Update kernel on FatDog for Bay Trail device

[pupp_overflow]

Hello
I'm quite a novice linux user, and even more with puppy, so maybe what I'm asking doesn't make much sense.

I've tested FatDog64 811 on my Intel Bay Trail based tablet with Atom Z3735F CPU and it runs very well (for what I can tell), I'm just facing a few issues.

1. The most important issue is the screen backlight, I can't control it, it's always at max brightness (but function keys are "working" I can see brightup and brightdown text appearing on screen).

2. No audio, found link to drivers on github

3. I have a problem with the internal micro sd-card reader always mounted as read-only partition

Maybe these problems can be fixed with kernel upgrade? Is it possible to upgrade the actual kernel in FatDog64 811 to 5.8 or more? If it's not a silly thing to do, where can I find documentation on how to do this?

I ask this because in my research I've found a few people stating that with kernel 5.8 and newer linux support for Bay Trail has improved*, and maybe some issues I'm facing right now are fixed in newer kernels.

Thank you all, cheers!

\* unfortunately only source I can find again right now is this reddit thread but I've encountered more on other forums threads that I can't find ATM.
https://teddit.net/r/FindMeADistro/comm ... fwj25vq/#c

[rockedge]

Question, does the FatDog kernel include AUFS?

[step]

yes

[step]

Hi @pupp_overflow

Kernel
------

5.4.60 is the most recent complete kernel compiled for Fatdog64. (The kernel online folder is http://distro.ibiblio.org/fatdog/kernels/810/).
Linux kernels can be _built_ a.k.a. _compiled_ from source. This process is complicated enough that I wouldn't advise a novice Linux user to do it.
Compiled kernels can be used to _upgrade_ the current kernel. Answer #26 in this page http://distro.ibiblio.org/fatdog/web/faqs/faq.html outlines the upgrade procedure. Of course, you need to find a replacement kernel first. That kernel _must_ be built with aufs support.

Sound
-----

The link you provided leads to some configuration files not a driver. You can try installing those files and see if they make a difference.
Follow instructions at the link you gave, https://github.com/plbossart/UCM/tree/master/bytcr-rt5640: notice the bytcr-rt5640 folder - that is what you need. Ignore the note about pulseaudio as Fatdog64 doesn't use pulseaudio.

Basically, copy that folder and its contents into /usr/share/alsa/ucm in Fatdog64, then reboot. I can't test whether it actually makes any difference because I don't have any bay trail hardware.

Brightness
----------

First of all, open a terminal window and type this command:

Code: Select all

brighness-set 30

and press ENTER. Does the screen get darker? Does the terminal print any error message? Try also

Code: Select all

USE_XBACKLIGHT=yes brightness-set 30

Same questions.

You can replace 30 with a number between 1 and 100. It's a percentage of the brightness total range.

If the screen does get darker, perhaps yours brightness buttons step increment is set too small so you would need to press the button more times to see any difference. Though I think it's unlikely.

[pupp_overflow]

Thank you for your answer!

I'll check the faq you pointed at me and try the kernel procedure as soon as possible, same thing for the sound.

As for the brightness issue unfortunately nothing happened with both commands, the screen keeps the same max brightness, no error or other output printed in the terminal.

[step]

@pupp_overflow, forum member Duprate recently reported success using kernel 5.11.6 on Fatdog64 in this post.

[stemsee]

uname.png (5.37 KiB) Viewed 990 times

Here is kerenl 5.11.7-lxpup64
i've been using it successfullly on my chromebook with fd-811. I have included a substantial firmware package.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LuNbL1 ... uS0DuBKzUC

[Duprate]

Helo! Lately, I stopped compiling the kernel for my PC. I have been following Peebee's work. It makes a great compilation, it is very fast and it keeps everything up to date. Works on AUFS and Overlayfs systems. I'm using it on Fatdog64 and also on DebianDog64 Bullseye (viewtopic.php?f=46&t=1857)

The version currently in use is: 5.11.11-lxpup64 from 30 March 2021 (viewtopic.php?f=7&t=124&p=21444&hilit=5 ... p64#p21444)

[pupp_overflow]

Thanks a lot everybody, I've been quite busy and wanted to try couple more things before reporting back on this. Unfortunately not the results I hoped for, but maybe I'm missing something or I guess not everything can be achieved with this old tablet. I'll keep you posted!

[dimkr]

woof-CE now has automated weekly builds of updated longterm kernels at https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/w ... el-kit.yml. The automated builds of Puppy now use these kernels (i.e. every woof-CE built Puppy that uses 5.4.x, now takes an updated kernel from here).

For example, you can grab the latest 5.4.x and 5.10.x at https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/w ... #artifacts (haven't tested these kernels against Fatdog).

[pupp_overflow]

Hey everybody!

In these days I've tried to fix the problems I've met. Unfortunately I hadn't much time so it took quite a bit.

I've tried to dabble with kernels but realized the whole thing is still a bit over my head, some things are not clear to me, maybe in another time I'll ask you again for your benevolence in helping a clueless pupper.
So I decided to test the kernel updated theory by directly using the last complete iso released from peebee which used kernel 5.10.
With kernel 5.10 I saw that none of the issues got fixed, so this inded confirmed it's some incompatibilities releated to this specific device (or at least I think so).

Searching more I've finally found new hope in some comments in a gist on github. Funny thing is I've already found this gist some time ago, but boy didn't expect the comments to be so valuable and that a discussion for this device continued quite some years after!

So here are some findings:

• The reading sd-card readonly issue got fixed with a boot parameter! (I've updated also my previous thread on this)
  "sdhci.debug_quirks=0x10000"
  Do you have any considerations about some unexpected side effects with this param on? Thanks to apinela!

• In the gist comments It's pointed that here a kindred spirit did what I can understand is a kernel patch and posted the contents here https://fedorapeople.org/_jwrdegoede/acer-sw10-sw5-012/ . So now I just need to understand how to apply this to current FDog kernel XD.
  In the mean time I've sidestepped this with xrandr but ofc the battery consumption is unaffected, eyestrain improved a bit at least.

• Sound still doesn't work even with those config installed. I've quickly used FDog Speaker Test program but either gives an error "Playback open error: -22, Invalid argument" with selected cards "bytcrrt5640", or gives no output toggling between "0 - unknown" and "1 - unknown". I've found several hints around this problem but still need to do some test.

I'm facing a couple new issues that are software related so I will open a new thread for them.

Thank you all for your inputs and help, my journey for this puppy tablet continue!