#[New User] Screen Rotation + SPI FP Reader

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

flat kindle
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Hey everyone.

I'm a new Linux user and I'm struggling with a couple things. I'll give some context, if I can provide any sort of log or useful information please let me know so I can attach it;

I'm contemplating installing Linux Mint Cinnamon on a lower end, white label/generic laptop I just purchased that came with Windows 11.
(Laptop in question, that I plan to use mostly for work/excel, media, and occasional low-demanding games:https://www.amazon.it/dp/B0DGX492MQ)
Just to test, I made a live boot usb drive to test the distro before committing to a disk partition and/or full wipe, but I'm having two main gripes with it.

  1. The laptop in question is a white label, and it's a 2in1 convertible to tablet. The touchscreen works right out the gate which is great, and so does the gyro/accelerometer to swap orientation, but the latter does so only partially. What I mean is that when auto rotate is on, the display is consistently 180° degrees off, functionally upside down. Each time I turn the machine 90° to the left, right, or upside down, it responds immediately flashing / changing the orientation, but still upside down.
    I tried various solutions from forums but couldn't find a way, mainly with the xrandr command.

2)The second issue, which I'm afraid can't really be solved, is that the device comes with a built in fingerprint sensor on its trackpad, but it doesn't show up on lsusb so I verified the maker/model, and it's SPI instead, so I think we simply cannot make that work.

  1. Extra question while I'm at it:
    It's obviously not ideal to perform these tests with a liveboot sample of the distro, having no permanence of settings.
    Say I wanted to make a partition (The laptop has a 512GB SSD), should I be abundant right off the bat (50/50) or can I give it around 50-100 GBs and resize it if and when I decide to commit?

Anyone able to help me sort out at least the first point? Please do let me know if I can provide more useful data.

Thank you.

remote urchin
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okay you just needa give mint 100 gigs and it'll work amazing and if you wanna remove that you can just de allocate that space using gparted

flat kindle
remote urchin
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do NOT make the partition into anything other than ext4 for linux

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but better idea is to open disk management on your windows and shrink your drive by a 100 gigs

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and then use that but you can figure that out

flat kindle
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Yeah I can fiddle with that. Right now I'm hardstuck on how absurd that first point is behaving. It's like it has all the tools and drivers to work properly but doesn't want to.

remote urchin
flat kindle
remote urchin
flat kindle
remote urchin
flat kindle
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Bumpin' praydge

dusky summit
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Concerning the screen rotation, the only tablet/convertible I ever tried this on had the exact same issue. I have a strong suspicion that manufacturers install the display with the wrong orientation, then "fix it in software", which means in Windows. So you either hard-lock the orientation and change it manually, or go on a quest to find a distro that can actually handle this. Fedora has some mobile-friendly flavours, perhaps those will do it.

flat kindle
# dusky summit Concerning the screen rotation, the only tablet/convertible I ever tried this on...

Although it might defeat the point of auto-rotate, setting a keybind to rotate on command 90° could be an idea.
The only issues with that, that I can think about, are:

  1. I'm...unsure how to go about that. Some AHK-ish idea?
  2. I assume I wouldn't be able to make the system recognize when the keyboard is "folded" and as a consequence fully disable it to avoid keypresses (Windows does this, at the moment); Even if I could, then I wouldn't be able to do the rotation shortcut. I guess I could use the on screen keyboard.
dusky summit
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I don't think anybody is working on that stuff for Cinnamon, so your experience may be frustrating. Tablets are not a development focus, which is why I am trying to guide you to a distro that may focus on them.

flat kindle
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I understand.
I appreciate it. To further elaborate why I may seem "stuck" on looking elsewhere, I'm simply a total newcomer to Linux distros, so Mint was sold pretty strongly to me due to the ample customization options, light resources requirements (low spec white label machine), familiar UI and package/software manager to get what I need.

I'm not unwilling to take a look at other distro if they fit the bill

dusky summit
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And you are welcome on Mint. I am just cautioning you that the user experience you want may not be available at all with Mint on that hardware.

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It is worth tinkering around with settings and keybinds, but no promises.

flat kindle
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You mean specifically (or rather, "mostly") about the whole convertible circumstance or performance wise in general?

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Oh, I see. The former I think.

dusky summit
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Specifically the fact that this is a tablet, where the expectation is that it follows the gyro.

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Performance is fine, that thing has an Alder Lake CPU and 16GB, can run anything.

flat kindle
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I see. That's reassuring. I assume you mentioned KDE Mobile specifically 'cause it's more likely to allow the things we've discussed to function, plus it's in line with the expectations I had about the OS in general?

dusky summit
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Yes. If any distro and desktop can follow a gyro properly, it is probably Fedora KDE Mobile.

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You are still welcome to try Mint, and we will see if we can help. But I am not too optimistic.

flat kindle
dusky summit
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Liveboot test is always a good idea, yes.

flat kindle
# dusky summit Liveboot test is always a good idea, yes.

Update.
On live boot with KDE Plasma Mobile right now.
Same behaviour of the auto rotate behaving backwards. Ugh.
Gonna see if I can fiddle with it. Yeah same behaviour and same tools. Pff

At this point I'm going back to plan Mint.

remote urchin
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to make life worse that is

flat kindle
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I ended up installing Mint Cinnamon and just setting up a shortcut to run a command to manually invert the screen.

remote urchin
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that works

golden imp
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What was the command that you used to manually inver the screen?

flat kindle
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xrandr --rotate normal
xrandr --rotate inverted

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(I think. Not at the machine rn)