This is a wiki dedicated to getting Debian to work optimally on the TUXEDO Infinitybook S14 v5

About this page

This page is designed to help with installation of Debian GNU/Linux on the TUXEDO Infinitybook S14 v5 Netbook. 'This page is still under construction but the instructions should lead you to an usable installation' There are additional information on installation of necessary drivers and other optimizations.

Prerequisites

Important!: At the point of writing you need an USB to LAN connector to download the needed current kernel easily. In my case the WLAN was not working out of the box (non-free wifi driver needed). Moreover in my case an external keyboard was useful because there was a bug with the keyboard which I could fix by updating the BIOS.

Hint before buying: Consider buying a wifi chipset which is compatible with a free software system to support the free software community. TUXEDO offers the possibility to buy the Infinitybook S14 v5 without a WLAN chip so you can choose your own. If you buy it with the listed wifi chipsets you will need to install drivers from the debian non-free repository (see below).

Overall Status

Core Components

[ATTACH]

Boot Standard Kernel:

{i}

LAN network card:

{OK}

Detect CD/DVD:

[-]

Detect hard drives:

{OK}

Extra Features

CPU Frequency Scaling

[?]

Hibernation

{OK}

Sleep / Suspend

{OK}

Xorg

{i}

- OpenGL

[?]

- Resize-and-Rotate(randr)

{OK}

Switch to External Screen

{OK}

Mouse

{OK}

- Built-in (Trackpoint)

[-]

- Built-in (Touchpad)

{OK}

Modem

[-]

Wireless/Wifi

X-( or {i}

Keyboard's Hotkeys

{OK}

USB-C

{OK}

Thunderbolt

[-]

Legend :
{OK} = OK ; {X} Unsupported(No Driver) ; /!\ = Error (Couldn't get it working); [?] Unknown, Not Test ; [-] Not-applicable
{i} = Configuration Required; X-( = Only works with a non-free driver and or firmware

Preparing the USB flash drive

There are many ways to install Debian. One way to install Debian on the Infinitybook S14 v5 is to use a flash USB drive. This might be your first choice since the Infinitybook S14 v5 does not ship with a CD-ROM drive. You will need a flash USB drive that is 256MB or larger. The below method outlines how to modify a flash drive putting the Debian installer on it. For other methods of installation please refer to the section Alternative Installation Methods or see the install guide.

Download the current stabel Debian 64-Bit image and verify it:

$ cd /Path/to/Debian10_amd64_iso
$ sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS 2>&1 | grep OK
 --> ok
$ gpg --verify SHA256SUMS.sign
 --> compare the fingerprint!

Creating a USB flash boot drive

We follow the Installation Manual (amd64) to create a bootable USB:

Attention: The following erases all data on the USB flash drive. Make sure you have a back-up of the data!

Run  lsblk -p  to see which devices are currently connected to your machine. Then attach the USB to see his name. Alternativeley you can use the GUI gnome-disks ("Laufwerke" in German). Make sure you copy the image on the whole device and not on a partition (e.g. dev/sdb, not /dev/sdb1)!

# cp debian.iso /dev/sdX
# sync

ToDo: verify

Install

To get the Infinitybook S14 v5 to boot from a USB stick you must enable USB booting from the BIOS. To do this, press ESC as the laptop boots and ensure booting from a USB is enabled in the BIOS.

This will cause the Infinitybook S14 v5 to boot the Debian installer from the USB stick. Now follow the instructions in the installer.

ToDo: You should prefer a setup with an encrypted hard disk

Troubleshooting

When first booting, in my case the boot process was stuck with an error. By pressing 'alt + F4' I could log in under the command (user: root, pw: from Installation).

First thing to do is to change the source list to include the backports:

# nano /etc/apt/sources.list
# buster backports
deb http://http.debian.net/debian buster-backports main

If you installed from a cd/dvd image you can comment out that source with '#' (if you want to use https-sources you need to installthe apt-transport-https package)

Then update and upgrade:

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

Afterwards we install the newest kernel to support the hardware drivers:

First search for the newest linux headers and images:

apt-cache search linux-headers | less
---> choose the newest from the list (in my case: linux-headers-5.5.0-0.bpo.2-amd64)

apt-cache search linux-image | less
---> (in my case: linux-image-5.5.0-0.bpo.2-amd64)

Then install header and kernel:

apt-get install -t buster-backports linux-headers-5.5.0-0.bpo.2-amd64 linux-image-5.5.0-0.bpo.2-amd64

After the installation reboot:

reboot

Now you should have a graphical interface to log in. Enjoy!

(in the terminal you could verify the new kernel version with

uname -r
---> 5.5.0-0.bpo.2-amd64

Problems booting the installer

Problems with the installer itself

Problems with older Debian releases

Other

Setup

The installation will produce a usable Debian installation. However, some configuration is needed to get everything working.

EFI-EC-Update

In my case there was a bug with the keyboard and I needed to update the EFI-EC (BIOS):

Get the newest version of the EFI-EC from your customer account page. You can find a graphical description here.

You need an empty USB stick with FAT32 or NTFS format. Download the zip (the one for the Infinitybook S14 v5: in my case ‘0106_?InfinityBook_S_14_v5_EC.zip’) and unzip it. Load the whole files from the folder on your USB, attach the charging cable and the USB (and nothing else!) to the ?InfinityBook and boot with ESC into the BIOS.

Choose the option ‘boot from file’ and click on the USB stick. Then start the Shellx64.efi that will start an shell.

You will prompted a list. Make sure you are logged in on your USB file (Removeable HardDisk fs1 in my case – type ‚fs1:‘ if needed – the ‚:‘ can be found on with ‚shift+Ö‘ on the German keybord‘.

Then use the command dir to list all files and start the ?EcFlash.NSH script. After the script is done the Notebook will shut down. Then, if you do not intent to update the BIOS as well (not necessary in my case), remove the charger and wait 5 Min until you plug it in again to start the Notebook again.

Custom Hardware drivers

Wi-Fi

If you bought the Infinitybook with the WLAN chip from TUXEDO (Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 or Intel Dual AC 9260 at the point of writing) you need to install drivers for them from the debian non-free repository.

Consider buying a wifi chipset which is compatible with a free software system instead to support the free software community. TUXEDO offers the possibility to buy the Infinitybook S14 v5 without a WLAN chip so you can choose your own.

ToDo: some experience on possible chipsets?

Here is how you install the wifi package:

# nano /etc/apt/sources.list

# buster backports
deb http://http.debian.net/debian buster-backports non-free main

→ save

# apt-get update
# apt-get upgrade

# apt-get install firmware-iwlwifi

TUXEDO keyboard etc.

To get the TUXEDO specific hardware support (LED colors, fan control etc), you might need to install some deb packages from TUXEDO with

sudo apt install /Path/custom_driver.deb

or better compile them from source. Here an example on how to compile the tuxedo-keybord module:

Log in as root and clone the git repo:

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade
apt-get install install git

git clone https://github.com/tuxedocomputers/tuxedo-keyboard.git

cd tuxedo-keyboard

git checkout release

Build the keyboard module as a kernel module:

make clean

sudo make dkmsinstall

Load the Module with modprobe:

sudo modprobe tuxedo_keyboard

Now the modul should be loaded automatically on boot.

Suspend on lid closure

Other distributions

Where to buy

External Links


CategoryLaptopComputer