NogBad
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Post by NogBad on Mar 4, 2021 20:15:34 GMT
Hi all, this may be a hardware prob so apologies if I'm wasting your time. I have been given / long-term loaned an Asus T101H tablet with docking keyboard and have been trying to put Linux on it, initially as a live usb. I've succeeded in a way with Bodhi but the main problem is it seems stuck in portrait mode - ok at a pinch if I remove the tablet from the dock but impossible with the keyboard attached, Anyone got any ideas how I could rotate the screen please? Additionally, if I undock. use it in tablet mode (portrait only) and then go into an app requiring a virtual keyboard such as Terminology or Leafpad, there's no keyboard. Hmmm... Finally, having set the Asus BIOS to boot initially from the USB, it still boots to Win10, I then go through the rigmarole of Settings etc to get it to restart and boot from the usb. Any ideas? I don't want to fully install Bodhi Linux until I know BIOS will boot straight into it, the virtual keyboard and screen orientation problems are sorted. Thanks in advance for your wisdom, even if it's only "Asus won't work with Bodhi / Linux". P.S. Please don't ask me to go into Terminology to determine further details about the tablet - as I wrote above, I can get into Terminology but not type anything. NogBad
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enigma9o7
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Post by enigma9o7 on Mar 5, 2021 2:58:51 GMT
You set the screen orientation with ArAndR which you can find in Bodhi 5.x's Settings Panel or Applications Menu, under Preferences. 
You can add an on screen keyboard. Lotta things aren't included with bodhi (by design) but full access to ubuntu repos and tools. For example sudo apt install onboardYou can also search for on screen keyboard with the synaptic package manager application, there are several options besides onboard. |
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NogBad
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Post by NogBad on Mar 5, 2021 9:24:35 GMT
Thanks, I'll try them later, busy all day. I know lots of the usual Linux goodies aren't included by design, that's the reason I slapped Bodhi onto an ancient laptop (has worked brilliantly for years) and also the reason I wanted a light distro on the notebook. Didn't realise the virtual kboard was an added extra tho' - just assumed it would automatically be there!
Thanks again
Nog
P.S. I'll try fiddling with BIOS again to try and fix the boot glitch.
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enigma9o7
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Post by enigma9o7 on Mar 5, 2021 16:55:52 GMT
Thanks, I'll try them later, busy all day. I know lots of the usual Linux goodies aren't included by design, that's the reason I slapped Bodhi onto an ancient laptop (has worked brilliantly for years) and also the reason I wanted a light distro on the notebook. Didn't realise the virtual kboard was an added extra tho' - just assumed it would automatically be there! Thanks again Nog P.S. I'll try fiddling with BIOS again to try and fix the boot glitch.
Yeah bodhi doesnt include apps (or other software packages) that not everyone will need. For example. printing support isn't even built in, because not everyone uses a printer (it can easily be added, just like on screen keyboard).
As far as booting straight into it once installed, that for sure is doable, whether you install as dual boot or only OS, bodhi installs a boot manager called grub that adds a boot menu (which you can hide if you want or only bring up with Esc).
As far as booting from USB (or optical disc), you're on the right track, that's bios related, you should not have to boot windows first, there should be some way to set your priority or something to boot from usb/disc first, or some keystroke to give you a drive menu to boot from. But for installation you only have to boot from external media once anyway, so not such a big problem to have to boot windows once first if it works... but definitively shouldnt be necessary.
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NogBad
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Post by NogBad on Mar 6, 2021 10:50:57 GMT
Thanks again Enigma, I got the screen to rotate, no problem apart from getting there in the first place - since the screen was rotated, so was the mouse touchpad - that screwed my brains, up for left, right for down etc. As for the boot sequence, how dumb does this sound - in order to set the boot sequence to USB first, you have to first insert a USB - who'd have thought that!!! I am now a happier bunny and will indeed load Bodhi as a dual boot OS with Win10, which I will reset to factory so (hopefully) clear out any old data, unnecessary progs etc (some hope). At the risk of incurring mods' wrath for going off-topic to another world-famous o/s, on the subject of that nice Mr Gates' primary invention, the main reason for ditching it is, the very first day I used the Asus (which hadn't been switched on for about two years), it updated everything and chewed through my 500mb of free data in about 20 mins. Win10 updates in the background without asking first, apparently.
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NogBad
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Post by NogBad on Mar 6, 2021 11:36:27 GMT
Another glitch. trying to install Bodhi as dual boot with win10 (until I decide to dump Win permanently, having made sure Bodhi does everything I want it to on the Asus). I've read through the installation notes, but when I get to the screen which says to install Bodhi and erase the whole disk, I should see "Install Bodhi alongside Windows Boot Manager" as an option, apparently: 5. Installation Type: If you are installing Bodhi onto a system where it will be the only OS, select the Erase disk and install Bodhi If the installer detects other operating systems you will see options to “install alongside…”. For example, Install Bodhi alongside Windows Boot Manager If you need complete control over the installation target (or need to modify your disk Partitions) select the option “Something else“. This is an advanced option, care must be taken. When you have made your selected click Install Now. If I choose Something Else, it tells me I haven't specified something - sorry, can't remember - boot? root? grub? Sorry for the vagueness, I'll check later for the exact wording.
So the question is: can I install as a dual boot?
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enigma9o7
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Post by enigma9o7 on Mar 6, 2021 17:23:27 GMT
You can install dual boot. I'm not sure how far you've gotten. If you plan to dual boot, you need to have space to create a partition for linux. So unless you have multiple hard drives, first step is usually to shrink your windows partition, leaving unpartitioned space , and you can do that from windows 10 itself, in its disk manager it has a "shrink volume" I think it is. [Delete unneeded files, empty recycle bin, and defrag first if you want it to allow maximum shrinkage.]
If you've done all that, then hopefully bodhi offers you the choice to install alongside windows. If it doesnt, you can tell it 'something else' and from there assign that unused space for bodhi....
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NogBad
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Post by NogBad on Mar 8, 2021 14:49:10 GMT
Nearly there! Reset Win to factory defaults which cleared out a load of bloat, that left me plenty of room to install Bodhi. BUT... I still have the problem with screen orientation. Is there any way to make it "sticky" so that I don't have to set the orientation after every reboot / switch on? And even more annoying: when I change the orientation to something sensible (i.e. the right way up) everything looks hunky dory, the mousepad works the right way, but the touchscreen follows a mind of its own. The cursor doesn't follow my finger - it acts as though it was still the original orientation. I know Linux doesn't work well with touchscreens, do I have to grin and bear it? Don't often use the touchscreen anyway if I've got the keypad docked but it would be nice to be able to use it. I assume the same will apply to the automatic screen rotation - it won't work. Sorry to harp on about this but the main problem is, when I reboot, the screen orientation is portrait. Undocked (in tablet mode) that's ok: touchscreen works as expected. But in portrait mode I lose the right-hand third of, say, webpages. So I switch to landscape - and then the touchscreen is all over the place. It's driving me nuts. BTW, ditto the nm-applet which allows me to connect to wifi - I have to run that every time I start up. Can that be made sticky too?
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enigma9o7
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Post by enigma9o7 on Mar 8, 2021 18:06:33 GMT
nm-applet can be added as a startup application. once your network is running you don't really need it going, but if you want it there in your tray, useful if you switch between various wifi networks for example or like to verify vpn is locked, you go to Settings Panel/Applications/Startup Applications and find "network" in the system list and add it. You'll see what's added in the "order" tab.
There is a setting in ARandR called "save to moksha". That will set it every time Moksha starts... so the boot before the desktop will still be default, but as soon as moksha starts it'll switch. You can find that setting in the drop down menus or click the far right icon. (Make sure window sized big enough to see all icons, first time you open stuff on new install window sizes are often not good for your resolution/scale factor, but resize and it'll stick for next time). If you are using the login screen before moksha (from light display manager) that won't be rotated, for that we need to use that same xrandr command but set it in lightdm's startup stuff.... easier to allow autologin but of course some people prefer security.. if you want splash or grub or anything earlier than lightdm rotated, I dunno..
Arandr is just a front end for xrandr, the command line utility for setting x resolution and rotation, and when you tell arandr "save as" (not save to moksha" ) it will generate a script with the xrandr command that you can run from command line to set . You could create two scripts with arandar (one for each orientation), and assign those commands as key bindings. Alternatively you could create a "personal application launcher" (i.e. shortcut = .desktop file) for each script if you want it in menu or able to add to ibar or dekstop.
Further, if you're familiar with scripting you could make one script that could toggle it instead of having separate scripts for each of the two orientations. [Script could use xrandr to check current orientation then set it to the other.] Or further yet, you may be able to make it switch automatically when you remove/insert from the dock if you knew something that was triggered, but thats a step above my pay grade.
Touchscreen I know nothing about, don't have one. There may be some tricks to telling that to rotate that isnt getting set by arandr... maybe someobody has an idea...
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NogBad
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Post by NogBad on Mar 9, 2021 10:12:00 GMT
Brilliant. Thanks, startup screen sorted. I did indeed save the orientation as Save as... which had no effect, but saving as Moksha solves the problem. For now I'll live with reorienting the screen on the rare occasions I undock and need portrait, and as I only need touchscreen then, I'll live with the vagaries of the cursor having a mind of its own.
You lost me at "generate a script with the xrandr command..." but it'll be something worth looking into when I'm bored and unoccupied.
Thanks again, great distro, great forum.
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Post by Hippytaff on Mar 9, 2021 10:36:26 GMT
Hi nogbad,
Are you happy for me to mark this thread as solved?
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enigma9o7
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Post by enigma9o7 on Mar 9, 2021 16:14:55 GMT
Brilliant. Thanks, startup screen sorted. I did indeed save the orientation as Save as... which had no effect, but saving as Moksha solves the problem. For now I'll live with reorienting the screen on the rare occasions I undock and need portrait, and as I only need touchscreen then, I'll live with the vagaries of the cursor having a mind of its own. You lost me at "generate a script with the xrandr command..." but it'll be something worth looking into when I'm bored and unoccupied. Thanks again, great distro, great forum. Glad you're sorted, but I can't help but try to explain...
When you did the "save as" from ARandR it prompted you for a filename. If you look at that file you saved with a text editor, you'll see its just a single command like "xrandr -output VGA blahblaqhbalh" etc. When a text file just has shell commands (same kinda commands you type at terminal) its called a shell script [dos equivalent would be a batch file]. The kind of shell (command interpreter) bodhi and a lot of linux/unix use is called bash, the bourne again shell, so sometimes you might hear a shell script referred to as a bash script. In any case a script is just a list of commands that runs in sequence, in this particular case, a single command. Instead of typing out that command, you could just run the script you saved, it would execute that command.
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NogBad
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Post by NogBad on Mar 10, 2021 10:53:46 GMT
Thanks. Yep, happy to be "Solved". If (when?) I have another question I'll start a new thread. I'll give your idea re a shell script a go. Can't be as complicated as when I took a diploma in computer science in the early 80s - things have moved on a bit since then - and one of our tasks was to write a boot script in ones and zeros! 380 architecture, I seem to remember.
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