Installing MeeGo Images on WeTab Tablet

Latest revision as of 15:21, 21 September 2011

Warning: the Pinetrail image running on the WeTab has some problems as of 1/6/2011. See below. Warning: as with any other device, if you incorrectly reflash the bootloader or kernel, you may brick your system.

What is needed

1. A WeTab with power cable 2. sudo/root access on the WeTab 3. Two USB flash drives, one with a mountable filesystem already on it 4. A USB keyboard and mouse 5. Another Linux system for writing to the USB drives

Creating a bootable MeeGo drive

1. Plug the WeTab into the mains. You do not want the unit powering off or sleeping while you are reflashing!

2. Download pinetrail image from the [ http://repo.meego.com/MeeGo/builds/ repo ]. I used meego-handset-ia32-pinetrail-mtf-1.1.80.13.20110105.1.img:

     wget http://repo.meego.com/MeeGo/builds/1.1.80/1.1.80.13.20110105.1/handset/images/meego-handset-ia32-pinetrail-mtf/meego-handset-ia32-pinetrail-mtf-1.1.80.13.20110105.1.img

3. Follow [ http://meego.com/devices/netbook/installing-meego-your-netbook instructions ] for using image-writer to create a bootable image on one of the USB drives (Drive 1 hereafter).

Modifying the WeTab's bootloader

References: [ http://digitalorchard.blogspot.com/2010/12/wetabos-to-pure-meego.html 1] [ http://wetabz.blogspot.com/2010/10/using-plop-boot-manager.html 2 ]

4. Now that you have a bootable image on Drive 1, you need to modify the WeTab's bootloader to boot from USB. First download the latest version of plpbt. I used plpbt-5.0.11:

     wget http://download.plop.at/files/bootmngr/plpbt-5.0.13.zip

5. Unzip the archive and copy the resulting files plpbt.bin and plpbt.img to the second FLASH drive (hereafter called Drive 2).

6. Plug Drive 2 into the WeTab. From the WeTab's application launcher screen, choose the terminal window icon. Then:

     cd /boot/extlinux
     sudo cp /media/<your drive name>/plpbt.bin .
     sudo cp -p extlinux.conf extlinux.conf_dist
     cp extlinux.conf_dist /media/<your drive name>
     umount /media/<your drive name>

7. Remove Drive 2 and plug it into the second Linux system. Then

     cp /media/<your drive name>/extlinux.conf /tmp
     <text editor of your choice> /tmp/extlinux.conf

At the top of the file, change the lines that set "prompt" and "timeout":

     prompt 1
     timeout 15

Remove "quiet" where is appears on "append" lines and comment out "menu hidden". Insert the following text at the top of the list of bootable images:

     label plp
     linux plpbt.bin

Note that the exact syntax may change (the names of files may change, for example) as plpbt releases new versions. Check that the file permissions of the new extlinux.conf match those of extlinux.conf_dist. Save the extlinux.conf file and

     sudo cp /tmp/extlinux.conf /media/<your drive name>
     eject /media/<your drive name>

8. Plug Drive 2 into the WeTab, and from its shell prompt type

     sudo cp -p /media/<your drive name>/extlinux.conf /boot/extlinux
     umount /media/<your drive name>

Remove Drive 2. You are finished with it.

Install MeeGo onto the WeTab

Note: The following procedure did not work well with a USB hub, probably because plpbt comes with an old version of the EHCI drivers. For best results, insert USB drives into the WeTab's top connector and plug the keyboard directly into the bottom one. Keyboard functionality in plpbt is hit-or-miss, but the soft button always works.

9. Plug Drive 1 with the Pinetrail image into the USB drive.

10. Power the WeTab off. Power on, and while the blue LED is flashing, cover the soft button (circular sensor in upper left-hand corner of the surface to the left of the blue LED).

11. The plop bootloader with its green 1970s-era font will display. Tap the soft button to advance downward. Hold the soft button to select "USB."

12. The system should now come up in the MeeGo installer. Plug in the USB keyboard.

13. Choose "installation" or "live-boot" as suits you. Use the USB keyboard (or soft button) to make selections, as the touchscreen is not working! Sometimes it's possible to advance screens with carriage-return; at other places Alt-F will move Forward. Follow the installation instructions.

If the USB keyboard does not work, you can still use the soft button, just as in the plop bootloader. Tap it to highlight the next item. Hold it down to boot. Be careful though: unlike in the plop bootmenu, once you select the bottom-most item, you cannot go back up!

14. If you have installed MeeGo, you'll reach a screen which tells you to remove the flash drive and reboot. After removing the flash drive, plug in the USB mouse. At this point I got an X11 error indicating that the screen settings weren't detected; just ignore it, as the problem is temporary. Once MeeGo (or WeTab OS) comes up, devices plugged into a USB hub will function once more.

15. Reboot the system. You should now see the MeeGo UX launcher. Congratulations, you have installed MeeGo!

Problems

1. The touchscreen is unresponsive. (Presumably this is a driver problem. See also bug 9524 )

2. The UX launcher image does not utilize the whole display, which is unsurprising since Pinetrail is a handset image. (Presumably this problem is fixable with xrandr.)

3. The build comes with the ath3k driver rather than the ath9k one that the modem requires.

Related Links

• Discussion in the WeTab Community Forum
• Discussion in the official Meego Forum