Re: [gentoo-user] help installing Gentoo on Asus Transformer T101HA

[Stefano Crocco]

On venerdì 29 dicembre 2017 03:40:46 CET Daniel Frey wrote:
> On 12/28/17 12:36, Stefano Crocco wrote:
> > Hello to everyone,
> > I'm trying to install Gentoo on an Asus Transformer T101HA and there are
> > some issues I'd need help with.
> >
> > First of all, I must say that many things worked fairly easily. I
> > performed
> > the installation from a SysrescueCD USB stick where almost everything,
> > including WiFi and touchscreen, worked out of the box (aside from having
> > to
> > find out how to rotate the screen, both in X and in framebuffer).
> >
> > After installing everything (of course, compiling all packages on my
> > desktop machine), there are still some things which don't work. One is
> > the touch screen but, given that it worked using the SysrescueCD stick,
> > I'm not worried too much about it (besides, I'm not planning to use it
> > much).
> >
> > The most troublesome issues, right now, are the sound card and the SD card
> > reader. Both of them simply don't seem to exist: they didn't work with the
> > SysrescueCD stick, I can't find any mention of either of them in the
> > output of dmesg, lspci and lsusb and Google gave pratically no answer.
> > I'm starting to think neither of them is supported with Linux but I
> > haven't been able to find any definitive information about this. I tried
> > activating all kernel options I could find which seemed vaguely related
> > to them, but to no effect.
> >
> > Unfortunately, I haven't been able even to find out the exact models of
> > the
> > cards. All I know is that (according to Windows 10) the sound card is an
> > Intel SSt Audio Device (WDM), while the codec is a Realtek I2S Audio
> > Codec. I have no information at all on the SD card reader. The
> > motherboard, according to lshw, is a T101HA by AUSTeK.
> >
> > I attach my last version of the kernel config (using gentoo-sources-4.14.9
> > which, I just found out, now seems to be masked).
> >
> > I'd be glad for any hint about these issues. I spent all of this afternoon
> > trying to solve them and I can't really think what else I could try.
> >
> > Thanks in advance
> >
> > Stefano
>
> Hmm, after googling it seems some of those Transformer models are not
> linux friendly. There are reports of no driver for the SD card reader
> and models earlier than yours needed firmware to use the sound card.
>
> You might be able to use hints from:
>
> https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Asus/T100TA
>
> to get the sound working, even though the model is older than yours.
>
> Dan

Thanks for the answer.
Unfortunately, the hints on the page you linked didn't work. The firmware on 
that page is already included in linux-firmware (unless I'm missing something, 
of course). I tried compiling it in the kernel, but with no result. I believe 
the problem is something other than missing firmware, because I see no messages 
about failures to load firmware in dmes. 

I just noticed there are some audio-related messages in dmesg which I hadn't 
noticed before:

[drm] HDaudio controller not detected, using LPE audio instead
cht-bsw-rt5645: ASoC: CODEC DAI snd-soc-dummy-dai not registered
cht-bsw-rt5645: snd_soc_register_card failed -517

I don't know whether they're significant or they're spurious messages caused by 
my including every possible sound card drivers in the kernel.

I fear you're right about this Transformer not being linux friendly: I just 
found out that it doesn't recognize the power button, either. 

I think right now I need a break from this machine: I've alread spent about 
three days working on it and I have other things to do. I'll try to rebuild a 
kernel from scratch in a few days; in the meanwhile I'll use it as it is.

Thanks again

Stefano