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

k.nacke

@Lesharoturbo No idea. The artefacts are build with Focal, and I never noted missing letters. However, when building for Noble I see a couple of missing characters. I do not have EGL fully working, this could be the cause.

Lesharoturbo

@k.nacke thanks for your hard work.

voodoojaza

Looking at the specs for this tablet gets me somewhat curious, if you manage to get this tablet port into a functional state (fingers crossed) would you consider porting the different variations the Lenovo series of tablets such as my own M10 2nd generation tablet 2gb 32gb version (Which can run UT after installing android 11 apparently) or the m11 tb-330.

k.nacke

@voodoojaza My plan is to finish the port of the Tab M8 HD, and then try the Tab M8 FHD. I own both tablets, and my main motivation is that with Ubuntu Touch the tablets seem usable. At least the UI reacts fast. Android is a pain on those devices.
Porting without the hardware is not possible, and while I think that it should be easier to get a port for the M8 3rd gen and M8 4th gen after finishing the current port I am not sure that I am willing to spend money for such low end devices.

With the existing ports for the M10 it should be possible to get the other M10 models working rather fast. I looked into the M11 because that tablet is somewhat similar to the M8, however Lenovo did not publish the kernel sources for it. So yeah, not really motivated for that.

MrT10001

@k.nacke Thats great, thats what I thought, something to try when I get time. Keep up the good work.

MrT10001

Is there a recovery image yet or is the RAM size creating limitations?

MrT10001

@k.nacke That worked. My 8505F is now running UT, albeit slowly, but better than Android.

Steps to reiterate (Using Windows 11 - )

Unlock bootloader = ./fastboot flashing unlock

Reboot into Android, set it up etc.

./fastboot flash boot boot.img
./fastboot --disable-verification flash vbmeta vbmeta.img

("using the vbmeta.img from the stock rom (downloaded with the Lenovo Rescue and Smart Assistant).")

./fastboot flash system ubuntu.img
./fastboot flash dtbo dtbo.img (don't know if this is necessary)
./fastboot -w (It will error here, ignore).
./fastboot reboot

k.nacke

@MrT10001 Thanks! That is great news!

./fastboot -w (It will error here, ignore).

That error should go away when you cd into the directory with the stock rom files first.

MrT10001

@k.nacke I will try that next time as I have acquired another one. Can I add the above to the readme on your Gitlab so any one else who is interested can follow it? (I tried but it forks, so I left it and thought I had better ask). Great work on this one. I am playing with scaling as it was scaled at 16 and I thought that was scrambling text, but even at 12 some text is missing (using the Tweak tool).

k.nacke

@MrT10001 I added you as developer to the repository. Feel free to change the readme.

MrT10001

@k.nacke Readme updated and awaiting merge.

k.nacke

@MrT10001 said in Looking for testers: port for Lenovo Tab M8 HD (TB-8505F):

@k.nacke I am playing with scaling as it was scaled at 16 and I thought that was scrambling text, but even at 12 some text is missing (using the Tweak tool).

This is one area for which I really need feedback. This is not only my first port, it is the first time I see Ubuntu Touch on a real device. E.g. the icons may be too large....

Lesharoturbo

@k.nacke I also had a scaling issue and set it to 12.

The nursing chargers were fixed by reviewing. I have not had that issue since.

MrT10001

@k.nacke It seems ok after a reboot.

Lesharoturbo

Missing characters

itsjusthim

This works on Lenovo tab M8 TB-8505X 2/32 only issue was only in fastboot it said no more system flash size more than 3gb so i used mtkclient and now it works perfectly

itsjusthim

My imei wont show, missing characters and partial display support(when yall spam ubuntu button you can see black lines)

k.nacke

@itsjusthim Thanks for trying.
The kernel misses the telephony support, which causes the imei not showing up. I only own the F model, so I cannot help with this. (n case you would like to try yourself, replace akita_row_wifi with akita_row_call in the deviceinfo file, and in all overlay files, and build the all img files. This will enable the missing kernel support, but more might be missing.)
I am still working on the grahics issues.

CaptainTalon

@k.nacke Just installed UT.
The issue with this is that waydroid, just doesnt work. I got it to setup, but It spams about sensor not found. I left it for a good 30 minutes, but, it could not recover from that.
apart from that, the only other issue I could see is that the back camera is very cloudy and any photos is barely understandable.
Apart from that, the UT itself is great and working minus the videos which you addressed.
I am open for more testing, please feel free to push a development update. thanks a lot though.

itsjusthim

@k.nacke ok i mmight try i was busy these days but if i find out how to do this i will try thanks