Better tablet mode support in Linux

Want to give Suggestions?
1

Dear Chuwi product development & support,

I just recently bought a chuwi product. It is a Freebook N100 laptop 2-in-1 device and I like it.

I know many of your customers use Windows.However there is a growing group of customers you can tap in that are more into Linux. I am such a user.

How can you gauge? Please search on internet “chuwi linux” and you will find on reddit/amazon/chuwi forum the number of users who try to install linux on their chuwi product.

What is my suggestion about? To improve tablet support on Linux.

For which products?
Intel based laptops that can fold 360 degrees: e.g. Freebook, Minibook
Intel based tablets: e.g. Hi10 Max, Ubook X

What is the purpose?
To win more customers that prefer to use Linux on an affordable 2-in-1 device or tablet.

What is there in Windows that is missing in Linux to provide better tablet support?
In the above mentioned products your device provides an accelerator sensor.

For windows you provide a driver for this sensor. Your windows driver will give to Windows the information about the 3D orientation of the device. With this information, Windows decides to rotate the screen and if the device is folded in tent mode or in tablet mode, to lock the touchpad and keyboard and to present an screen keyboard.

In Linux the situation is a bit different in terms of drivers handling tablet mode support.

What is provided and works in linux is: the driver for the accelerometer, which sends the 3-D coordinates. For example on my Freebook the driver/kernel module is called mxc4005 that is reading the Memsic accelerometer.
With this driver, Linux components e.g. iio-sensor-proxy and desktop software e,g, Gnome or KDE can provide the automatic screen orientation.

However another essential part is missing, that needs to be provided by another kernel module. This kernel module should provide the tablet mode switch signal. With this signal, which is triggered when the laptop is folded in tent mode or tablet mode, or in case of a tablet, when the keyboard is removed from the tablet. Based on this event, Linux desktop software will lock keyboard/touchpad [in case of 2-in-1 device] and present a screen virtual keyboard.

Please find in these links more info on this event/signal:
https://wayland.freedesktop.org/libinput/doc/latest/switches.html#tablet-mode-switch-handling

To give you an idea how such a kernel module can be implemented, please find this piece of software code for supporting a few Lenovo Yoga products.

Looking forward to your reaction what you will do with my suggestion.

Thank you

2

Only 1 to 2 % of intel based laptops use Linux. How can CHUWI make money with your request?

Your request lacks a decent business plan.

Developing and maintaining software has a cost. Marketing and selling has a cost. A company must make profit.

Maybe you forgot to mention you have enough money to fund such an investment without asking for a return? Any company, including CHUWI would be happy with that.

Jaap

3

While I DO want your request to be fulfilled, there’s literally nobody working at Chuwi understands Linux at all. Some of us here do it the Linux way: we find the way out ourselves, and that’s the only feasible way for now. Chuwi is not big enough to cover such a wish, but they could indeed improve by not using hacks to implement certain features. Also, properly identifying device as a convertible in the BIOS should give enough help. Another help would be to list what hardware is used for what functionality. While technically we can lsusb, having a 1st party datasheet could speed up things.

1 Like
4

I couldn’t agree more.

But that would mean a way more restrictive multi sourcing business model to produce harmonized products.

It would indeed improve support, but also the cost, hence selling price.

But I think CHUWI should rather prioritize hardware repair return times to avoid bad feedback that makes people reluctant to recommend and purchase.

1 Like
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Thank you @jaap @leledumbo I appreciate your reasonable explanations to us . Unfortunately as you mentioned we are still not big enough to be able to support Linux, but every complain i see online, i send it to the department. They are aware of what users need, i am sure we will work towards better way this year, specially try to change the repair center .

@ed61 thank you for your ideas, I passed it.