Looking for testers: port for Lenovo Tab M8 HD (TB-8505F)

CaptainTalonAlt

@k.nacke I was still actively testing UT, until I realized the errors on your gitlab (about the 1 gig upload). I will reflash UT tonight and keep testing.
Thanks a lot,
Most Importantly, Did you consider moving to github? or somewhere less limited?

feuersee

@k.nacke

Thank you for your work. I am a new tester. Confirm missing characters. Sometimes character input in terminal repeats endless - till reboot.

CaptainTalonAlt

@k.nacke Re: Looking for testers: port for Lenovo Tab M8 HD (TB-8505F)

So I flashed it, surprisingly, a lot has improved thanks to your efforts.
Waydroid is flawless and working. And the system is pretty stable.
The keyboard characters seems to fix for English (UK), it’s the US keyboard that seems the problem.

I spot one major problem, the back camera is cloudy and blurry. It works, but seems like moisture. Contrary to this, the front camera is actually much better than even Android.
I think fixing the back camera is the last missing piece we might need, though I had only tested this for 3 hours. Will report back with more bugs if necessary

k.nacke

@CaptainTalonAlt said in Looking for testers: port for Lenovo Tab M8 HD (TB-8505F):

Most Importantly, Did you consider moving to github? or somewhere less limited?

I think it is fine now. After compressing the files there seems to be enough room left for the future.

k.nacke

@CaptainTalonAlt Thanks for testing! Sounds all good. The missing characters are strange. I suspect some kind of memory or alignment issue. As soon as I change something in the kernel, the missing characters change.
I have ideas about the camera issue, but this will need some time to fix.

k.nacke

@feuersee Thanks for testing! This character repetition in the terminal is something new. I'll try to reproduce it.

CaptainTalonAlt

@k.nacke Thanks a lot for your efforts and time. Looking for an update.
What's ironic is that, the fron camera in UT is far more better than even the stock rom. Its only the back cam that is cloudy.
Really appreciate it, enjoying its so far.

abdalnablse10

@k.nacke Hey, thank you for your hardwork, I tested the latest artifact and here's my experience with what I tested:

wifi works, usb works.

Libertine works, I installed vlc but failed to go any further because "I'll have difficultly explaining this" you can't click all that you see but you can click some of it, it's like the input layer is misaligned with what's actually visible.

Waydroid works well, not much to point out about it.

Just like how others pointed out, the back camera is foggy but the front one works perfectly.

Missing characters, sometimes black vertical lines.

Offline charging doesn't work, the device gets stuck at the battery booting screen.

bellagon

I've been testing this build, and it works really good! My only problem is that some characters just don't show up, especially q, y, f, g, h, and k.

k.nacke

@abdalnablse10 Thanks for trying. The problem with offline charging seems to be a regression, may be I disabled too much.

The vertical black lines feel like a "off by 1" error in the graphic pipeline. Not sure if I can do something about that.

k.nacke

@bellagon Thanks for trying. Yes, the missing characters are annoying. I still have not found a solution for it.

k.nacke

Updates since my last post:

I disabled more useless kernel features
I had to add some code to keep the pstore feature working
The WLAN and the Bluetooth driver are now compiled into the kernel
The artifacts.zip now contains a vbmeta.img file to simplify the installation

The repo now includes a script to disable the ugly "Orange State" warning. customizelk.py patches the lk.img from the stock ROM to just return from the function which displays the message. This also avoids the additional 5sec wait time. Please note that this is purely cosmetic.

Have fun,
Kai

k.nacke

Latest build fixes the vertical black lines which can be seen sometimes.

tigerfoot

@k.nacke Just to present myself, new owner of a branch new (never started) M8 TB-8505X 2G/32G -CH

Receive the "beast" this afternoon, and now charging (build in 2022, and never started since)

I'm still crawling the different information, especially the first steps. Doing OSS support for leaving, I'm not afraid to help, and should be also able to provide some merge request in gitlab (doc, test whaever I can)

My question for the moment is more like any newcomer:
Ok I got the device, what is the next step ?

Shall I spend a few time to grab the lenovo support assistant and stock image
Shall I do a backup of the existing rom ? but how to do that

btw I'm using openSUSE Tumbleweed as daily and don't have any windows (except on VM),

My main objective with this tablet, will be transfer from my action cam sd card to a luks external nvme ssd all the nice road I'm riding with my bike.

If I can browse internet a bit with, that would be a plus, if I can connect remotely my main computer with ssh and terminal great ...

Hope to get in touch (no joke here ...)

k.nacke

@tigerfoot The TB-8505X has the 4G interface, which is missing in the current kernel. Other than that it should work fine. Not sure if this fits your use case...
I can provide a boot image with a kernel having the additional driver compiled in, but mot likely would need your help with debugging the ofono configuration (in case you are interested in helping to get 4G working).

sd cards works, surfing via wifi works too. IMHO it feels faster than Android, but do not expect wonders.

tigerfoot

@k.nacke Thanks for the proposal, I will first start to install (which will be the challenge like any first time

For the 4G I will normally used my phone shared connection (bluetooth or wifi).
But why not helping once my yearly trip will end.

Shall I first start to initialize the tablet with its android, or can I start directly to flash and boot Linux ?

harmhero

I have a M8 FHD, not sure if it's the same. Would love to try this out. Sorry, bit of a Linux noob here, but would it mean I could run Steam on my tablet?

Moem

@harmhero said:

I have a M8 FHD, not sure if it's the same.

Usually: no, it has to be exactly the same device.

k.nacke

@harmhero No, the M8 FHD is a different device. It has a different CPU, a different LCD, and more RAM. I actually own a M8 FHD device, and I like to support that device, too. However, I am currently busy with writing another book, so most likely this will not happen before late summer.

Kai

itsjusthim

@k.nacke im finally back with the tablet, can you teach me how to port a device