Focal and Waydroid news for Lenovo X605

Luksus

@resonus if you can, try to compile the qdl utility by yourself and use this version.
That worked for me when I had issues with precompiled qdl packages.
You can follow this guide:
https://github.com/96boards/documentation/blob/master/consumer/guides/qdl.md

Resonus

@luksus
Tried a couple of things, got the same error using the compiled qdl utility.
So I thought I'd try a different machine entirely. I have a spare Pi hanging around, gave it a fresh install and installed qdl and curiously got the exact same error.
Waiting for EDL device
*** buffer overflow detected ***: terminated
Aborted
At least I'm consistent!
L.

Luksus

@resonus I tried to write down my step on flashing the X605 here:
https://forums.ubports.com/post/71223

Please lets move the discussion there, if you have further questions regarding qdl.

muskist

@luksus
Thanks for the instructions!
Is it possible to do this on a 2GB-device? The device can't be booted to recovery if it's a UT-recovery. But is that even necessary?

Luksus

@muskist No, recovery is not necessary.
You can flash boot and system partitions on the 2GB version too.
You just won't get ever OTA updates for it.

muskist

@luksus
Thanks! I'll give it a try.

muskist

@luksus
Installed it and it booted!

How did you install waydroid? The old way:

sudo -s
mount -o remount,rw /
apt update
apt install waydroid -y
waydroid init

?

Luksus

@muskist no, waydroid is already installed.

just do sudo waydroid init or use the waydroid helper app.

muskist

@luksus
Thx!

muskist

@luksus
Sadly I get command not found when doing sudo waydroid init

Sure Waydroid is installed? Or is it not in $PATH?

Luksus

@muskist thats strange, are you sure you downloaded and installed the Focal build and not Xenial?
I am sure, that waydroid should be installed as default and accessible from the terminal.

muskist

@luksus said in Focal and Waydroid news for Lenovo X605:

@muskist thats strange, are you sure you downloaded and installed the Focal build and not Xenial?

Good question! I was able to install TELEports for 20.04 (v1.17.1) so I thought it's 20.04.

But UT Tweak Tool told me it's 16.04.7 LTS. And Waydroid didn't show up.

So I downloaded the artifacts.zip again from the link you gave above. I chose the latest one saying "passed" and "devel-flashable: archive". Maybe that's the wrong one?

EDIT: Just saw it: "devel-flashable:archive" != "devel-flashable-focal:archive" - sorry for the fuss! I'll try again.

Still wondering about TELEports v1.17.1 ...

Luksus

@muskist yes, the latest build is marked as canceled, but I just canceled the xenial build, you can still download the flashable-focal zip.

I know it is a little bit confusing.

muskist

@luksus
Unfortunately it doesn't work.

After flashing boot.img and ubuntu.img and doing fastboot reboot
the device gets stuck in a loop:

starting with vibration
showing the "Lenovo" screen for about 40 seconds
screen goes dark
starting with vibration
showing the "Lenovo" screen for about 40 seconds
...

I suppose you did it on a 3GB/32GB device?
Maybe it's the known unsuitability of the 2GB/16GB device.

I will stop trying unless you have another tip. But please don't waste your time on this! You're doing great work on the 3GB/32GB device (and I have one of those, too )!

muskist

@muskist said in Focal and Waydroid news for Lenovo X605:

@luksus
Unfortunately it doesn't work.

Success!
I flashed boot.img from artifacts.zip for 16.04 and ubuntu.img for 20.04. Device booted, starting 20.04 afterwards.
"Ein blindes Huhn findet auch mal ein Korn" - German saying, meaning "A blind hen also finds a grain of corn once in a while" (according to deepl.com).

Made my weekend.

Luksus

@muskist said in Focal and Waydroid news for Lenovo X605:

I flashed boot.img from artifacts.zip for 16.04 and ubuntu.img for 20.04. Device booted, starting 20.04 afterwards.

Interesting, since boot.img should be be the same for both...

@muskist said in Focal and Waydroid news for Lenovo X605:

"Ein blindes Huhn findet auch mal ein Korn"

Der war mir neu

muskist

@Luksus said in Focal and Waydroid news for Lenovo X605:

there are first working focal-builds for the X605.
Who want's to try it, needs to download the devel-flashable-focal:archive of the latest focal branch build, from this site:
https://gitlab.com/ubports/porting/community-ports/android9/lenovo-tab-m10-fhd/lenovo-x605/-/pipelines

Is it possible to try and flash the latest devel-flashable-focal:archive, e.g. #860314125 from "three months ago"?

Does it even make sense? You are constantly improving, I suppose.

Luksus

@muskist I just started a new build, so that you can try the latest devel focal build.

But I am currently not working on it, because I need the tablet in a usable state (with android).
So the only missing feature (I know of) is still the camera.

muskist

@Luksus Thanks, got it installed (after the usual boot problems). Everything seems to work fine (except camera).

gzagatti

@Luksus Thanks for putting this port together! What a tremendous effort!

First, I installed Ubuntu Touch with UBPorts installer. After installation, I realized that it came with Ubuntu Touch xenial which was slightly disappointing. Apart from this, the UBPorts installer was really helpful in showing me the ropes.

Next, I found your Git repo with the source code. I saw that there was a branch to build Ubuntu Touch focal. I managed to build the whole thing after a few issues. However, when it came to flashing the image to my device it didn't work. I managed to get past the Lenovo boot screen but my installation got stuck forever on the Ubuntu Touch loading screen.

Finally, I found this thread which saved my day. Thanks for sharing the link with the pre-built versions of Ubuntu Touch focal. I was then finally able to successfully install the OS on my device.

The last step of the installation is the trickiest one. Like @muskist, everything seems to work fine, except for the camera which was expected.

One last thing, I also faced the usual boot problems. I would like to understand the flashing steps on the README file better. The main branch includes the following line.

fastboot format:ext4 userdata

But the focal branch doesn't. Could you clarify whether this line should be added to focal.

After I followed the flash instruction of the focal README file, I couldn't boot. So, I restarted the device in bootmode and issued the following additional commands.

fastboot format:ext4 userdata
fastboot -w
fastboot flash boot out/boot.img

Then, there was a lot of turning on and off --- including in bootmode --- until it magically booted to Ubuntu Touch. I wish I could say what the right incantation of flash commands was, but I can't.