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Models covered

Overall Status in Debian 12 "Bookworm"

Legend:

Important Notes

The information and procedures contained in this page are mostly for the T100TA model, they might not apply to different models.

Similar model: Asus X205TA.

Configuration

Power Management

# Prevent random freezes on Intel Bay Trail CPUs
# WARNING: increases power consumption considerably
# https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/PageFragmentIntelBayTrailCStateIssue
# https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=109051
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="$GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX intel_idle.max_cstate=1"

$ sudo update-grub

Screen backlight control

Since Debian 10 Bullseye the screen backlight is fully controllable and it requires no manual configuration. The following information is kept here only for future reference.

Prior of Linux 5.10, the screen backlight couldn't be adjusted without recompiling the kernel (see Debian bug #971953).

A (partial) workaround was to adjust the screen brightness using xrandr (provided by x11-xserver-utils), but with not impact on the power consumption whatsoever (no battery saving):

$ man xrandr
[...]
--brightness brightness
    Multiply the gamma values on the crtc currently attached to the output to specified floating value.
    Useful for overly bright or overly dim outputs. However, this is a software only modification, if
    your hardware has support to actually change the brightness, you will probably prefer to use xbacklight.

To manually change the brightness with xrandr do:

xrandr --output <OUTPUT> --brightness <VALUE>

where <OUTPUT> can be found with the command xrandr | grep -w connected | cut -d" " -f1, and <VALUE> can be a value between 0 and 1.

A script that makes use of this xrandr functionality is the brightness control script from the t100ta-utility-scripts.

Display

The integrated GPU Intel HD Graphics, Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series Graphics & Display works out of the box. Make sure to uninstall the driver xserver-xorg-video-intel, as nor it is required nor its usage is recommended.

Hardware Video Acceleration in media players and internet browsers is provided by the i965-va-driver, that should be installed by default and used automatically. Check the page Hardware Video Acceleration for additional details.

Touchscreen

The touchscreen is identified as ATML1000:

$ xinput
⎡ Virtual core pointer                          id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Asus TouchPad                             id=11   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ ATML1000:00 03EB:8C0E                     id=13   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                         id=3    [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard               id=5    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Asus Wireless Radio Control               id=6    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                                 id=7    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                              id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Asus Keyboard                             id=9    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Asus Keyboard                             id=10   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ bytcr-rt5640 Headset                      id=12   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Asus WMI hotkeys                          id=14   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ gpio-keys                                 id=15   [slave  keyboard (3)]

It works out of the box, no configuration required.

Screen rotation

The ?InvenSense MPU6500 Accelerometer + Gyro works out of the box and the automatic screen rotation functionality should be provided by applications using iio-sensor-proxy, like in the GNOME desktop environment and the KDE Plasma desktop environment if using Wayland. If missing, such functionality can be provided with custom implementations, like the screen rotator script from the t100ta-utility-scripts.

Multi-touch

Multi-touch works out of the box. Pinch to zoom, rotation and long press for right-click work in applications that support such gestures and actions.

If the long press action is not recognised, the right-click can be emulated via two different solutions:

• using the virtual keyboard onboard, that has a dedicated button for it;

• mapping the action to the physical Windows button of the tablet.

About the latter, the Windows button is the small physical button on the left side of the tablet (the bigger button right above is the volume button but it is not recognised by the system). Such button can be mapped to a command that emulates a right mouse button click. One way to do so is by using xdotool and xbindkeys (this should work only with X11, not with Wayland):

1. Install xdotool and xbindkeys

2. Create an initial configuration for xbindkeys with xbindkeys --defaults > ~/.xbindkeysrc

3. Add the action to be mapped to the physical button

    cat << EOF >> ~/.xbindkeysrc
    # Emulate the right mouse button click with the physical Windows button.
    "xdotool click 3"
      m:0x0 + c:248
    EOF

4. Reload the xbindkeys configuration file or restart your session.

The physical Windows button is represented by the code m:0x0 + c:248, check it buy running the command xbindkeys -k and then pressing the button.

Audio

The audio device is an Intel SST Audio / Realtek RT5640, it requires the proprietary firmware firmware-intel-sound and an ALSA Use Case Manager (UCM) file that is provided by the package libasound2-data. Installing these two packages and restarting the machine should be enough to make the audio device work.

WiFi and Bluetooth

WiFi and Bluetooth are provided by a Broadcom BCM4324/5 on-board SDIO combined device. The device is identified as:

• BCM43241B4 for the WiFi

• BCM4324B3 for the Bluetooth

WiFi

The device requires the proprietary firmware firmware-brcm80211 and a nvram file.

The nvram file can be found under /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/. If the directory is empty, it has to be (temporarily) mounted first:

sudo mount -t efivarfs efivarfs /sys/firmware/efi/efivars

Inspect the syslog and check wich firmware the system tried to load:

sudo dmesg | grep brcmfmac
# ...
brcmfmac mmc0:0001:1: firmware: failed to load brcm/brcmfmac43241b4-sdio.ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.-T100TA.bin (-2)
# ...

(for the the T100TAL it should be brcm/brcmfmac43340-sdio).

Then save the nvram-file as a .txt file with the same firmware name just found:

# For the T100TA
sudo cp /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/nvram-74b00bd9-805a-4d61-b51f-43268123d113 /lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac43241b4-sdio.ASUSTeK\ COMPUTER\ INC.-T100TA.txt

# For the T100TAL
sudo cp /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/nvram-74b00bd9-805a-4d61-b51f-43268123d113 /lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac43340-sdio.txt

Note that nvram-file might contain a wrong MAC address, but it is not a problem as the file is only a template.

Reboot the system or reload the brcmfmac module:

sudo modprobe -r brcmfmac && sudo modprobe brcmfmac

Bluetooth

Because this is a combined device, the Bluetooth might not work if the WiFi has not been configured yet (see previous section.)

The Bluetooth requires a HDC firmware file:

sudo dmesg | grep -i "brcm\|bcm"
# ...
bluetooth hci0: firmware: failed to load brcm/BCM4324B3.hcd (-2)
# ...

This is distributed only in Broadcom Windows drivers, but it is easy to retrieve. Search for and download the latest Broadcom - Bluetooth Controller Non USB - Broadcom Serial Bus Driver over UART Bus Enumerator CAB archive (it should be from 2016) from the Microsoft Update Catalog. Extract the archive and copy the latest BCM4324B3 file to /lib/firmware/brcm as BCM.hcd (or BCM4324B3.hcd)

sudo cp BCM4324B3_002.004.006.0130.0161.hcd /lib/firmware/brcm/BCM.hcd

Reboot the system and then follow the instructions at the page Using Bluetooth in a Debian system to set up the Bluetooth.

Tweaks for low memory

The limited amount of RAM, 2GB only, will forcibly reduce the use case scenarios for this device. Some tweaks may help:

• Set up ZRam, it might improve a bit the responsiveness of the system (not the performance). Setting PERCENT=66 in /etc/default/zramswap seems to give good results, but do your research and tests as your mileage may vary;

• Enable the Hardware Video Acceleration in media players and internet browsers (see also the notes in the Display section).

Troubleshooting

WiFi instabilities

The wifi device can sometime get stuck, causing internet connection disruption and the appearance of the following messages in kernel logs:

ieee80211 phy1: brcmf_cfg80211_dump_station: BRCMF_C_GET_ASSOCLIST failed, err=-110
ieee80211 phy1: brcmf_proto_bcdc_query_dcmd: brcmf_proto_bcdc_msg failed w/status -110

When this happens, the only solution seems to reset the wifi device by reloading the brcmfmac kernel module:

sudo modprobe -r brcmfmac && sudo modprobe brcmfmac

In some cases it may be necessary to restart NetworkManager as well. If the issue starts causing major instabilities, then the system needs to be rebooted.

Suspend prevented by the light sensor

Although it does not work, the light sensor might prevent the system from going into sleep by immediately waking it up when it reaches the suspend state (check the kernel logs). Therefore, it is better to just disable the light sensor by blacklisting its kernel module:

cat << EOF | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/cm32181-blacklist.conf
# The ambient light sensor Capella Microsystems CM3218x does not work and it
# prevents the system from going into suspend. Disable it.
blacklist cm32181
EOF

Reboot the machine to apply the change.

System hangs during boot at "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

This issue seems to appear immediately after a new Debian installation, and it occurs when the device is turned on with its keyboard attached. The cause of the problem is not clear. If it occurs: turn off the device, detach the keyboard and turn on the device again, reattaching the keyboard only at a later time.

System Summary

lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series SoC Transaction Register [8086:0f00] (rev 09)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series Graphics & Display [8086:0f31] (rev 09)
00:14.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx, Celeron N2000 Series USB xHCI [8086:0f35] (rev 09)
00:1a.0 Encryption controller [1080]: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series Trusted Execution Engine [8086:0f18] (rev 09)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series Power Control Unit [8086:0f1c] (rev 09)

lsusb

Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0b05:17e0 ASUSTek Computer, Inc.
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0b05:17e4 ASUSTek Computer, Inc.
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

/sys/bus/iio/devices/

Sensors:

• Capella Microsystems CM3218x Ambient Light Sensor

• ?InvenSense MPU6500 Accelerometer + Gyro

• AKM AK8963 Magnetometer

cat /sys/bus/iio/devices/iio\:device0/name
i2c-CPLM3218:00

cat /sys/bus/iio/devices/iio\:device1/name
INVN6500

cat /sys/bus/iio/devices/iio\:device2/name
AK8963

Resources

Attachments

Some configuration files and sample outputs.

Useful Links

• t100ta-utility-scripts: utility scripts for the ASUS T100TA running GNU/Linux;

• G+ group ASUS T100 Ubuntu: a lot of useful information that have been then tested and adapted for Debian were provided in the past in this now defunct G+ group;

• Linux on the Dell Venue 8 Pro: a detailed webpage on how to run Linux on a similar Bay Trail device.

Credits

/dev/fra

CategoryLaptopComputer