Hp x2 11
September 2015
Wow has it been that long since I posted here? OK, my trusty Asus X101CH (see other blog post) has been a bit of a dog, granted a hard working loyal and faithful one but still a dog and after putting in a dismal performance when trying to play Minecraft the hunt was on for a replacement. Now I am a sucker for the "transformer" format but I am sticking 2 fingers up at Asus for making the X101 so rubish for Linux! So what next?
I have taken a shine to HP of late, my company laptop rocks and the X2 range looks very nice both the X10 and X11 but the thought of dropping a few hundred pounds on a new pieces of kit just to find out that it does not play nice made me feel a bit sick so off to eBay for a rummage. Look what I found, ex shop demo HP X2-11 (quad core 2Ghz Pentium so bettern than the Atom brigade) with no PSU and cracked screen ..... oooh .... £300 new mine for £40 + £10 for psu. The X2 turned up first and looked very nice indeed but boy is it a heffer very weighty compared to the Asus X101 which I carried everywhere as a "spare" annoyingly the psu took another week to arrive ... ahhhh!
OK it boots ... yey not shelled out for a duffer ... Windows 10 shop demo edition, at least the advert was correct. OK we can afford to loose £40 so die Windows die! Points to note, boots from DVD no issues (disable the secure boot thing in BIOS, hit esc during boot up and select BIOS settings etc) did not get it to boot from USB or SD card so far just DVD and ISO burns only, cover disks did not work ... go figure!
Ubuntu 15.04 Unity Better try this one first I thoughts as it's meant for "touch" ... ... things to note ... Unity desktop WTF sorry don't get on with it at all, slow sluggish full of amazon crap and after the purity of xfce not a pleasant place to be.
Mint 17.1 XFCE Ah much better, ok this is my "go to" default distribution so of course I feel at home but mouse control / touchpad was a bit bonkers and the sound sucked bad. Apart from that everything worked. The touch screen was recognised but did not work ... think the top to bottom crack was responsible ha ha.
Xubuntu 15.04 Lots better, mouse touchpad is 90% where I want it (the separation of of buttons to pad seems to be off meaning that its hard to use the pad buttons, double tap works ... sure its fixable but not a show stopper so far. Sound is OKish ... Beats Audio has to sound better surely ... this needs work. Apart from that all the buttons work, screens nice, battery life is stonking 6 - 8 hours! Minecraft is silky smooth yup smells like a keeper!
++++ screen replacement ++++++ So we know the X2-11 works under Linux so time to invest and fix it up, replacement screen was £40 off eBay which is a little high but not much choice in vendors and from China too so took its own sweet time getting here! I hate screen replacements (watch lots of You Tube videos if you are new to this) I have a bag of tools, spludgers, old credit cards etc and a monster heat gun to melt the glue (caution ... be cautious with the heat gun or things melt!) ... long story short, heat the edges to soften the glue, credit card insert and cut all away around, use sticky tape along edges to stop glass splinters in face (smart ass after the event here), keep plasters handy for the glass cuts and don't drop blood on the screen! Note cable position from new screen and leave that bit to last so its hanging off ... leap of faith here, cut with stanley knife ... eeek ... You Tube video was for an obviously (obvious now) different version so had to flip the mess over and disassemble from the other side to release the other end of the cable. Easily done actually as the X2-11 is not that well assembled so back cover is thin plastic and levers off nice with a credit card. By now you will be in a sweaty mess looking at a trashed laptop screen ... clean up all the glass and glue as you go, vacuum up the shards and bits and do your best not to touch the screen at all (should make that comment at the start really but everyone reads these things through first before starting ... you did didn't you?) ... take a break have a coffee ... time to get sticky ... you can get proper screen tape off eBay but I used decent double sided tape as I could not wait any longer, worked fine. Take your time cutting and shaping, pushing the cable through the chassis and the sticking down .... insert cable ... re-assemble. Tada ... for £100 near as dam it brand new working touchscreen Linux transformer laptop :-) ... smug moment :-)
October 2015
Xubuntu 15.10 Beta Had to re install with 15.10 to get the onscreen keyboard to work during boot up (activate by accessing the disability options / on screen keyboard, with 15.04 on boot screen did not work.
What next .... increase icon size for my fat fingers .... Cairo Dock .. but for the moment its working a treat and touch screen is nice, makes a big difference ti the way you surf, scroll poke etc, very close to being able to use as a tablet ... will update soon.
Wow has it been that long since I posted here? OK, my trusty Asus X101CH (see other blog post) has been a bit of a dog, granted a hard working loyal and faithful one but still a dog and after putting in a dismal performance when trying to play Minecraft the hunt was on for a replacement. Now I am a sucker for the "transformer" format but I am sticking 2 fingers up at Asus for making the X101 so rubish for Linux! So what next?
I have taken a shine to HP of late, my company laptop rocks and the X2 range looks very nice both the X10 and X11 but the thought of dropping a few hundred pounds on a new pieces of kit just to find out that it does not play nice made me feel a bit sick so off to eBay for a rummage. Look what I found, ex shop demo HP X2-11 (quad core 2Ghz Pentium so bettern than the Atom brigade) with no PSU and cracked screen ..... oooh .... £300 new mine for £40 + £10 for psu. The X2 turned up first and looked very nice indeed but boy is it a heffer very weighty compared to the Asus X101 which I carried everywhere as a "spare" annoyingly the psu took another week to arrive ... ahhhh!
OK it boots ... yey not shelled out for a duffer ... Windows 10 shop demo edition, at least the advert was correct. OK we can afford to loose £40 so die Windows die! Points to note, boots from DVD no issues (disable the secure boot thing in BIOS, hit esc during boot up and select BIOS settings etc) did not get it to boot from USB or SD card so far just DVD and ISO burns only, cover disks did not work ... go figure!
Ubuntu 15.04 Unity Better try this one first I thoughts as it's meant for "touch" ... ... things to note ... Unity desktop WTF sorry don't get on with it at all, slow sluggish full of amazon crap and after the purity of xfce not a pleasant place to be.
Mint 17.1 XFCE Ah much better, ok this is my "go to" default distribution so of course I feel at home but mouse control / touchpad was a bit bonkers and the sound sucked bad. Apart from that everything worked. The touch screen was recognised but did not work ... think the top to bottom crack was responsible ha ha.
Xubuntu 15.04 Lots better, mouse touchpad is 90% where I want it (the separation of of buttons to pad seems to be off meaning that its hard to use the pad buttons, double tap works ... sure its fixable but not a show stopper so far. Sound is OKish ... Beats Audio has to sound better surely ... this needs work. Apart from that all the buttons work, screens nice, battery life is stonking 6 - 8 hours! Minecraft is silky smooth yup smells like a keeper!
++++ screen replacement ++++++ So we know the X2-11 works under Linux so time to invest and fix it up, replacement screen was £40 off eBay which is a little high but not much choice in vendors and from China too so took its own sweet time getting here! I hate screen replacements (watch lots of You Tube videos if you are new to this) I have a bag of tools, spludgers, old credit cards etc and a monster heat gun to melt the glue (caution ... be cautious with the heat gun or things melt!) ... long story short, heat the edges to soften the glue, credit card insert and cut all away around, use sticky tape along edges to stop glass splinters in face (smart ass after the event here), keep plasters handy for the glass cuts and don't drop blood on the screen! Note cable position from new screen and leave that bit to last so its hanging off ... leap of faith here, cut with stanley knife ... eeek ... You Tube video was for an obviously (obvious now) different version so had to flip the mess over and disassemble from the other side to release the other end of the cable. Easily done actually as the X2-11 is not that well assembled so back cover is thin plastic and levers off nice with a credit card. By now you will be in a sweaty mess looking at a trashed laptop screen ... clean up all the glass and glue as you go, vacuum up the shards and bits and do your best not to touch the screen at all (should make that comment at the start really but everyone reads these things through first before starting ... you did didn't you?) ... take a break have a coffee ... time to get sticky ... you can get proper screen tape off eBay but I used decent double sided tape as I could not wait any longer, worked fine. Take your time cutting and shaping, pushing the cable through the chassis and the sticking down .... insert cable ... re-assemble. Tada ... for £100 near as dam it brand new working touchscreen Linux transformer laptop :-) ... smug moment :-)
October 2015
Xubuntu 15.10 Beta Had to re install with 15.10 to get the onscreen keyboard to work during boot up (activate by accessing the disability options / on screen keyboard, with 15.04 on boot screen did not work.
What next .... increase icon size for my fat fingers .... Cairo Dock .. but for the moment its working a treat and touch screen is nice, makes a big difference ti the way you surf, scroll poke etc, very close to being able to use as a tablet ... will update soon.
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