Arch Linux running on Asus Transformer T100/T100TA... sort of.

Question

I'm not really asking for help here (can't find an appropriate place to put this post), but more to show off my accomplishment with this tablet.
As the thread title says, I've gotten Arch Linux to run on the Asus T100TA which is a quite annoying little thing. I haven't documented the steps myself, however, I remember exactly what I have done, and in order to get the live image to at least run on this tablet, here are the steps I did:
(you'll maybe need 2 USB drives, seems to be the easiest way)
1. Create an ISO using the archiso set as you normally would (except you won't really need the ISO itself) OR if you can figure it out yourself, install the base image to the USB drive (either architecture will do, but I recommend i686 since the processor is 32 bit as well)
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Archiso
This step will be unnecessary as of May, as the live images onwards on the main download site will already contain the 3.14 or newer kernels.
2. After the image building successfully finishes, copy all the contents from (PROFILE)/work/iso/ (except root-image squashfs files) to a FAT32 formatted USB drive (1). This is to simply create a bootloader drive that will allow us for later swapping the USB drives.
3. Download an ia32 version of grub. Any will do as long as it can boot up on the tablet.
http://www.supergrubdisk.org/category/download/supergrub2diskdownload/
This one works, download the standalone IA-32/i386 EFI and paste it in (USB Drive (1))/EFI/boot/bootia32.efi .
(use latest versions, no matter if it's unstable)
4. Now you need to make a grub.cfg. The one I made looks like this
menuentry 'Arch Linux i686'{
echo 'Loading Linux core repo kernel ...'
linux /arch/boot/i686/vmlinuz noefi nomodeset archisobasedir=arch archisolabel=ARCH_201404
echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
initrd /arch/boot/i686/archiso.img
menuentry 'Arch Linux x86_64'{
echo 'Loading Linux core repo kernel ...'
linux /arch/boot/x86_64/vmlinuz noefi nomodeset archisobasedir=arch archisolabel=ARCH_201404
echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
initrd /arch/boot/x86_64/archiso.img
NOTE: If you're using a later live image build, I advise to change the date accordingly. It's not necessary to do so, since the mount by label doesn't work, however, I like to keep everything intact.
noefi flag seems unnecessary as well, though I have added it to prevent some kernel panics from happening, for just in case. It works without it, still, however you need the nomodeset flag or else you'll get a black screen!
I'm not entirely sure where the grub.cfg goes, but I've put it in USB Drive(1)/boot/grub/ , /EFI/grub/ and in /EFI/boot/grub/ just to make it sure that it works.
5. Create an ext2/3/4 (recommended ext2 for flash drives, not to wear it out) USB drive (2) and copy the arch folder to the root of the USB drive (2)
---- BOOT PROCESS ----
Before this step, ensure that Secure Boot is set to OFF in the Aptio setup. Otherwise it will throw up an error in a red box crying it's not signed.
6. Plug in the USB drive (1) into a USB port and while powering on the tablet, tilt the escape key to pop up a boot menu.
7. Select UEFI: (your USB drive (1))
8. GRUB 2 will pop up. If you're running the SuperGrubDisk version, you're gonna have to go to Everything and then scroll down until it says something like
(hd0, msdos1)/boot/grub/grub.cfg
and click on it to open the configuration data manually created.
9. Simply select your desired version of Arch Linux live distro to boot.
10. VOILAaa, not really... It'll pop up with a mount error saying it's a wrong FS to mount. This is where you plug in your USB drive (2) in place of the first one.
11. Type in:
# mount /dev/sda1 /run/archiso/bootmnt
# exit
12. Congratulations, you're running Arch Linux on your ASUS Transformer T100TA tablet!
This is as far as I have went into running it. Installing it on a HDD would require mounting the mmcblk partitions, which I haven't looked into yet. For a start, I'd just recommend installing it on a USB drive, though you'd have to own one of the USB OTG converters or a USB hub. The screen is spammed with the mmcblk0rpmb timeout errors though and that is annoying. It stops after a while when it stops trying. Reboot doesn't work either, seems like acpi is broken.
You could do it with a single usb drive, though it requires some knowledge of this tablet's EFI because it disallowed me from running a kernel on another partition other than FAT32. Grub pops up with an error:
can't unload EFI services
or something like that.
I've also tried putting the USB Drive (2) in during grub and it pops up with an error with invalid sector sizes. That was to be expected.
btw I know it's my first post, I'm just here to share this with you. I never had the need to ask for help but when absolutely necessary.
PICS OF IT RUNNING
Some USB devices aren't visible, like the camera.
A custom partition layout without the recovery partitions. Yours may differ.
Last edited by xan1242 (2014-04-13 22:54:46)

Answer 1

I haven't tried much other than getting this live image to run on this machine. I'll attempt to install the base image using my desktop computer with the appropriate drivers and see how that goes. (or just install the wifi driver)
That guy really made it to work much better than I imagined it to work at all! I'll see what can be done using the same drivers, though running Ubuntu seems tempting as well. He even got the touchscreen to work, which is really awesome. It seems that he also merged the drivers into the kernel image, which is going to be a challenge in Arch.
Since he's using the 64 bit build of Ubuntu, I'll try it with x86_64 Arch as well to try and use his guide to make the drivers to work.
EDIT: I have successully installed the base to an external drive and booted it on the tablet, however since the base was installed externally on another machine, I need to regenerate initrd. It boots on the fallback ramdisk, but still no wifi and the screen is spammed even more with the timeout errors. I've seen topics on Raspberry Pi having a similar issue and that it was repaired using some kernel flags, but I am not sure if those will work with the tablet. Also, using the bootflags jfwells used on Ubuntu work here as well, and gives full resolution output now. Wifi doesn't work. ip link doesn't give any signs of a wifi card present.
EDIT2: Got Arch up and running relatively nicely on the tablet now. Though it is in the same state as the last edit in terms of functionality, it works I'd say well enough to be considered usable. I couldn't make the wireless card to work, for some strange reason, so I got a RT73 USB card (Edimax EW-7318USg to be precise, had to use 2 USB ports) and installed stuff on to the tablet. I ran X without a desktop manager, and the X apps worked fine, even with the touch screen (emulating a mouse, no right click) and I ran XFCE4 on it without a problem (with compositing).
It simply needs more developed drivers on it, that's mostly it. The state is exactly the same as Ubuntu 14.04 that jfwells made to work (minus the wifi). I haven't played with the sound, either, due to the warning he posted, but I believe it works as it does in Ubuntu.
The steps I made are as follows:
1. Simply made another live ISO with the archiso set
2. dd'd the image to a USB drive
3. On the second USB drive I created two GPT partitions (200 - 300 MB for ESP, everything else ext2)
4. Booted the live archiso USB drive
5. Installed the base to the second USB drive while being mounted like this: ext2 partition -> /mnt and ESP -> /mnt/boot
6. Installed GRUB x86_64-efi to simply generate a configuration
7. Installed wireless utilities as well as everything else needed to make it to work
8. To ensure bootability on the tablet, again, I put the IA32 GRUB to the ESP in /EFI/boot/bootia32.efi
9. I have edited the grub.cfg, can't exactly remember with what, but this is what it looks like
### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
menuentry 'Arch Linux, with Linux core repo kernel' --class arch --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-core repo kernel-true-(hd0,gpt2)' {
set gfxpayload=keep
insmod gzio
insmod part_msdos
insmod ext2
set root='hd0,gpt1'
echo 'Loading Linux core repo kernel ...'
linux /vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/sda2 video=VGA-1:1368x768e reboot=pci,force sdhci.debug_quirks=0x8000 rw quiet
echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
initrd /initramfs-linux.img
menuentry 'Arch Linux, with Linux core repo kernel (Fallback initramfs)' --class arch --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-core repo kernel-fallback-(hd0,gpt2)' {
set gfxpayload=keep
insmod gzio
insmod part_msdos
insmod ext2
set root='hd0,gpt1'
echo 'Loading Linux core repo kernel ...'
linux /vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/sda2 video=VGA-1:1368x768e reboot=pci,force sdhci.debug_quirks=0x8000 rw quiet
echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
initrd /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img
### END /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
I simply added the kernel flags jfwells added. It needs that root flag, or else it will not boot. I can't figure out the UUIDs though. It will reboot, but it will not shut down.
10. Boot up your second USB drive on the tablet and... IMPORTANT - Boot with the fallback ramdisk - or else you're going to experience non functional input
11. After booting it, you'll get the annoying mmcblk timeout spamming the screen. I haven't figured out how to fix it, but to hide it, type in
# dmesg -n 1
12. Generate another ramdisk (forgot the command, but search function should serve you)
13. Reboot with the normal ramdisk now.
14. After setting up the wireless connection, rock on with the pacman!
At this point I installed a bunch of stuff, like Intel GPU drivers, xorg, xfce4, ntfs-3g, gparted,  and among other stuff I personally test stuff with.
I couldn't mount the mmcblk partitions to at least somehow be able to edit data on the Windows partitions or the disk as a whole.
Anybody willing to help getting Arch to run on this tablet is welcome.
EDIT3: Internal WiFi working! Simply added "sdhci.debug_quirks=0x8000" flag.
Last edited by xan1242 (2014-04-13 23:35:26)