Linux Problems

There are many known problems with the Linux installation on the tablets. Typically this is because hardware manufacturers to not write drivers for Linux, so we must instead rely on the work of volunteers who reverse-engineer our hardware to make drivers. For this reason, it is recommended that inexperienced users use Windows instead. That having been said, the Linux installations are *mostly* working (the tc1100s seem to work much better than the 4200s), and do offer some advantages over Windows.

Here are some of the problems we know about:

Suspend/Hibernate cause problems or do not work

Suspend and hibernate work fairly well on the tc4200s with some minor problems (for example, USB mice not working after hibernate), but neither works very well on the tc1100s.

Networking applet dies

The default "student" user has an applet in the taskbar which interfaces with the networking system, allowing you to easily switch wireless access points. Sometimes, clicking on this applet will cause it to die.

The simplest way we know so far to get the applet back (and working) is to open a terminal window (click on the monitor-looking icon in the taskbar), type nm-applet& [enter] in the terminal, then type exit [enter]. This should restart the tablet and close the terminal.

Tablet sometimes will not boot

The tc4200 tablets have new ACPI hardware which is not yet well supported in Linux. Sometimes a bug will prevent the tablet from booting into Linux, or make it boot very slowly. This seems to be related to the CPU temperature, and so the only solution currently known is to turn the tablet off and allow it about 10 minutes to cool off before starting it again. We hope to have an update to fix this problem soon.

Unsupported features

Screen rotation

Not yet supported on either tablet. We hope to have a solution for this soon.

Pen Buttons

The buttons on the tablet which you press with the pen (not the buttons on the pen) do not yet work.