Linux distro on minibook x?

I know that I’m going out on a limb here but what is the actual use of installing linux on a device like this? Making the battery last half of what it can last using windows 11? Making it unusable for local Microsoft Office users?

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From the sounds of it you have stumbled upon a thread that is not in any way relevant to your specific needs :wink:

maybe i can move this post to the Linux area¿?

What about providing an answer to the the question instead of assuming this is not relevant for me.

Ask a real question in a non-aggressive and non-rhetorical way and I’m sure many here will be more than happy help you out in any way we can, it’s one of the many benefits of the Linux community :).

If it helps, I think it’s fine as it is as the thread is specific to the Minibook product line, but if you think it’s better to group it with other Linux subjects, I suppose that works too?

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@jibsaramnim I will leave it here then.

i am sorry if i cannot be of help for the linux area, (we dont provide drivers for that and so) but as i am also in charge of social media believe me i read… all… I soon will have a video from a person who will install linux in the herobook Pro and how everything works., because he knows a lot about linux and i know this is an important thing for customers. I will eventually try to do more with the rest of computers . And if another person want to collaborate with their own computers i am more than happy to receive private messages and i see how to, maybe pay for the collaboration video (i will need to ask for this to my boss) or another way. But it is clear we need a How to with linux :wink:

Having someone like you be an internal champion for Linux support at Chuwi is great. I tried my best back when my contact still worked at Chuwi, but even though it takes relatively little work to get these devices to work well with Linux (it really mostly just boils down to a few firmware tweaks and fixes to get most of them to a working state), it does require Chuwi to spend a bit of time just to work out the kinks basically.

Either way, thank you for what you’re doing, I hope with your help Chuwi will increasingly consider Linux support more seriously. Several other small device makers have already gone that route, it’d be great to see Chuwi join in too :).

The thing is, from inside, i wont be able to receive help, because my tech guys they dont work with linux,neither we as a company make drivers for linux. What i was referring is to get help from the outside, making guides, videos for the rest of users with the help of experts, know how to solve those issues. When i talked with the guy who will make the video of Hero Book Pro, he told me that Linux most of them times no need to install too much and normally work fine. But i have absolutely no knowledge of that. What i can help from inside, is to contact people, help with videos tutorials, and later on, if my bosses really see how important this community is, maybe i will be able to push this matter but for now. All Brands need real big proofs to demonstrate they need to make changes as big as dealing for example with linux you know…im here and in Social Media to listen to the public and make the brand better so, im open to everything.

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The Chuwi Minibook X 2023 works well for me with Ubuntu Cinnamon 24.04 daily build.

Does it work for me?
Yes, I was looking for a successor of an old 10 inch netbook. The Chuwi ticked all boxes including price. The fact that the “tablet” functions don’t work well under Ubuntu is not an issue for me. My old netbook didn’t do that either. I find the keyboard back light a great improvement. Also the feature to change the Fn key operation in the BIOS is a great improvement.

Why Ubuntu?
Because I use programs best supported under Ubuntu. In addition I appreciate the community help.

Why Cinnamon.
Because only the Cinnamon and the Unity desktop support fractional scaling and I prefer the classical desktop.

Why 24.04 daily build?
Ubuntu versions before 24.04 require a lot of tweaking to get them running. Yes. I understand I have to wait until April 2024 before using it in production.

What works well for what I care about:
SSD
Display (although it must be rotated 90 degrees to get it in landscape mode)
Keyboard, including back light
Mouse pad
Special keys like screen brightness (also the setting for the FN key in the BIOS works well)
Secure boot (I had to restore the keys in the BIOS to get it to work for Windows and Ubuntu)
WiFi
USB, including video out, Chuwi charging and USB c charging.
Audio output
Camera
Suspend and resume

What works reasonable:
Touch Screen (Cinnamon definitely does not work as well as Windows 11)

What does not work and I don’t care that much:
Automatic screen rotation (driver issue)
Bluetooth (driver issue)

What was not tested
Audio input, for another time

How did I install Ubuntu Cinnamon 24.04 daily build?
The usual ISO download and writing to an USB Flash disk
Boot the system in Windows and restart via Windows recovery option
Select the Flash disk to boot
Choose try Ubuntu, NOT install Ubuntu
Rotate the screen with the “Display” program (Portrait Left) after the desktop has appeared
Use GPARTED to reduce the Windows partition
Start the installation
After installation Windows will start again.
Via Windows recovery go into UEFI and set Ubuntu as default boot partition
This will cause GRUB to start at boot and you can select Ubuntu or Windows

What did I tweak after installation
Use the “Display” program to
Rotate the screen to “Portrait Left” in “Layout”
Enable Fractional scaling in Settings
Set Fractional scaling to 150% in “Layout” (increases the font size for better readability)

Relieve the SSD by changing FSTAB (a mistake may result in a system that no longer starts)
Disable Swapping by putting a “#” in front of “/swapfile”
For the main partition, change “errors=remount-ro” to “ “nodiratime,discard,errors=remount-ro”
Put temporary files in RAM by adding the following line: “tmpfs /tmp tmpfs defaults 0 0”

Change Firefox configuration for full hd resolution of videos:
change “layout.css.devPixelsPerPx” from “-1” to “1”

What would I have liked to see different in the hardware, but I would not upgrade if these were the only changes.
60 Hz screen refresh rate instead of 50 Hz
50% more battery capacity
Standard USB charging only (although the supplied charger runs very well and barely gets warm: good job!)

Experience with standard USB charging
Standard USB charging with a 65 Watt Power Supply sets the voltage to 20 Volts and max current I have seen charging and operating is slightly over 1.5 amps. That means peaks just over 30 Watts.
For charging only, a 30 Watts power supply capable of 20 volts is sufficient.
For charging and operation , a 45 Watts power supply capable of 20 volts is sufficient.
Charging time is the same with the supplied 36 Watt adapter, 30 and 65 Watts USB C power supplies. A 100 Watt USB C adapter will not charge faster, the Minibook simply does not accept more current to avoids the small battery from exploding.
USB charging also allows the use of power banks with the right voltage and capacity. So if the Minibooks’ battery life is not sufficient, it’s always possible to use a power bank if there is no AC socket available. It does increase the carrying weight tough.

Finally, I tested the laptop with a 4K screen that supports USB charging. This worked fine. A single USB cable between screen and Minibook charged the battery and took care of displaying video’s on the external screen. It also seems Ubuntu uses way less CPU time at idle compared to Windows. This may result in longer battery life and snappier operation.

That’s it. YMMV.

Be aware Ubuntu 24.04 is still in alpha mode. No guarantees, no support.

Cheers, Jaap

For me, it’s because (a) I like tinkering and have been for decades in the linux space, but perhaps more importantly, (b) MS Windows struck me as essentially unusable given the form factor, so one way or another it was gonna come off the machine! And maybe (c) I didn’t want another proprietary OS littered around my workspace (but that’s really just the motivation for (a) I suppose!)

Yeah this is probably the case for 99% of users who want to install a Linux distribution on a low performance device that works flawlessy with windows: just tinker with the device to see if linux can be installed with certain degree of usability, sacrificing battery life, performance, Bluetooth functionality, touch capability, screen rotation function or a combination of all the above. To each their own I guess.

yeah, see, I think I’d stop you at “works flawlessly with windows”. But hey, if you want to feel superior by hijacking threads with passive-aggressive judgemental quips, … to each their own, I guess.

I exaggerated with the flawlessy part but my point is that at least all the hardware components work at the minimum they are expected with Windows. Have you used the tablet mode with the minibook x? Years ago this was near unusable as you mentioned with windows, but now it has improved a lot. Of course not to the level of iOS or android, but still completely fine for media consumption. I can understand the proprietary OS part as a philosophy not as a real hindrance to getting work done with the laptop. Hell, even some Linux distribution have proprietary bits and some of them are required for a proper functioning of the device. So I don’t see how having windows in this form factor is unusable. All office programs work very well and web browsing the same. Yeah I guess specialized applications would require Linux, but let’s be real here, a laptop like this will not be appropriate in the first place.

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About open source or closed source: every manufacturer and user makes their choice. Personally I don’t object to closed source. The Minibook X is closed source and I use it. If Chuwi would provide closed source Linux drivers for the accelerometer and Bluetooth, I would use them. If Microsoft would sell a closed source version of Office for Linux, I would buy it.

Ubuntu Cinnamon has a smaller memory footprint than Windows 11. By default Ubuntu doesn’t come with all the fantastic bells and whistles Windows 11 has (I never use them, or even don’t want to use them). It’s so complex to disable all these bells and whistles. Also Ubuntu’s update and upgrade process seems a whole lot leaner than with Windows 11.

Windows 11 gives me a good experience with the touch screen, and Ubuntu Cinnamon did not. Ubuntu Unity might give a better experience with a touch screen, than Ubuntu Cinnamon. I haven’t tried it. I have used the Minibook and consumed media with Windows 11: as a laptop, tent, and tablet. I admit it works better than Linux. But I just happen to like Linux’ simplicity and sustainability (I run Ubuntu 22.04 on a ten years old MacBook Air.) There must be plenty of people with a different taste.

To each their own, and I own both: dual boot works great :smile:.

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Today I fixed a problem with dual booting.

After a Windows 11 update I got an error message that the efi boot file could not be found. Windows 11 did start however.
To fix that you can then download boot-repair-disk and put that on a USB flash dive with Balena Etcher.
Next you will have to restart Windows 11 in advanced mode and select UEFI settings.
Disable secure boot, save and restart. Windows 11 will start again.
Then you will have to restart Windows 11 in advanced mode, but now and select to boot from the you flash drive.
After the system has started from that disk, it will ask to fix the issue. I chose the default way, and after a few minutes restart the system. Windows 11 will start again.
You will have to restart Windows 11 in advanced mode, and again select UEFI settings.
Disable secure boot, save and restart. Dual boot is back!

YMMV, Jaap

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Hello guys,

Just in case any of you need a guide for KDE Neon (or basically any Ubuntu 22.04 LTS base distros), you can take a look at my notes to make most things work while also being aware of the existing issues.

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Thanks for the tips Mario. Tweaking grub is worth a try. Do you have Bluetooth working now and do you use it? With other laptops in the past I have never been able to get it stable using a Bluetooth mouse.

Of course. Speakers, TWS, mouse, keyboard, game controller (KingKing 2 Pro tested), you name it. Any kind of bluetooth peripherals work. Now that you mention it, I forgot to add tips to make TWS codec auto switch in online conference apps (e.g.: Google Meet, Zoom).

EDIT: Tips added.

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just upgraded to dev version of ubuntu 24.04 (to be release april 2024) with

do-release-upgrade -d

which as of today uses kernel version 6.6.0-14-generic

and suspend works fine. Bluetooth seems to work - mouse can connect, as well as playing music on headset works fine.

The rotated GRUB and boot-up (eg where you enter cryptsetup pw) is a bit annoying. I know the second can be changed - but I use the minibook sometimes standalone (working-from-sofa) and sometimes closed, but hooked up to my monitor on my desk. So on either one it is always wrong.

Autorotate doesnt, but dont care. What is annoying is that in tablet mode keyboard and touchpad are not deactivated.

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@leledumbo thank you for your notes!
The sleep vs “sleep with internet active” makes quite a difference for me:

/sys/power/mem_sleep

s2idle costs 10% battery for 3 hours
deep costs 3% battery for 3 hours

details in leldumbo"s notes