Ubuntu vs HP Folio 13

HP Folio 13 Compatibility - Ubuntu forums

Let’s start with things that works out of the box :

• microphone and webcam works great with Skype
• suspend and hibernate works great too
• battery life seemed very good, the diffrents tests i’ve read talk about a 6 hours battery life. I’ve reached near 5 hours of wireless surfing with luminosity to 100%.
• HDMI works out the box

Screen backlight problem

Before installing ubuntu

Just before booting on the usb drive press shift key to display the menu. Choose the appropriate language and the press F6 to edit boot options. Add the acpi_backlight=vendor at the end of the line that shows up and press enter to launch the live session or installation process.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootOptions#Changing_the_CD_Boot_Option_Configuration_Line

Once ubuntu is installed

In order to make the acpi_backlight option permanent, add it to /etc/default/grub.

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

Replace GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX='' with GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX='acpi_backlight=vendor', save and exit.

sudo update-grub

And restart the computer.

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=45271

Clickpad/Trackpad

Click buttons doesn’t work, a patch to fix it is available here :

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/582809/comments/275

The patch is also available in sergio’s ppa :

https://launchpad.net/~sergio91pt/+archive/synaptics+clickpads

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sergio91pt/synaptics+clickpads
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

This patch fix the problem with click buttons (located at the bottom of the trackpad), left and right click are ok with it. Two fingers scroll still doesn’t work until you go to Mouse and trackpad settings and enable two finger scroll in trackpad tab. and there you go.

Update :

I’ve downloaded a daily build of ubuntu 12.04 precise and booted it form an usb drive with the acpi_backlight option. During the live session on precise, the backlight keyboard worked well and the two fingers scroll too.

After that, i’ve restarted the computer and log back on ubuntu 11.10 oeneic, and backlight keyboard + two fingers scroll are still working, great :)

Extras links

Infos and tools for trackpad debugging :

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Touchpad_Synaptics

Something that need to be tested on 12.04 :

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1925423

Media keys

By default, the media keys act like if the fn key is always pressed. This mean that if you press F5 key it will activate/desactivate backlight keyboard and refresh your browsser window. This option can ben disabled in the BIOS by setting Action Keys Mode to Disabled.

Things that works :

• fn+F5 works to activate/desactivate backlight keyboard
• fn+F9/10/11 works well to up, down and mute sound volume

Other things that works since Ubuntu 13.10 :

• fn+F2/3 to change the screen luminosity
• fn+F12 for turning on/off wireless

Things that doesn’t work :

• fn+F6/7/8 for media players

Wifi

Some people says that the wifi signal is very slow, i don’t have problem with it but here is a wiki page where you can find infos about it (just in case).

Update after Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin upgrade

This upgrade bring changes to the default behavior of the touchpad. Now you can click (using the bottom button area) and drag with another finger. This is a nice improvement but this one broke something. With Ubuntu 11.10 and patched version of xserver-xorg-input-synaptics from sergio’s ppa three types of click were available :

• tap with one finger = left click
• tap with two fingers = right click
• tap with three fingers = middle click

With Ubuntu 12.04 which bring xserver-xorg-input-synaptics 1.6.0 the three fingers tap doesn’t work anymore [1] [2].

This should only be an issue with three touch "gestures" in Unity, however. The issue is that when three tap is performed on a touchpad, a middle button click may be emitted. However, the Unity gesture specifications require all three touch gestures to be reserved.

I don’t really need the new button click and drag selection and i really miss the three fingers tap to middle click. Here is a way to re-enable this one temporally for testing [3] :

synclient LockedDrags=0 TapButton3=2

You can revert this with logout/login or this command :

synclient LockedDrags=1 TapButton3=0

To make this setting persistent you have to create a script like this [4] :

nano ~/scripts/3taps.sh

Put this in the file :

#!/bin/bash
synclient LockedDrags=0 TapButton3=2

Save the file and make it executable :

chmod +x ~/scripts/3taps.sh

Warning : code below seems broken according to this bug report.

Add your script to dconf serttings to fire it when login or suspend wake :

gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.input-devices hotplug-command "/home/username/3taps.sh"