nope, the bios does not recognize the internal card reader while booting

the only thing you can do if want to keep windows and want to have the complete 128GB ssd for windows is to install linux at the sd card, at least 64gb, then place the grub at the first partition, the efi partition

 

btw i tried opensuse tumbleweed gnome snapshot, look promising, no need to do the open close lid trick, directly boot up and the screen orientation suprisingly correct, but can not install up to now, always error, do know why, maybe because it is still under development

 

just want to share again, this machine is capable to run bluestacks and can play some simple android games quite smooth, but not high end android games :smileylol:

I have been trying to do the same here so I can keep the limited built-in storage for Windows but to no avail. I have a 64GB TFlash card inserted but Grub2, Syslinux, AIO, rEFInd, & systemd bootloaders can't see it.

 

I have read that you can create and load a custom Grub module to do it but I have no idea how to do that.

 

I did find a work-around with my light distro of Fatdog64 where using the "coldplug" cheat code in Grub it will discover all hardware including the TFlash card so I can load up my "savefile" from any file or partition from the card. This still requires you to load the kernel and initrd from the internal storage first but Fatdog64's system in it entirety is only 415MB so that's not a big deal for me.

 

If anyone can write us a custom Grub2 driver module that would aewsome!

I've been trying to get Manjaro going on my 1280x800 D330 but I can't even get the live CD to work. I either get a blank screen or fall back to console (once) usually it just hangs while displaying the terminal console on boot up. It seems to have it's own grub2 hardware detection but even bypassing this doesn't work for me.

Joe_Burgandy mentioned he had Manjaro working on his HD device and mwgarcia is running Archlinux (which manjaro is buit from and I can get going). I don't yet have the experience to configure Arch from scratch so thought Manjaro is the next best thing with a GUI pre-packaged but I cannot even get the live CD (USB) working to be able to install it. I have tried writing the ISO using DD & ISO modes with Rufus & balena Etcher. I get the menu but problems after the "Welcome to manjaro" message. Any help would be much appreciated!

To people wanting to put Linux on the microSD card while keeping the Windows installation intact:

 

Don't mess around with various bootloaders. If the BIOS can't read it the bootloader usually won't either. Essentially, you have to put your linux kernel and initramfs somewhere where GRUB can read them outright, preferably on the system drive:

- You could shrink the Windows partition to make about 500 MB of space. Then use your distro installer's Advanced formatting to create an ext4 formatted boot partition in that free space. Then put root (/) partition on the microSD. Alternatively, you can try setting up a partition there manually with fdisk and mkfs.ext4, then force the distro installer to use it as /boot.

- If you don't want to shrink the Windows partition, you can try putting the boot partition in the space currently occupied by Windows OEM or Recovery partition (usually 600-few GB in size). You can backup that partition with dd and restore it later. Also backup GPT partition table using sgdisk!

- If you don't want to do either, you can try to use a small USB as your linux boot partition. GRUB should be able to read it (as long as you have your keyboard attached).

 

For people wanting to try various linux distributions but not willing to completely discard the preloaded Windows:

- As long as you have a suitably big external media (microSD card, USB drive, external disk) to store the whole image on, you can backup the whole internal eMMC SSD using dd. Use sha1sum to create a hash of your system drive so you can verify it later. Make sure you have at least as much free space as is the size of your eMMC drive. After restoring, retrim ("optimize") the System drive in Windows. I tried this and can confirm my Windows was restored in its entirety!

 

Good luck, these were just quick tips, if anyone needs more detailed instructions, I can supply. Otherwise, Google is your friend (i.e. "backup GPT partition table sgdisk").

Hello all!

I'm happy becouse the new arch kernel already patched.
But I find another problem.

So I use arch (Anarchy) with new new kernel ( and I tried the LTS kernel too).
I can boot with gfxpayload and fbcon=rotate:1 only ( without nomodeset ).
The most function is working ( bringtness, sound, wifi, bluetooth ). but...
2 times of 5 the boot is freeze during the boot and same the problem when i suspend and resume the work.
I saw mwgacria had this problem:

Can everybody found the sollution for this ?

I tried every display and windows manager. The best result was the lightdm + xfce but not perfect.

Somebody can help me about this problem ? Somebody have this problem ?

Hi, yes we all have this problem due to the i915 kernel module not fully supporting our Gemini Lake graphics on the 1280x800 model. I don't even bother using my patched kernel any more because it's so unreliable. I just use nomodeset now because without it the video driver fails probably 8/10 times even with the patch. There is definitely another issue with the i915 driver on our device.

Hi everybody,

 

Try fedora 31, everything work out of the box, no need to do the open close lid anymore, the only problem is the screen is too small with normal resolution and too big with 150% zoom. Performace is very fast compared to the original windows 10

 

though this is linux forum, yesterday I tried the newly release android x86 8.1 R3, work out of the box also, everything work, from WIFI, sound, touch, SD card also recognized, the only problem is all game installed via playstore is not working. The trick is install aptoide (playstore alternative) and install all game from aptoide. I have not tried game like PUBG but simple games like candy crush run flawlessly. 

 

now we have truly 2in1 device, no need to carry android tablet anymore :smileylol:

Hi,

this is very good news. But I'd like to elaborate a little further.

With "everything", you also mean:

- Sound Playback

- Sound recording

- Front Camera

- Rear camera?

- automatic screen rotation?

Which model do you use, the full hd or the hd ready?

Best regards, Pianoman

I just installed the latest Android x86 build on my budget D330 64GB 1280x800 & I'm loving it! It's now my primary OS as it's so fast, sorry Linux lovers. ? The only things that don't work properly are the camera (don't care, it sort of works but the preview is stretched & photos come out green & stretched with 3rd party camera apps) & screen rotation (annoying as I prefer landscape but it's stuck in portrait mode). Still very usable in portrait only as brightness & sleep are fine unlike in Linux which is strange as it uses the same kernel series as my Linux distros do e.g. Fatdog=4.19.32, Debian=4.19.37, Android=4.19.80. Anyway I now have Win10, Debian, & Android all running very well.

 

If anyone has a solution to the rotation issue on Android, please share. Thanks. 

i don't know what happened after I installed aptoide.

Maybe it fix the compatibility with google play store.

End up I can use playstore for installing games. :smileywink:

 

btw for rotation, if you play games that need horizontal setting, it will automatically switch to horizontal and stay until  next shutdown

Or just install "auto rotation" at playstore, make it run at boot, it will pop up some error at boot, but it can easily ignored.

you can switch the orientation easily after installed this apk.

 

 

the only problem now is the laptop tend to get hot very fast, maybe there is some issue with the battery arrangement, maybe android x86 is not supposed to run on this device

I don't know, I am not a programmer, I am just sharing my experience.