Linux 5.17 To Introduce A New Driver Just To Deal With Buggy x86 Tablets (phoronix.com) 50
Phoronix reports:
The Linux 5.17 kernel when it kicks off next month is slated to introduce a new driver "x86-android-tablets" just for dealing with all the quirky/buggy x86 tablets out there.
Longtime Linux developer Hans de Goede of Red Hat has been responsible for numerous x86 laptop/tablet improvements in recent years along with other desktop-related improvements at Red Hat. He has now queued up into the x86 platform drivers tree the x86-android-tablets driver he wrote for dealing with the mess of x86 (mostly Android) tablets that don't behave properly out-of-the-box with Linux.
As part of the ACPI DSDT (Differentiated System Description Table), many x86 tablets have simply invalid entries and other problems that cause issue when trying to run mainline Linux on said hardware. Hans explains as part of the commit currently in the platform-drivers-x86 "for-next" branch....
"This driver, which loads only on affected models based on DMI matching, adds DMI based instantiating of kernel devices for devices which are missing from the DSDT, fixing e.g. battery monitoring, touchpads and/or accelerometers not working."
This new x86-android-tablets driver will basically be a catch-all solution for overrides based on device matching. Hans ended the patch message with, "This is the least ugly option to get these devices to fully work and to do so without adding any extra code to the main kernel image (vmlinuz) when built as a module."
Longtime Linux developer Hans de Goede of Red Hat has been responsible for numerous x86 laptop/tablet improvements in recent years along with other desktop-related improvements at Red Hat. He has now queued up into the x86 platform drivers tree the x86-android-tablets driver he wrote for dealing with the mess of x86 (mostly Android) tablets that don't behave properly out-of-the-box with Linux.
As part of the ACPI DSDT (Differentiated System Description Table), many x86 tablets have simply invalid entries and other problems that cause issue when trying to run mainline Linux on said hardware. Hans explains as part of the commit currently in the platform-drivers-x86 "for-next" branch....
"This driver, which loads only on affected models based on DMI matching, adds DMI based instantiating of kernel devices for devices which are missing from the DSDT, fixing e.g. battery monitoring, touchpads and/or accelerometers not working."
This new x86-android-tablets driver will basically be a catch-all solution for overrides based on device matching. Hans ended the patch message with, "This is the least ugly option to get these devices to fully work and to do so without adding any extra code to the main kernel image (vmlinuz) when built as a module."
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And how is this kernel going to find its way onto these tablets? I assume they stopped getting vendor updates some time ago, if they ever got any...
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This is why Linux-support is a mess.
Most devices are built by a manufacturer to specifications, and then handed off to someone else for software/drivers. So once they get it to "work" that's it, they're done. That means they very much cut corners.
To that end, Android tablets are essentially nothing but trash products. ARM and x86. Apple figured out how to do a tablet properly, and everyone else is like "let's make a tablet-sized phone"
Anyone else remember the VIA 4-in-1? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Get off my lawn, youngling. :P
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Yup. Hyperion. :O
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I always paid more for the higher end ASUS and Intel boards, so I didn't have this problem. I hated working with the garbage components you described. I broke down and built one like that by special request. I regretted it continually until they finally threw it away.
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The garbage component in this case is the BIOS. The BIOS basically creates a massive data structure in memory that describes the hardware in the system (processors, memory, interrupt mappings, etc) so the operating system can detect and initial
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God yes. I had a slot A athlon 750, but I was too poor to buy the AMD 751 northbridge chipset and bought a shitty Via KX133 based board instead.
Buggiest piece of shit I've ever owned.
Re:I'm not a fan of Applke, but... (Score:5, Informative)
Apple might sell more tablets than any other company, but it's only got a market share of 36%.
Android is the majority, with over 50%.
https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]
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It’s interesting that the link there mentions Apple sold over 4 billion dollars worth of iPads in Q1 2020, while they don’t mention anything about earnings related to that Android 50% market share. I suspect most of those Android tablets are not exactly big money makers for their producers.
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The android tablets aren't marked up 40,000% like the Apple crap is. Even the $200-300 range of Android tablets will perform just as well, if not better in use cases where apps need to be installed from alternative markets, than an overpriced iPad.
Re:I'm not a fan of Applke, but... (Score:5, Informative)
The difference being Apple devices have support and OS updates for years. Android is a race to the bottom with disposable hardware.
Re:I'm not a fan of Applke, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
That isn't Android's fault, that is the fault of crappy companies. My Pixel 4 android phone still gets monthly updates two+ years later, and will for at least another year. Possibly longer since even after Google "ended support" for the Nexus 6P I still got important security updates for some time.
Three years of official support is more than enough for a phone as it won't magically stop working after that. Also by that time it will likely struggle with tasks that a modern phone is expected to do. If you want to run your phone into the ground and use it past the support time that's on you. At least with Android you can just slap new parts into it, unlike with the Apple crap trying in every way possible way to lock you out from replacing parts.
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My Samsung android tablet must still be getting updates as every 6 months more and more space is taken up by uninstall-able system applications.
It has gotten to the point where a perfectly usable tablet now allows me to install 1 small application and crashes after ever 10 minutes of YouTube videos requiring a cache clearing to continue.
Re: I'm not a fan of Applke, but... (Score:1)
No, it isnâ(TM)t. It is a joke.
You could possibly (although you most definitely should not) argue for it with the phones, which get much more battering and might develop issues because of it after 3-4 years.
Tablets should last longer, and your acceptance of a shoddy support helps manufacturers to get away with it.
You would not accept it with a PC, why should you with a tablet? After all, itâ(TM)s not like good ones are cheap by any definition of âoecheapâ. We should beat manufacturers to
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There are still really nice high end Android tablets.
My Galaxy Tab S7+ isn't noticeably "worse" than my iPad Pro.
It's like comparing revenue per computer for PCs vs. Macs. Yes, we know Macs are more profitable, just as luxury vehicles are more profitable for car manufacturers. Suckers will always pay more money than something is worth if it's a status symbol. Note, I've got $
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> $16,000 in Apple shit within 8 feet of me right now
Those iPads are getting expensive
Re: I'm not a fan of Applke, but... (Score:1)
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Another $2k for my MacBook Air, $6.1k for my MBP, $1.2k for my watch, $1.6k for my phone, and another ~$1k for my former Pro, and I can't remember what my little Pro costed.
Apple shit is silly expensive.
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What are you doing that you continually need that much cpu power in a portable device?
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It's just a convenience. With a beefy enough laptop, I can do the 2 main CPU+RAM intensive tasks I need to do (Statistical analysis and crunching of obscenely large datasets, and network/systems simulation) locally.
The MBP w/ 64GB is a goddamn boss at this. So was my Air, honestly. The M1* parts really are phenomenal processors.
My current beefy Intel is a 64GB 10980HK (Typo in previous post) which does the job well, but unless I turn off all but 2 of the cores when
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They do what they do, and they do it well.
Well that's not exactly difficult to accomplish when they're vendor-locked to not be able to do many things that other devices can.
Re:I'm not a fan of Applke, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree. iPads are pretty limited in what they can do.
But...that's their strength, in many ways. There isn't much you can screw up. The downside, of course, is God help you if you *do* need to do something unusual, or need to try and troubleshoot some kind of weird issue. Because you mostly can't. With all iOS devices, if things get weird, your only option is usually just to do a factory reset and hope for the best.
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I have yet to see anyone I know with "2-in-1" Windows laptop that uses it in tablet mode.
Define tablet mode. Are you talking about enabling the tablet interface in Windows? I agree with you. Are you talking about flipping the keyboard backwards or using the pen? In that case I see that all the time. Just try following someone into the bathroom.
iPads are just...nice. They do what they do, and they do it well.
Indeed they do. Unfortunately all they do is run Apple toy software which makes them useless which is also reflected in the fact that they account for only 1/3 of the tablet market (presumably that same 1/3rd that is accounted for by iPhone users).
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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and companies still manage to fuck things up!
Huh? We are fucking up? *glances over at large pile of money from Windows / Android sales* Nah it's good.
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This shit happens to me too intermittently. Thinkpad yoga on Windows 11.
I'll probably re-install win11 instead of finding out what the problem is.
At times I have felt my bag/satchel feeling hot outside and checked to find its almost too hot to touch inside.
After closing the laptop I have to wait few seconds and peek sideways inside the closed laptop to confirm its gone to sleep or started doing god knows what.
People are always amazed invariably ask why dont i open it and see.
But then i tend to install too m
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Re: Same, old issue (Score:2)
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There will always be issues like this. :(
Can we have as well... (Score:3)
I know that asking other people to do work for me isn't exactly a nice thing to do, especially if said work consists in introducing ugly hacks, but... pretty please? :-)
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The problem is that the kernel maintainers hate it.
It requires support for neutering the NVMe layer, and the kernel devs refuse to accept patches that allow that to happen.
Ultimately, RST is a pile of shit, and you should turn it off anyway.
And yes, I know it's the default, and ya, I know it's a pain to move your factory Windows install off of it.
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Not "Buggy" at all. (Score:1)
They're 100% designed this way to make it harder for non-native OS's to be installed on these things.
I don't believe for a moment that this is an oversight, a bug, or a mistake.
Some ACPI debug tools (Score:1)
"acpidump is a tool that can be used to dump the ACPI tables provided by the BIOS. This is helpful when debugging suspend/hibernate problems that are probably caused by ACPI. To get the tool, just go to the tools/power/acpi/ directory of your kernel source code and run “make”."
Maybe there is a cron job or some wakeon setting.
ACPI link here (Score:1)