WeTab Ubuntu Installation

So I've finally had the time to open up my WeTab again and start fiddling around with it. Actually I had sort of given up on the WeTab a bit, especially after the seeing the Bookman reader on IPad work so beautifully and then comparing that with the readers for WeTab...they don't compare unfortunately. Additionally the performance of the OS leaves a lot to be desired.

In any case, I've made my peace with the WeTab and started caring for it once more. So here without ado, I explain how I went about installing Ubuntu on it.

1- Download the NetBook Remix 10.10 iso (Maverick)
2- Download the Universal Ubuntu USB installer on a windows machine (You could also use Ubuntu to do it, refer to the link I provide below).
3- Download GParted Live (USB version)
4- Make available a USB flash drive, preferably with an LED light
5- USB Mouse and Keyboard (preferably wireless with one receiver to make things easier otherwise you will be doing quite a bit of plugging and inserting)
First off you will need to put GParted on the flash drive (http://gparted.sourceforge.net/liveusb.php#linux-method-b).

Now you should be ready to repartition your WeTab Flash Drive. To do this, connect your USB Flash to the USB port on your WeTab and boot from the USB drive.

To boot from the USB disk is kind of tricky, have a look at the developer page: http://wetab.mobi/en/developers/downloads-and-howtos/
(HowTo – Install WeTab OS with Recovery USB Boot Stick)

Basically you turn on the Wetab and then as soon as you see the blue led in the top left corner light up, press both the power-button and the quicktouch button (top left corner) together for approximately 1 second. It takes a bit of practice to get that just right so don't give up if it doesn't work right away but what should happen then is that your GParted Live should boot up from the USB flash drive.

You can use the quicktouch button on the upper left corner of the WeTab to browse through the Boot menu for Gparted. One touch switches between the option, if you hold down on the quicktouch button, it selects the entry. I chose "other modes of Gparted" and then "Run from RAM or memory", this way you can pull out the USB flash drive once it is done loading up the OS.

Once you're in GParted you will want to started up the GParted application (if it doesn't automatically load up). Select the sda3 partition (the biggest one) and then Resize. My WeTab has 32GB, So I resized mine to allow 8 GB for Ubuntu.

It should take about 15 minutes to resize the partitions.

Once that is done you should create a USB Installer for Ubuntu, just follow the directions on http://www.ubuntu.com/netbook/get-ubuntu/download where it says Create a USB Drive (click show me how).

Again now, just like we had booted up the GParted image off of our USB flash, you should boot up the Ubuntu Installer from the flash drive.

Once it loads up and asks you to Try or Install, choose Install Ubuntu. Follow along on the screens to come. When it asks you where you would like to Install the system, choose "Install along side another OS". At this point you can just let it go on and do it's thing however, the bootloader will be replaced and you will get Ubuntu's GRUB if you reboot. I chose instead the "Manual" option and basically clicked on the unallocated space, created an ext3 partition and marked it as / (root) for Ubuntu to install on it. On the bottom where it asks you where the Bootloader should go, I selected sda4 which is the new partition we created earlier.

Go ahead and Install Ubuntu and then once it is done, restart and go into your original WeTab Os.

You must now modify the extlinux.conf file under /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf in order to load up Ubuntu.

Add the following lines at the bottom of you extlinux.conf

label Ubuntu
menu label ^Ubuntu
KERNEL chain.c32
APPEND hd0 4

Notice the Append tells extlinux that the logical partition sought for booting is on harddrive 0 and partition 4 (/dev/sda4), where we installed Ubuntu along with it's own GRUB loader.

Next we need to modify the GRUB settings for our Ubuntu installation to enable the touchscreen. Restart the machine and go into your Ubuntu install from the bootup menu (use the quicktouch button to select the Ubuntu install).

Once you are inside Ubuntu, open up a terminal session (click the ubuntu button on the top left corner, type "terminal" in the search bar and then double click the icon when it shows up.

Now to enable the touchscreen we must follow Samiux's and W3C's directions (http://samiux.blogspot.com/2010/07/howto-ubuntu-1004-on-gigabyte-touchnote.html and http://digitalorchard.blogspot.com/2010/12/wetabos-to-pure-meego.html but follow along don't do what is on those pages, I'll cut and paste here).

First off you want to change the GRUB loading parameters as Samiux describes, but you need to follow W3C's advice regarding the correct hexadecimal value to add in. So first do an lsusb:

$>lsusb
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 002: ID 04d9:a015 Holtek Semiconductor, Inc.
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 0eef:72a1 D-WAV Scientific Co., Ltd
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 004: ID 04f2:b213 Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 12d1:1404 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

note the ID value and place the same values as follows in your GRUB configuration file, Grub 2.o uses a cfg file so go to your /etc/default/grub and modify it to look like the following.

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash i8042.noloop=1 usbhid.quirks=0xeef:0x72a1:0x40"

Finally, you should copy the Xorg calibration files from the original WeTab Os to your Ubuntu install (actually I am not sure if this step is needed):

$>sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/
$> sudo mkdir /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d
$>sudo cp /mnt/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/99-calibration.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d

Now I will make note also that I had updated my utouch drivers as follows but I believe the above will work regardless, if you have any feedback please post it below. I suggest you try the above first and if it doesn't work, then do the below.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:utouch-team/utouch
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:utouch-team/unstable

sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get update

Finally, you should start the virtual keyboard onboard:

$>onboard

You will notice the "onboard" icon on the left toolbar. Right-click the icon and select "Keep in launcher", also open preferences and check "show keyboard when unlocking".

Cheers!


UPDATE 26 FEB 2011:
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The above installation enables only single touch, to enable multitouch on Ubuntu on WeTab, please see: http://wetabz.blogspot.com/2011/02/more-about-touchsceen-and-multitouch.html