The Asus Transformer Book is a tablet/notebook device with a 10 inch touchscreen display, a keyboard and touchpad, and an Intel Atom Z3740 Bay Trail processor. It ships with Windows 8.1 software, and it works pretty well as a Windows tablet, notebook, or even desktop PC.

But what if you want to use a different operating system? Sure, you can do that too.

t100 linux_01

I was able to take Ubuntu 13.04 Linux for a spin on the Asus Transformer Book T100. At this point, bunch of key features don’t work yet, including WiFi or touchscreen support — and the screen resolution is stuck at 800 x 600 pixels. Ubuntu 13.10 won’t boot.

But I suspect it won’t take developers long to figure out how to get Ubuntu and other operating systems to support the Transformer Book’s hardware.

As of late October, 2013 it’s actually pretty tricky to convince the Asus Transformer Book T100 to boot anything other than Windows 8.1. It’s easy to get to the Windows advanced boot options or the UEFI firmware options and spot the options that should let you boot a different operating system from external storage. But most operating systems won’t boot, and will instead just dump you back into the Windows bootloader.

But developer paperWastage discovered that CloneZilla did boot. So by figuring out what made the CloneZilla image special, paperWastage figured out how to boot Ubuntu Linux.

You can find detailed instructions at the xda-developers forum, but here’s a simplified list of steps I took to create a bootable USB flash drive using a Windows PC.

Warning: Note that these steps might not work for everyone — and if you accidentally end up with a computer that won’t boot, I’ll offer some troubleshooting tips, but you’re entirely responsible for breaking (and hopefully fixing) your own device.

Preparing a bootable Ubuntu 13.04 USB flash drive

1. Download ubuntu-13.04-desktop-amd64.iso from the Ubuntu download page. Newer versions of Ubuntu don’t yet seem to work.

2. Download Rufus, a tool for creating bootable USB drives.

3. Download and unzip paperWastage’s bootia32.ubuntu_13.04_x64.zip file.

4. Plug a 1GB or larger USB flash drive into your computer.

5. Double-click the Rufus file you downloaded to launch the utility.

6. Choose the drive letter for the flash drive you jut plugged in under the “Device” drop-down menu.

7. Use the following settings: GPT partition scheme, FAT file system, 64 kilobyte cluster size.

8. Make sure the box that says “Create a bootable disk using” is checked, and choose “ISO Image” and click the drive icon on the right to open an Explorer window and find your Ubuntu 64-bit disk image.

rufus

9. Click start.

At this point, your computer will format the flash drive (and erase any data that’s already on it — so make sure to backup any important files) and prepare it as a bootable drive that lets you run or install Ubuntu.

When the process is complete, move on to the next step.

10. Open an Explorer window and navigate to the newly prepared flash drive.

11. There should be a folder labeled “EFI.” Click it to open that folder. Then click the folder labeled “BOOT” to navigate to that folder.

12. Copy the bootia32.efi file from step 3 into this folder (make sure you’ve unzipped it first).

That’s it. Your flash drive is now ready. Go ahead and eject it from your PC.

Booting Ubuntu on the Asus Transformer Book T100

The first thing we need to do is disable secure boot on the Transformer Book. That’s pretty easy to do, with these steps. Note that you can complete these steps with the USB drive plugged in or without it — but I had a bit more luck without it.

1. Swipe from the right side of the screen to bring up the Charms menu.

2. Tap “Settings.”

3. Choose the “Change PC settings” option at the bottom.

4. On the following screen tap “Update and recovery.”

5. At the next screen, choose “recovery.”

6. Under the Advanced startup section, choose “Restart now.”

advanced startup

7. This will reboot your device to a blue screen with large icons. Choose the one that says Troubleshoot.

8. At the following screen choose “Advanced Options.”

advanced startup_02

9. Next, select “UEFI Firmware Settings.

10. Finally hit the “Restart” button.

This will reboot your device into the UEFI settings area, which looks like an old-school BIOS menu. The touchscreen and touchpad won’t work here, but you can navigate using the arrow keys and enter key on the keyboard.

11. Use the arrow keys to get to the Security tab.

12. Scroll down to Secure Boot menu and hit “Enter.

13. Make sure Secure Boot Support is selected, and hit Enter again to bring up a screen that says “Enabled” or “Disabled.”

14. Choose Disabled and hit enter.

15. Hit the Esc key.

Now Secure Boot is disabled. You could theoretically save and exit at this point. But instead, this is the time when I’d recommend plugging in the USB flash drive.

Once it’s plugged in, move on to the next step.

16. Move over to the Save & Exit tab, highlight “Save Changes and Exit” and hit Enter.

17. As the system reboots, press and hold the F2 key so that you return to the UEFI Settings menu.

18. This time when you navigate to the Save & Exit menu you should see an option under Boot Override that says “UEFI” and has the name of your USB flash drive.

19. Select that boot override option and hit enter.

If all goes according to plan, your device should now boot into a GRUB bootloader menu, giving you the option of trying or installing Ubuntu.

t100 linux_05

I strongly suggest you use the “Try Ubuntu without installing” option at this point — unless you really know what you’re doing. This will let you run Ubuntu without altering your Windows files at all.

Getting past the command line.

We’re not quite done yet though. While Ubuntu should boot up on your system at this point, you’ll probably see the Ubuntu logo for a moment or two and then get dumped out at a command prompt.

t100 linux_04

Here’s how to get past that point:

1. Type the following commands, and hit enter after each.

2. cd /

3. cd usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/

4. sudo rm vesa_drv.so

5. startx

You should see a flurry of text scroll by and then a mouse cursor will appear on screen. A moment later, you should see the full Ubuntu Unity desktop environment.

t100 linux_03

Keep in mind, you won’t be able to use WiFi out of the box, since Ubuntu doesn’t recognize the device’s wireless adapter. The screen resolution will be stuck at 800 x 600, which could look funny. And there’s no touchscreen support — so while you can detach the screen from the keyboard, you won’t be able to do much with it.

The user interface may also be a bit sluggish — in order to get the X Server to load a graphical user interface, we had to delete the vesa graphics driver. It may be possible to load an alternate driver to improve performance.

But now that we know it’s possible to get alternate operating systems to boot on the Transformer Book T100, it should also be possible for people to figure out how to configure them to take advantage of the tablet/notebook hybrid’s hardware.

How do I get back to Windows?

When you logout of Ubuntu you can shut down or restart the computer. If the system freezes (or you’re impatient), you can also press and hold the power button until the tablet shuts down.

You  can then press and hold it again to restart the tablet. Unfortunately, you’ll probably be greeted by a screen with the Asus logo and the text “Preparing BitLocker recovery.”

Here’s how to get back to Windows from here:

1. Wait until you see a blue screen and choose the “Skip this drive” link at the bottom of the page.

This’ll take you to a troubleshoot screen like we saw in the section above. The only difference is you can use the keyboard and touchpad to make your selections, but not the touchscreen.

2. Choose “Troubleshoot” and then “Advanced Options” again, and then select “UEFI Firmware Settings” and hit Restart.

3. Move over to the “Save & Exit” tab and select “Restore Defaults” and hit Enter.

4. Save Changes and Exit and you should reboot into Windows.

Troubleshooting tips

If step 17 and later in the “Booting Ubuntu” section, you may end up in the same Bitlocker recovery section as listed above.

The good news is that you can use the same steps to get back to Windows… but this time after you hit the “Skip this drive” section, if you have your bootable USB drive plugged in, you should also see an option to “Use a device.”

use a device

Select that option and choose the name of your drive on the next screen and you should boot into Ubuntu/GRUB bootloader instead of Windows.

Make sure to be careful when playing around with the Advanced options menus. There are some options that will reinstall Windows or even wipe your data.

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82 replies on “Booting Ubuntu on the Asus Transformer Book T100”

  1. Hello,

    Thank you for the tutorial. I hope you’re still checking this post. My mother gave me her old T100, and I’m wanting to make it into a PiHole Server running Ubuntu. I followed your tutorial, and got this error message.

    https://raditu.de/img/ubuntu_error.jpg

    What could be causing this, and what can I do about it?

    Thank You,
    Cali

  2. Just an update. Mine works fine with Cloudready Chrome OS without the Bluetooth keyboard

  3. Hi, I am new to this forum but I have found it very useful.

    I have followed this whole procedure but on step 19, once I choose the USB as drive nothing happens. The screen just flickers and goes back to the BIOS screen.

    Please help with that.

    I am using ubuntu-14.04.2-desktop-amd64.

  4. Hi I am trying to do a little bit different. Install windows at 500 GB HD and run android 4.4.2 from 32 GB ssd. Do you know how to change the boot sequence? The procedure you are teaching make possible you choose the hard drive or usb port sequence at bios? I entered at bios disabled the secure boot but can’t access an old bios mode boot sequence, like I am familiarized from old pcs. Thanks in advance for your help. You tutorial is really I good and I will try some hints you have placed.

  5. hi

    i have asus transformer book t100ta and i will install ubuntu desktop next 15.04 on it.

    bios is updated >>>> 313

    after ISO file burned by Rufus 1.4.12.535, i don’t find EFIBOOT directory. so i did create EFI and BOOt folder. i’ve copied bootia32.efi to EFIBOOT.

    after disabling Secure Boot, i’ve run flash but i only saw below in a black page:

    Grub>

    i did not see things that you’ve said in here about: Grub menu. i did not see “try ubuntu” and …

    please help me to installing ubuntu desktop next 15.04 on asus transformer book t100ta by a usb flash.

  6. Hi I was wondering if you knew if this same method also worked with Kali Linux.

  7. hello all

    I have a problem I have asus T100TA. Windows has an administrator password that I forgot and I can not get to the data that I can not lose

    Please help on how to remove the password, I can not turn on and boot linux portable wine. Please, an instruction

    If possible, please place the memory stick ISO image for download

    I greet Adam

  8. hello all

    I have a problem I have asus T100TA. Windows has an administrator password that I forgot and I can not get to the data that I can not lose

    Please help on how to remove the password, I can not turn on and boot linux portable wine. Please, an instruction

    I greet Adam

  9. is it works as notebook pc or its just a tablet? can i install any programs as i install to my notebook such like *exe files? can i install java ? how about eclipse? im a developer and need a compact device for development to mobile device to do some presentation?

  10. So im trying to install another OS that is linux based called Elementary OS Luna. I tried to do the same process and got to the GRUB menu that gave me the options to try it, install it, or check for issues. When I would select one of the options it would make the screen go black for a second then would be back at the GRUB menu but frozen. Can someone help me with this? The OS looks pretty cool and tried it in a virtual machine to see what it was like, over all impressed but really want to install it onto my Asus T100TA.

  11. hi, i would like to know if there is any way to run kali linux on asus transformer t100
    thanks

  12. hello i ´m using the dell venue 8 pro and it is a tablet without keyboard, how i can integrated the following commands to an automatic boot:

    Here’s how to get past that point:

    1. Type the following commands, and hit enter after each.

    2. cd /

    3. cd usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/

    4. sudo rm vesa_drv.so

    5. startx

  13. Hi Brad, I followed these instructions to install Ubuntu on my T100, but would like to get connected to the internet as well. Did you get Wifi working on top of this, by upgrading to a more recent kernel or something? Or, can I use a USB hub+Ethernet adapter to get connected via Ethernet?

  14. I was wondered as well that there is no traditional way to get to bios. But first of all you have to get to EFI as it is shown in the article, then set boot option #1 – disabled (save changes). On the next boot hold the “Delete” key and voilà! YOU’RE STRAIGHT THERE!!!

  15. Has anyone made any recent improvements in getting Linux (any distro) or Ubuntu working better on this? WIFI, TouchScreen, etc? What else doesn’t work still?

  16. Clover EFI! Clover EFI!

    We Hackintosh users have this great boot loader called Clover EFI. It works damn well and would be perfect for tablet booting. Plus, those who have Baytrail CPU’s which only has 32bit EFI would be able to install Linux. GRUB is 64bit EFI or MBR legacy.

  17. How about using rEFInd and shim as the bootia32.efi file? rEFInd is a nice boot manager and shim should take care of SecureBoot. rEFInd is a fork of rEFIt and is intended for UEFI hardware in general (not only Apple hardware). A little link: https://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/secureboot.html#installation

    I’m using this configuration on a MacBook Pro 5,1 (without shim as SecureBoot is not present in that model) and I intend to test it out on the T100 as soon as I get my hands on it (a matter of 2 weeks I hope). 🙂

  18. To bad it’s such a pain to use Linux on this thing. :/ otherwise it’s a cool device!

  19. Is there posible to boot from SD card? I want it for using Android x86.

    1. Yes, same rules as USB booting but they’re still working on getting Android to run properly on Bay Trail.

      1. Really? SD card is visible in UEFI? Because on my notebook Asus P52Jc is not.

        1. The SD card reader is a USB device and thus it follows the same rules as booting off any other USB drive.

          Issues would be mainly with the fact that SD cards are not always easy to format properly, especially with the default OS format method, and SDXC use proprietary exFAT format instead of FAT32, etc.

          While you also have to be careful how you set up for UEFI, not only does the boot setup need to be UEFI compliant but it needs to be specifically adjusted for the type of UEFI being using, like whether it’s 32bit or 64bit.

          Otherwise, there shouldn’t be a problem booting off either a USB Flash drive or a SD Card…

          Though, it appears the T100 has a slow card reader…

          And we can’t rule out Asus messing up the FW somehow until someone tries it but if there are any issues, it’s not with UEFI working with a SD card but either the card or FW setup…

          1. I took the time to launch the EFI shell and the SD card reader is nowhere to be seen, so the answer is: no, you can’t boot from the SD card.

          2. It does appear most W8/UEFI devices won’t accept booting from a SD card but there may still be a work around…

            Like you can try flipping the card’s removable bit to make it look like a non-removable drive to the system… You should only need to trick the system into thinking the card is a actual internal drive and that should get the firmware to recognize it…

            Mind, the internal eMMC drive is similar to the SD card technology…

            But, if still a issue, you can always use a USB card reader if the system Firmware is still giving a problem and then it will recognize it as just another USB drive… helps get around any limitation of the internal card reader basically…

            And of course, make sure it’s set up for 32bit UEFI boot loader as that’s the firmware version being used by the T100…

          3. I, for one, didn’t find the SD card partition anywhere. UEFI didn’t see it, EFI shell didn’t see it. It’s not a question of placing the boot loader in the right place. The problem is a little deeper. I’ve made the SD card a FAT 32 primary partition with a legacy EFI boot program (/EFI/BOOT/bootia32.efi) and still it wasn’t visible anywhere (despite the perfect booting conditions).
            It’s also not a question of a removable device, because UEFI and the shell can see other removable media (USB HDD, pendrives and the dock 500GB internal HDD) perfectly. So I guess that without any firmware hacking it’s not possible. If you prove me wrong and boot a SD card, then I would be grateful for a simple how-to. 😉

          4. Yeah… 20 minutes of time wasted to do something that takes under 2 minutes using gparted on Linux, but for the sake of proving it’s not an SD card, but a firmware/hardware issue I did the tutorial step by step. The card is still invisible to UEFI and EFI shell. The reason is simple: UEFI doesn’t see the card reader. The device is being initialized on Windows boot and not by UEFI. So I’m upholding the previous statement: T100 cannot boot from an SD card (at leasy via the internal card reader).

          5. Interesting, the guy in the video is using a Dell Venue 11 Pro, which is also a Bay Trail tablet like the T100… There have been other reported issues with the T100’s microSD card reader, ranging from it being overly slow to not working with all cards…

            So issue could either be the card reader Asus used, as you suggest, and/or the specific card you’re using may not be usable specifically for booting, which is another old issue with many card readers in general that depends on which version the OEM used and it’s hard to identify the cards that will work…

            Like that’s one of the issues with using high capacity SD cards with the T100 right now as a possibly related issue, some work but others don’t and differences can be from the same brand and the same model but different card revision number…

            But anyway, if it’s the former then not much we can do but if it’s the later then perhaps Asus will release a firmware update to address it… They already released about 4 so far, 3 you can still see on the support site, that have helped fix some of the early issues some experienced when it first came out…

          6. Hi. I’ve finally got a reliable answer. 🙂

            I was able to boot the SD card I’ve prepared yesterday with an external card reader connected via USB. The UEFIs BIOS-looking GUI picked up the device easily and booted flawlessly (at least until udev scrambled the display with some kernel module that should not load, but that’s another problem). The same card is still unbootable using the internal card reader (that is: the internal card reader doesn’t appear in the GUI as the external reader did). Given that, it seems that UEFI/firmware in the T100 lacks support for booting via the internal card reader (or is purposefully prevented from doing so).

            It’s not the first thing that the T100s UEFI lacks. It’s also missing the Compatibility Support Module aka “BIOS legacy boot code”, which makes booting anything non-EFI (via MBR for example) impossible.

          7. Yes, the firmware is very basic but that would be true of pretty much anything in this device range… Things like Legacy BIOS mode would usually only be found in desktops with far more advance motherboards that let you adjust just about anything but devices in the Ultrabook/Laptop range could have a few more semi-advance features than the T100 offers, which is a budget device after all…

            More crippling at the moment is the fact the T100 still uses a 32bit UEFI instead of 64bit, as only the 64bit easily works and a lot of things have to be manually set up with the 32bit UEFI… Options for things like booting desktop GNU/Linux is an example because the Linux boot loader that will work with UEFI and even secure boot is 64bit only… You can still boot a Linux distro, Brad reported that with the XDA working on a way to boot Ubuntu, and even boot 64bit Linux, but it’s a far more complicated procedure to set up and not everything works out of the box because of the need to set up for 32bit UEFI… but, hopefully, Asus will update the firmware to 64bit later when MS releases the 64bit drivers for Windows 8.1…

            Anyway, on the card reader, booting the card from a different card reader unfortunately doesn’t rule out the other possibilities… Each card reader can still have its own limitations as to what cards they will work with and the internal card reader is connected over its own dedicated connection instead of USB… So there’s still the possibility of either a firmware update and/or finding just the right card may get around the limitation but you have proven that just using a external reader can make it like booting from a USB Flash drive and thus a far more reliable procedure…

  20. Did you get the Wifi, Touchscreen and 1336×768 resolution working?

  21. Does the processor support Hardware Virtualization? Until HW issues are resolved for booting Linux, I’d be interested in running Mate via Virtualbox, if HW virt is functional.

    1. Yes, you can check the Intel product page for the SoC model number Z3740 and it’ll show that it supports Intel’s extension’s for virtualization.

      Though, it also depends if Asus has it enabled in the FW, which hopefully someone can check…

  22. A great model for a Ubuntu Touch PREINSTALLED version that try to block other OSs.
    WHY? if more than 90% uses what it is preinstalled.

    INTEL Bay Trail is a GREAT OPORTUNITY for non Android LINUX as it performs 50% at dalvick than at other tests and the price is half its power – a bargain – for Ubuntu Tizen Firefox OS or any other GNU/Linux tablet hybrid notebook or even cheap box

  23. Using 32-bit EFI to boot 64-bit Ubuntu will make it impossible to use runtime services. I suggest 32-bit Ubuntu instead.

  24. Excellent tutorial ..

    You and paperWastage are doing an awsome work on this small but promising device 🙂

    I hope soon to see some details about the version with a 2.5 HDD integrated in the keyboard.

    Expecially if it’s possible to use the “common” keyboard of the 32/64 GB model to mount the hdd by ourselves.

    Maybe you could disassemble your keyboard and let us know if there is some predisposition 😛

    PS: can you say us the amount of free space both on the 32 and 64 GB version?

    Are there some restoring partitions ?

    I’ve heard about 33/34 GB of free space on the 64 GB version.. but a clean w8pro installation should weigh about 15 GB.. so i suppose we can find a consistent amount of bloatware and even a restoring partition..

    Greetings from Italy 🙂

    1. There’s about 29GB free after installing a few apps on the 64GB version. There’s no SATA connector in the keyboard.

      I’m not sure there actually is a model with a hard drive. I know there are some retail listings for such a model, but I haven’t heard anything from Asus… so it’s possible the retailers just got the details wrong.

      1. So the 32 GB version has only a couple of free GB? :O
        Omg, unbelievable 😐

        1. I didn’t say that. I told you how much is free on the 64GB model. I haven’t tested a 32GB model — it’s possible the built-in apps and storage space have been allocated differently.

          1. Thanks for sharing!

            Where’d you get your 32GB model, anyway? I tend to only see the 64GB version listed at most stores.

          2. Checking that actually made me curious, so I opened Disk Management. Here’s a screenshot of what my machine is currently. What’s interesting is that there’s more than 32GB shown. The Disk1 recovery partition is ~8GB. Opening up Device Manager it shows a “USB DISK 2.0 USB Device” that exactly matches the Disk1 recovery partition. My conclusion is that there’s actually 40GB of internal space on the 32GB models, with 32GB being eMMC and 8GB being an internally USB 2.0 attached storage for recovery.

            Disk Management and Device Manager screenshots attached.

          3. Interesting. Mine shows just one disk, and the storage space is about right, with an 8GB recovery partition and most of the rest accessible.

            I guess they included a separate recovery drive in the 32GB model specifically so they wouldn’t have to ship a device with only 8GB of free storage.

          4. Since you got me into the testing mood, and my 64GB Samsung microSDXC card came in the mail today, I did some ATTO disk tests using the T100’s built-in microSD reader and a USB 3.0 reader from Transcend.

            Unfortunately, it looks like the built-in reader is connected via USB 2.0. It maxed out at 23.8 MB/s read and 17.2 MB/s write, while the USB 3.0 reader maxed out at 71.3 MB/s read and 21.3 MB/s write. The card is rated at 70 MB/s read and 20 MB/s write.

            Here’s the link to the screenshots from ATTO.

            https://imgur.com/a/gh8Gy

          5. thanks for this.

            I won’t bother buying an expensive 64GB microSDXC then

          6. According to Intel’s data sheet, Bay Trail should support DDR50,
            but ASUS seems to have configured the controller to run at DDR25,
            which probably suits most people (who don’t want to fork out money
            on faster, more expensive cards). (Also, there have been complaints
            with certain cards at DDR50 speeds.)

            Read this post at the Venue 8 Pro Owner’s Lounge
            https://forum.tabletpcreview.com/dell/59202-venue-8-pro-owner-s-lounge.html#post354935

            At least Dell had the decency to include an ‘Advanced’ option
            in the BIOS/UEFI settings to control both eMMC and SDHC
            speeds. I really think people should email ASUS and request
            a similar option for the T100.

      2. Great pic ! Exactly what i was looking for through the web during the last week 🙂

      3. Regarding the 500GB versions, here’s a link to the ASUS German page mentioning the 32GB, 32 + 500GB, 64GB, and 64 + 500GB models. Since it’s from their actual site it looks like the German market may actually get the 500GB models. Amazon.de also lists the 500GB models, costing 50 Euro more than either the 32 or 64 GB ones.

        https://www.asus.com/de/News/y41dOZI8mGfCoWhZ

        1. Interesting! I was skeptical based on what I found (or didn’t find) in the keyboard — but I guess Asus will offer a model with an entirely different keyboard based featuring a hard drive.

          I wonder if that means we’ll also see a model with a battery in the keyboard at some point.

      4. if you did a teardown of the device, can you post more pictures? I’d rather not void my warranty if possible

  25. Hopefully, other OEMs and future ASUS Bay Trail notebooks don’t make it so hard to boot another OS.

    What WiFi card is this using? I wonder what’s the issue with the resolution since the Ivy Bridge based graphics should be pretty good on Linux.

    Anyway, I’m skipping on this notebook (that’s how I had planned on using this) and waiting on the Z3770 or Bay Trail M based ultraportables with more RAM and, hopefully, a 64-bit UEFI capable of booting 64-bit boot loaders.

    1. It’s unfortunate that Asus decided to use the 32bit UEFI and I wrongly assumed they would not make that mistake…

      Most distros are also just still designed to work with BIOS instead of UEFI and all these mobile Windows devices will be using UEFI exclusively…

      Mind, the Linux Community has already released a boot loader that also has its own public key and can work with Secure Boot enabled… So a lot of issues are just because the setup hasn’t been updated to work with UEFI yet.

      Still, the issue is mainly with the distro itself, as shown by the limitations shown in this video, because developers need to get a hold of the actual hardware to properly develop drivers, etc.

      The Linux community has only started adding support, like Kernel 3.11 introduced support for Bay Trail audio but it still has a bit to go before full support is native.

      And while Intel has open source drivers, the developers have yet to properly set up the distro to use them.

      This will all get cleared with time now that developers can get actual devices to work on…

      Btw, only Z3740D and Z3770D are limited to just 2GB of RAM… Z3740 and Z3770 can both use up to 4GB… Just two problems in the way right now…

      1) 4GB also tends to mean pushing 64bit to fully use the capacity and MS won’t release 64bit drivers (which will work for Always Connected Standby) for W8 until early 2014.

      2) 4GB isn’t being massed produced yet for mobile devices… Keep in mind they don’t use the same type of RAM as laptops and desktops use. The LP-DDR3 RAM is specially optimized for mobile usage and the mobile market is still primarily releasing devices with 2GB.

      Companies like Samsung only started producing 4GB LP-DDR3 RAM a few months ago and it can take up to a year before they are mass produced enough to be seen in common products… otherwise cost remain too high for anything in the budget price range.

      So, I doubt we’ll see any models with 4GB of RAM until either the end of Q1 2014 or some time during Q2.

      Though, that’s only for mobile devices based on Bay Trail T… Bay Trail M and D models will use standard DDR3L RAM and can be configured up to 8GB for laptops/desktops and we’ll see those sooner…

      1. You should understand the process before commenting. It’s using a 32-bit boot loader to load the 64-bit OS.

        1. I see but then that’s the problem with the procedure as only the 64bit Linux Boot loader will auto recognize and work with UEFI… The version of the boot loader that works with Secure Boot that was released by the Linux Foundation is specifically 64bit for that reason!

        2. Also, this has nothing to do with Secure Boot. Whether or not it’s on, the T100 won’t boot the 64-bit USB install which is, BTW, UEFI and Secure Boot compatible.

      2. Nope, a 32-bit boot loader was used. Also, Secure Boot had nothing to do with it. I guess you don’t understand the process.

        1. Sorry if you don’t understand English, but I clearly do understand the process and I’m telling you that the reason the process is so convoluted is because it needs to be 64bit!

          Again, ONLY the 64bit version will work naturally with UEFI as only the 64bit version will auto recognize and work with EUFI FW!!!

          If you actually knew anything about how Linux needs to work with UEFI then you would have understood that right away!

          Once developers start using the proper setup then they won’t be any need for all this manual adjustments!

          1. Uh, he’s right. A 32-bit boot loader was used to boot the 64-bit Ubuntu Live USB on the T100. It seems you’re the one who doesn’t understand English and you don’t understand the process that enabled the booting of Ubuntu on the T100. It seemed you did after lars’s comment but apparently not.

            Maybe if we were talking about UEFI, Secure Boot and Linux as a general discussion then what you’re saying is true just like it was/is for ultrabooks but the topic is not about that. We’re specifically talking about the issues the T100 is having with booting a 64-bit UEFI and Secure Boot compatible USB installation media.

          2. Do I really have to spell it out for you guys?

            A) I never denied he was right!

            That’s what is meant by “I see” in the original reply to the correction!

            I only thought it was using the 64bit loader because it was using a 64GB version of the OS and because I know only the 64bit version of the boot loader will naturally work with UEFI.

            I didn’t see the part that the 32bit file was copied and knew that would be the convoluted way to get it to work.

            B) My point is quite simply that the convoluted procedure used in this demonstration shouldn’t be needed with a proper 64bit boot loader!

            Again, only the 64bit boot loader will automatically work with UEFI, it’s why they never bothered to create a version of the 32bit loader to work with Secure Boot!

            The 32bit version basically needs its proverbial hand held through the whole process… and that won’t work for the vast majority of distros that need to work on multiple systems!

            So they only got the 64bit public key and created the 64bit boot loader to make it possible to work with UEFI regardless if the Secure Boot is enabled or not.

            Got it!?

            I was pointing out there’s a better way if you’re still confused!

            Really, there’s over 600 different distros… do you really think anyone is all that concerned about this one method of getting Linux running?

          3. Btw, this is why I didn’t think Asus would mess it up like this…

            https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/26734.html

            But they can always fix it with a FW update… or we can see if anyone comes out with a 3rd party custom FW… very rare but it has been done before with popular enough devices to warrant the effort…

        2. I just want you to know I apologize for my rude comments and any posted misinformation.

          I was angry when I posted them and it had nothing to do with the conversation but something else that was going on with my work and I was already frustrated when I made the replies.

          My comment was also rushed, my point about 64bit was to indicate what Asus should have done and how working with UEFI should work but it came across in a very inappropriate manner.

          I usually like to correct misinformation and this time I wound up on the wrong side of the conversation and that’s on me and why I’m making this public apology…

      3. Are you sure about that? AFAIK, the Fujitsu Q584 is using Bay Trail-T and will or does have 4GB RAM although it isn’t intended to be a mass market product. I don’t know if the Bay Trail will officially support such a config (although I don’t see why not) but Galaxy Note 3 has 3GB RAM, it uses 2 groups (probably dual channel) of 3x4Gb chips. I’m not an expert on LP-DDR RAM design but I’m not convinced 4GB is out of the question. For a phone or phablet similar, 3x4Gb chips is probably pushing it, for a tablet, I’m wondering if 4x4Gb chips would be fine. Whether anyone produces such a thing I dunno but I suspect they may do so since if they’re just stacking more existing chips it in a reasonable number it probably isn’t that hard so you just have to order enough.

        You have a point about the Windows x64 always connected standby thing. (Although I haven’t seen agreement on whether it’s primarily Microsoft or Intel that’s the driver hold up.) My guess has always been that this is one of the key reasons why everyone is sticking to 2GB for now. That and of course it also lets them upgrade something next year when they refresh.

        Personally I’d greatly prefer a Bay Trail T with 4GB. Particularly with the desktop, 2GB can be quite limiting even only a few windows open as so many programs are memory hogs. And having the desktop and legacy support is one of the key advantages of Windows x86 (64 or 32) over Windows RT or Android. If the desktop is barely usable the advantage isn’t really there. So I’ve been keeping my eye out but the Fujitsu is the only one I’ve seen announced and as said it isn’t what I’m looking for. Pity. Still at least things aren’t as bad as it seemed early on, with the 1920 HP Omni 10 and Dell Venue 11 compared to the 1360 for most of the other 10 inchers.

        Although that is still a bit limited compared to Android, other than the Fujitsu there doesn’t seem to be any 2560 ones even though it is supported by the higher end Bay Trails and a common resolution for Android 10 inchers by now, after all the Nexus 10 had it last year. 2560 vs 1920 is probably not that important but it is disappointing that the Windows 8.1 tablet arena still seems so limited in resolutions (you see the same thing with 7 and 8 inchers). Okay I know app support for higher DPIs on the desktop can sometimes still be crap (it’s something I’ve been dealing with for many years), but surely that’s not a reason for no one to try?

        1. Yes, the Samsung Galaxy Note offers the present largest RAM capacity of any mainstream mobile product.

          The Fujitsu Q584, though, is a elite Enterprise class product. Fujitsu also tends to only sell locally and not world wide and thus don’t need to meet huge quantities that mainstream product support requires.

          Companies like Samsung only started producing 4GB LP-DDR3 RAM a few months ago… not enough time for mainstream supply but enough for premium products that will be sold at very high prices like Fujitsu usually offers.

          The Waiting on MS for the 64bit drivers is official, so no Bay Trail devices will be offered with 64bit OS until early next year.

          So, even if they offer 4GB of RAM it will be limited to 32bit and thus not the full 4GB will be utilized… at least not with Windows…

          I agree about waiting for 4GB of RAM, Bay Trail finally offers enough performance to make it useful and actually need as much RAM as you can get to get the most use out of it.

          Previous ATOMs didn’t matter because of the limited performance meant you couldn’t really run anything powerful enough to really take advantage of much more RAM, aside from just multitasking and relying less on drive performance, but Bay Trail finally changes that for the better and they should be taking advantage of it.

          There’s a bit of give and take on the value of screen resolution for Windows devices, though…

          The desktop still doesn’t scale well to small screens with high resolutions. So there’s still less emphasis on pushing it than it would be for a mobile OS that does scale well.

          A full desktop OS also tends to get pushed more for performance than a mobile OS and higher resolution means using up more of the resources all the time.

          Like, if you wanted to play Minecraft then at 2560×1600 you would get about 13FPS with even the Z3770, but with this T100 at 1366×768 you can actually get playable at over 30FPS.

          So there are trade offs and limitations that still need to be dealt with…
          The 10.1″ screen actually looks okay with the 1366×768 resolution but the main reason to want higher is the portrait viewing angle, in which 1080P would definitely be preferable.

          So, if you want to use it in that mode then the higher resolution is more important but for horizontal usage the resolution is usable.

          Another factor to consider about PC usage is that most are still not tablets and as such are used further away.

          The thing about high resolution is it’s partly marketing… Distance factors into whether a specific resolution qualifies as retina or not.

          Tablets just tend to be used closer than say a laptop. So higher resolution starts to matter, more so for phones as you look at them even closer sometimes.

          From a normal arm’s length typing distance, a 10.1″ screen would look retina with even a 1366×768 resolution… you just need to view it from further than 20″ away.

          Basically, the same reason why televisions still don’t have higher resolutions and 1080P is fine for even very large screens because you normally view them from far enough away to let them still look good!

          So, being a Windows device means you’ll usually be using it as a netbook and that makes the resolution more tolerable.

          Besides, by the end of 2014 we can look forward to the next upgrade to the ATOM with the 14nm Airmont. Intel will be again upgrading both the architecture and advancing to the next FAB size.

          So we can probably expect much better performance that will allow them to further push the resolution and not noticeably compromise on the performance.

          But for now the 1080P screens should be a good enough compromise.

    2. Yea, look for systems shipping with 64-bit Windows, which should ship with 64-bit UEFI firmware.

    3. Ya, I’m going to wait on other 10″ Bay Trail notebooks. My reasons are more superficial though. 2 GB of RAM is enough for what I intend to do on an ultraportable notebook. I would have installed the 32-bit version of Xubuntu anyway in order to not get the issues related to having a 32-bit UEFI, 32-bit boot loader and 64-bit OS. I’m more concerned how that back/lid is so ugly and shiny. Looks so tacky.

      As for graphics drivers, the Ivy Bridge core is well supported in Linux but the hooks specifically for Bay Trail are only in the more recent kernel and Mesa versions. They may get backported to LTS kernels or by distros. I’d also like to know what WiFi chip this uses. Hopefully, it isn’t a crappy Broadcom chip.

  26. now that ubuntu 13.10 is out its worth trying ubuntu 13.10 on this device

    1. I think you missed the part where I said it won’t boot.

      That’ll probably be overcome eventually, but for now Ubuntu 13.04 boots, but Ubuntu 13.10 does not.

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