Tablet Linux Configuration

These are the steps we have taken in configuring Linux on the TC4200 and TC1100 tablets. We have added a lot of custom software and configuration to make them easy for students to use.

Some Notes about dual-boot and imaging

We wanted to make a dual-boot image which we could easily write to both models of tablet. While each model would obviously require slightly different configurations for hardware support, we hoped it would be possible to make just one image and do some autoconfiguration after writing to the tablets. This is easy enough to do with Linux; we wrote a simple script which decides which configuration options to load. Not so easy on the windows side, though. We had planned to make a Windows image on the 4200, then image it onto an 1100 and make the necessary changes from there. Unfortunately, it seems that Windows does not like being imaged in this manner (cross-hardware), and we ultimately built two Windows images from scratch, one for each model.

For our imaging process we are using a Linux box armed with a PXE boot server, a custom Debian-based Linux distro for network booting, udpcast, and some custom software which manages and images all of the tablets after they are network-booted. For more information, see the complete log of the imaging process.

Base Install

We installed Ubuntu Linux (Warty release) from CD as the initial distribution, and later upgraded to the then still-experimental Breezy release (which we updated to stable status just before distribution). There are several features in this release which we were interested in using:

• Kernel 2.6.12
  • Natively supports the wacom tablets in both the 4200 and 1100 (no kernel patching).
  • Improved ACPI support
• NetworkManager - seems to be the latest-and-greatest network management tool (and the only one which suits our needs)
• Imporved HAL/DBUS support