_cstate=1’, is given in the section below.

If the kernel is updated, you will need to change the boot menu entry in Grub2Win.

Hard locks, system freezes and slow graphics

After Linux was installed, my happiness was short lived. The touchpad would stop working after a short time. However, a USB mouse worked well. But the more serious issue was that the system would freeze periodically for a considerable period of time.

The search for an explanation led to a kernel bug that people have known about for quite some time, but haven’t been able to resolve yet. However, the kernel option ‘intel_ idle.max_cstate=1’ seemed to work most of the time. It reduced the frequency of the freezes.

A Phoronix article, goo.gl/GeCiMe, describes the problems many Linux users have faced with Bay Trail devices. Booting and getting the login prompt takes about 30 seconds. Logging into GNOME 3 is slow (15 to 30 seconds) and into KDE 5 is far worse. However, LXDE is very responsive.

Disabling the ‘Enable compositor on startup’ in the ‘System Settings’, ‘Display and Monitor’ and ‘Compositor’ settings makes KDE5 usable, though it does take a while (about a minute) to log in to the KDE desktop.

Wi-Fi

The Wi-Fi chip was not detected at first. A driver is available at https://github.com/hadess/rtl8723bs.

Since the development tools are not installed on the netbook, it was easier to build the driver (using the ‘make’command) on the desktop, then copy the files on the netbook and run the command ‘sudo make install’.

The Wi-Fi worked well. However, if the connection was unstable, the system’s performance deteriorated sharply. This device is supposed to work with both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, though the latter does not work at present.

Sound

The only audio device visible was ‘Dummy’. The following code resulted in the sound card being visible to PulseAudio: Download https://github.com/plbossart/UCM/archive/t100taf-test. zip To enable UCM(Use Case Manager) on RT5640 platforms, copy directory to UCM location: $ sudo cp -rf bytcr-rt5640 /usr/share/alsa/ucm

Though several solutions were suggested, none worked. It was a surprise to discover that people have been actively trying to solve the issues related to the kernel lock and sound issues since 2014, and there’s still no solution.

The USB devices I used, e.g., a 3G dongle, worked very well. The system was very nice to use when it was behaving well!

However, sound remained an issue. Even Bluetooth speakers could not be used.

On the other hand, given the high level of activity in the mailing lists, the chance of some solutions being worked out in the near future are high. However, if I were to buy a system today, I would stay away from one with the Bay Trail CPU in it.