Status/Progress of CherryTrail / BayTrail support in mainline Linux kernel

Status/Progress of CherryTrail / BayTrail support in mainline Linux kernel

[Hanno Zulla]

Hi,

sorry for asking a possibly obvious question, but:

Why is support for Cherry Trail / Bay Trail so bad in the mainline
kernel? Is this being worked on? And where can one help or track the
progress with improving this?

Recently, I bought a Win10 netbook to install Linux on. It's a
beautiful small device with a fanless Z3735F CPU. Just right for my
kids as their first own computer.

After using Intel hardware since several years without a hitch, it was
surprising to find this not being fully supported by current 2016 Linux
distributions.

The Wifi is not running at all, lost the network with a Wifi stick that
works fine on RPi and the system freezes every now and then for no
reproducible reasons. Googling around, all I found were similar
complaints by other Linux users and a confusing array of incomplete
third-party driver projects not ready for mainline, like this one:

https://github.com/hadess/rtl8723bs/issues/96

Also, there's a litany of "don't buy Cherry Trail or Bay Trail devices
for Linux" articles, which probably would have been helpful to read
before buying that fateful device.

This is sad to watch. I tried to find a different device for my kids,
but all of the netbook-like devices on the market now share this
problem. A whole generation of very interesting devices appears to be
lost for Linux users.

Is there hope for this device class or does one have to stick to Core i
CPUs for the time being?

Kind regards,

Hanno

Status/Progress of CherryTrail / BayTrail support in mainline Linux kernel

[Greg KH]

On Mon, Sep 05, 2016 at 10:49:08AM +0200, Hanno Zulla wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> sorry for asking a possibly obvious question, but:
> 
> Why is support for Cherry Trail / Bay Trail so bad in the mainline
> kernel? Is this being worked on? And where can one help or track the
> progress with improving this?

Works for me! :)

> Recently, I bought a Win10 netbook to install Linux on. It's a
> beautiful small device with a fanless Z3735F CPU. Just right for my
> kids as their first own computer.
> 
> After using Intel hardware since several years without a hitch, it was
> surprising to find this not being fully supported by current 2016 Linux
> distributions.
> 
> The Wifi is not running at all, lost the network with a Wifi stick that
> works fine on RPi and the system freezes every now and then for no
> reproducible reasons. Googling around, all I found were similar
> complaints by other Linux users and a confusing array of incomplete
> third-party driver projects not ready for mainline, like this one:
> 
> https://github.com/hadess/rtl8723bs/issues/96

That is not an Intel part, not much Intel can do here about that.  I
suggest asking about this device on the linux-wireless mailing list, the
developers there can help you as they are working on a cleaned up driver
for that chip.

> Also, there's a litany of "don't buy Cherry Trail or Bay Trail devices
> for Linux" articles, which probably would have been helpful to read
> before buying that fateful device.

And almost all of those are wrong :)

Almost all Android tablets shipping right now are BayTrail devices, so
it is a working platform for Linux.


> This is sad to watch. I tried to find a different device for my kids,
> but all of the netbook-like devices on the market now share this
> problem. A whole generation of very interesting devices appears to be
> lost for Linux users.
> 
> Is there hope for this device class or does one have to stick to Core i
> CPUs for the time being?

All you have is an issue with a non-Intel wifi chip?  What else is
wrong?  Have you filed bugs for this with your distro-of-choice?

thanks,

greg k-h

Status/Progress of CherryTrail / BayTrail support in mainline Linux kernel

[Srinivas Pandruvada]

On Sun, 2016-09-11 at 09:19 +0200, Greg KH wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 05, 2016 at 10:49:08AM +0200, Hanno Zulla wrote:
> > 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > sorry for asking a possibly obvious question, but:
> > 
> > Why is support for Cherry Trail / Bay Trail so bad in the mainline
> > kernel? Is this being worked on? And where can one help or track
> > the
> > progress with improving this?
> 
> Works for me! :)
Same here.
I also have three 2 BayTrail and one CherryTrail laptops, which I use
latest upstream kernel to test before sending change.

> 
> > 
> > Recently, I bought a Win10 netbook to install Linux on. It's a
> > beautiful small device with a fanless Z3735F CPU. Just right for my
> > kids as their first own computer.
> > 
> > After using Intel hardware since several years without a hitch, it
> > was
> > surprising to find this not being fully supported by current 2016
> > Linux
> > distributions.
I always use latest kernel. The problem is third party devices like
WiFi, touchpad etc.
As GKH suggested enter bugs, if the problem is in Intel SoC, we always
address.


Thanks,
Srinivas

Status/Progress of CherryTrail / BayTrail support in mainline Linux kernel

[Hanno Zulla]

Hi,

>> Works for me! :)

> Same here.

Good for you. :-)

>> All you have is an issue with a non-Intel wifi chip?

Good to have that clarified, as I was mistaken about that the Realtek
wifi was somehow part of the Intel SOC. (I *am* a newbie, after all.)

The issue was taken to linux-wireless by now and hopefully will see some
progress there.

>>  What else is wrong?

As the on-board wifi didn't work, there is now a USB wifi stick in the
netbook. That stick (rtl8188cus) works fine on other devices, including
RPi. But on this netbook, a wifi connection is lost for unknown reasons
after a while and I have to reconnect to the network. No idea what is
causing this, the logs were inconclusive on this.

> I always use latest kernel. The problem is third party devices like
> WiFi, touchpad etc. As GKH suggested enter bugs, if the problem is
> in Intel SoC, we always address.

Thanks. I'll try to report bugs to the proper channels in the future.

Kind regards & keep up the good work,

Hanno

Status/Progress of CherryTrail / BayTrail support in mainline Linux kernel

[Hanno Zulla]

Hi,

sorry for asking a possibly obvious question, but:

The support for Cherry Trail / Bay Trail devices is pretty bad in
mainline, at least if one tries to use a mainstream distribution (in my
case, Ubuntu 16.04 with Kernel 4.4).

I have browsed the archives of LKML and of related mailing lists and saw
that there is development here and there going on to improve this (huge
thanks for this!).

But is there a central place where can I see the current *status* and
progress of the support for these chipsets and where help is needed?


E.g., there is a Wifi driver in the works at

https://github.com/hadess/rtl8723bs/issues/96

and a newer version from the vendor at

https://github.com/hadess/rtl8723bs/issues/98
https://github.com/anthonywong/rtl8723bs

But it's unclear to me if these drivers will ever make it to mainline.
How can a non-kernel-dev / just-a-normal-user like myself help with
getting this driver up to speed? I *really* want this device's support
to be improved.


Recently, I bought a Win10 netbook to install Linux on. It's a
beautiful small device with a fanless Z3735F CPU. Just right for my
kids as their first own computer.

After using Intel hardware since several years without a hitch, it was
surprising to find this not being fully supported by current 2016 Linux
distributions.

The rtl8723bs wifi is not running at all, the netbook lost the network
with a wifi usb stick that works fine on RPi. And the system freezes
every now and then for no reproducible reasons. Googling around, all I
found were similar complaints by other Linux users and a confusing array
of incomplete third-party driver projects not ready for mainline.

Also, there's a litany of "don't buy Cherry Trail or Bay Trail devices
for Linux" articles, which probably would have been helpful to read
before buying that fateful device.

Oh, what a letdown. This is sad to watch, as I considered Intel a safe
choice when buying hardware for Linux. I tried to find a different
device for my kids, but all of the netbook-like devices on the market
now share this problem. A whole generation of very interesting devices
appears to be lost for Linux users.

Kind regards,

Hanno