Linux Mint 20 Cinnamon - working perfectly on Hi12

I was able to install Linux Mint 20 Cinnamon Live USB on my Chuwi Hi12 and get everything working including

  • WiFi
  • Bluetooth
  • Audio
  • Touchscreen (even this became active after updating drivers from inside Linux)
  • Wow it runs Super Fast!!! Bonus…

What I can’t figure out is how to get rid of Android and free up space to install Linux native besides Windows 10. There’s plenty of instruction on restating configurations so that I can allocate more space to Android that I did years ago granting 20GB to Android and remaining going to Windows 10. Either way, I guess I’ll have to rework my configuration again since Android 5.1 crashes constantly and is simply unusable. I suspect my plan of attack would be

  • Backup Windows 10 to keep anything working and needing to restore
  • run through process [Hi12] [Official Version][Dualboot] Chuwi Hi12 Android, Remix, Windows, Bios, driver Dualboot process to enlarge and possibly remove partitions or installations
  • Then restore Windows 10
  • Resize Windows 10 partition to provide space for Linux
  • and finally install Linux Mint 20 Cinnamon native partition that now works perfectly
  • while enabling boot options from inside Windows (or 3rd party boot loader) to load Linux Mint

Would appreciate any feedback, suggestions, and thanks for the help!

Sorli…

Yep, it’s working also to me, but I don’t know if you got the same wifi issues, it seems disconnect every while and reconnect, it’s practically inapreciatly but happens to me. Also, most of times touchscreen is working, but sometimes it seems driver not loaded during system boot. Are you getting these issues too?

Thanks.
Doc.

Hey Brians, i’ve try it too but the touch screen doesn’t work can you help me please.

And if you can give me some up dates about this project it would be great.

Thank you.

Sadly, my recent experiments with Mint Cinnamon 20.03 broke my Chuwi and now the Windows or any other partition is longer visible.

I’ll try the Intel Bios reflash tool and Bios Reset before giving up again, since I really hate throwing away old equipment, but so far I’ve lost the built-in storage and keep this in mind If you try like I did manually deleting Android partitions and sideloading Linux.

Anyone else have similar problems with their Hi12 and able to recover?

“Bueller, Bueller” quote that most of you won’t remember and anyone else still tinkering with their Hi12?

I managed to install both Windows 10 & Linux Mint 20.3 Cinnamon and meanwhile both are working well (wlan, sound, touch). But neither Windows boot manager nor grub give me an option to choose the other operating system. Windows boot manager does not show any other bootable OS and grub does not launch anyway. If I want to start linux I firstly have to start BIOS by clicking the ESC key while booting and choose the ubuntu boot option (each time I start Linux).
I want to set up the Windows boot manager by adding a Linux boot option. Does anybody know how to do that?

Hello brians,
after installing Linux Mint besides Windows 10 my HI12 always starts Windows 10. The only way to start Linux Mint is pressing F7 while booting and select Linux. But therefore I need a keyboard plugged in the tablet. Normally a tablet is used without keyboard… Is there a way to use grub as boot manager cause the UEFI does not allow any changes in the system boot order? How do you manage this problem?

Which version of Chuwi Hi12 do you have? If it is the dual boot version (like mine) the UEFI has some hardcoded paths for Android and Windows. You can replace them. If you want to override the Android option copy the file bootx64.efi from Linux Mint EFI directory (probably EFI/ubuntu/bootx64.efi) to EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi.

Another option is to disable the boot menu changing some efi variables and override that bootx64.efi with a better bootloader like refind. I built refind with some modifications to be able to use vol up/down keys. I can share it if needed.

Hello rodrigueszst,
thank you for your interessting answer! Yes, my HI12 is a dual boot device, too. I formatted the main memory and installed Windows 10 Home complete new, with having some troubles in finding the right drivers, but in the end everything works fine except of the touch panel. I need to re-install the driver sometimes in order to reset the touch panel. But that’s more or less ok.
I also installed LINUX MINT besides Windows.
I deleted the original boot menu which let me choose Andorid or Windows operating system with SwitchNOW.EXE software.

Would you please explain in more details what you did to get refind working as your new boot manager?
Can I brick my HI12 if I copy something into the wrong place?
It would be great if you would share your file and explain what you did line by line … :slight_smile:

Hello @stesofeu,
Sorry for the delay (busy week at work).

For the installation of refind bootloader you will need to modify your EFI partition. That is something that could make your drive unbootable but could be solved by reinstalling the stock bootloader from Linux LiveCD or Windows Recovery image.

Regarding the SwitchNow.exe, the same functionality can be achieved changing some EFI variables. This can be more dangerous and get your system unbootable. I have messed it up multiple times on mine and it seems that when the tablet cannot boot because of these variables the whole BIOS is reset automatically to default solving the issue, but it could be different on your device.
In order to enable the stock boot menu without SwitchNOW.exe you have to modify the BootSelectVariable-944fb13b-773f-4cbb-9c6f-326cebde4c23 from Linux. It could also be done from EFI shell but as you already have Linux Mint installed it will be easier from Linux.

  • To view the contents of this variable type the following command:
 hexdump -C /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/BootSelectVariable-944fb13b-773f-4cbb-9c6f-326cebde4c23

It will print something like this:

00000000 07 00 00 00 38 04 00 00

The interesting byte is the one with value 04. When set to 00, the boot selection is disabled.

  • To disable the boot menu and boot Linux (the binary at EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi actually. It could be Linux or refind bootloader):
 sudo -s
 chattr -i /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/BootSelectVariable-944fb13b-773f-4cbb-9c6f-326cebde4c23
 printf '\x07\x00\x00\x00\x38\x00\x00\x00' > /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/BootSelectVariable-944fb13b-773f-4cbb-9c6f-326cebde4c23
  • To enable the boot menu:
 sudo -s
 chattr -i /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/BootSelectVariable-944fb13b-773f-4cbb-9c6f-326cebde4c23
 printf '\x07\x00\x00\x00\x38\x04\x00\x00' > /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/BootSelectVariable-944fb13b-773f-4cbb-9c6f-326cebde4c23

Before doing any change I would suggest to use the hexdump command to check the current value of your efi variable (hexdump -C /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/BootSelectVariable-944fb13b-773f-4cbb-9c6f-326cebde4c23) and see if it is similar to mine.

Thank you very much for your reply! :+1:
I made a hexdump of the EFI variable, please see the screenshot below. It seems that the boot selection is disabled (value “00” in 07 00 00 00 02 00 00 00). If I understood your post right, if this “00” is set to “04” the boot selection is enabled?

Well, I cannot guarantee that this will work but if you are willing to take the risk I would set it like this to enable the boot menu:

sudo -s
 chattr -i /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/BootSelectVariable-944fb13b-773f-4cbb-9c6f-326cebde4c23
 printf '\x07\x00\x00\x00\x02\x04\x00\x00' > /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/BootSelectVariable-944fb13b-773f-4cbb-9c6f-326cebde4c23

I will try it this weekend. If it doesn’t work, it should be possible to start the system using an USB stick with LINUX live OS, in order to set the variable back to “00”.

It could be worse than that. You could end up in an infinite boot loop. We cannot know for sure. Nevertheless, in my experience messing with this tablet after several boot loops everything gets reset to default and the tablet is able to boot again.

Yes, I can confirm: If the device is not able to start, it falls back to a defined EFI/BIOS setup and starts with a factory resetted EFI setting. So, I think no problem.

I restarted Windows even after a blue screen which announced something went wrong… :wink:
But even after set the value from 04 to 00, the device doesn’t start Refind or grub, even if I put it in the very first position in the boot order list.
In one special configuration I got even our “38 04 00 00” value…

In my configuration I found the following entries (using EasyEFI, Trial):
\EFI\UBUNTU\GRUBX64.EFI
\EFI\MICROSOFT\BOOT\BOOTMGFW.EFI
\EFI\REFIND\REFIND_X64.EFI
\EFI\UBUNTU\SHIMX64.EFI

(all above mentioned boot managers are shown in Linux with “admin:///boot/efi” as prefix)

Normally the device starts with windows and no OS selection menu is shown.

If I override the boot order with “ubuntu” grub starts and I can select Linux Mint. It very strange, because ubuntu is the very first entry in the boot order list, so grub should be shown every time the device starts…

In the filesystem of Linux I found additionally the following entries:
admin:///boot/efi/EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi
admin:///boot/efi/EFI/Boot/fbx64.efi
admin:///boot/efi/EFI/Boot/mmx64.efi

So, device is not bricked (yet) but also not OS selection menu is shown…

Shall I move the \REFIND\ file (or just all files in \REFIND) to admin:///boot/efi/EFI/Boot/?
Shall I delete the bootx64.efi and rename refindx64.efi to bootx64.efi?
I think, bootx64.efi is the built in boot manager for Android & Windows…

I don’t have my Chuwi with me now so I cannot send you the directory listing of my efi drive. I installed refind some years ago and I keep a backup of the efi directory just in case anything breaks. I cannot remember how I installed it step by step but I think I did it manually by copying the refind_x64.efi to efi/boot/bootx64.efi and the conf files to efi/boot/ directory. The file you have now at efi/boot/bootx64.efi is probably intel’s Android-IA boot loader that came with the device or a grub binary installed by Linux.

EDIT: Looking at the refind-install docs there is an option to do just what we want. Maybe you could try that.

–usedefault device-file

You can install rEFInd to a disk using the default/fallback filename of EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi (as well as EFI/BOOT/bootia32.efi and EFI/BOOT/bootaa64.efi , if the IA-32 and ARM64 builds are available) using this option. The device-file should be an unmounted ESP, or at least a FAT partition, as in –usedefault /dev/sdc1 . Your computer’s NVRAM entries will not be modified when installing in this way. The intent is that you can create a bootable USB flash drive or install rEFInd on a computer that tends to “forget” its NVRAM settings with this option. This option is mutually exclusive with --notesp and --root.

Unfortunately I’m not very familiar with Linux at all. So I just use the application management tool of Linux Mint in order to add or remove software. So firstly I removed refind, but how can I add the -usedefault option ?

Hi Folks

I install on my old CHUWI AeroBook 13.3 Inch Linux Mint 21.1 “Vera” [64-bit]

OS Mint is on the top Linux distros working perfectly…

Best regards folks :smile: