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Dell venue 8 pro

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Revision as of 00:57, 1 May 2024 by Iliketwertles (talk | contribs) (updated partially, going to rewrite Preparation and Flashing To Internal Storage in another edit)
Dell Venue 8 pro (3845)
Manufacturer Dell
Name Venue 8 pro (3845)
Codename generic-x86_64
Released 2014
Type tablet
Hardware
Chipset Intel Bay Trail T Z3735
CPU Intel® Atom™ CPU Z3735 @ 1.832GHz (Quad-Core)
GPU Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series Graphics & Display
Display 8" 800x1280 IPS LCD
Storage 32 GB + sdcard reader
Memory 1 GB
Architecture x86_64
Software
Original software Windows
Original version 8.1
FOSS bootloader yes
postmarketOS
Category testing
Pre-built images no
Mainline yes
postmarketOS kernel Latest edge
Features
USB Networking
No data
Internal storage
No data
SD card
No data
Battery
Partial
Screen
Works
Touchscreen
Works
Multimedia
3D Acceleration
Works
Audio
Works
Camera
Broken
Camera Flash
No data
Connectivity
WiFi
Works
Bluetooth
Broken
Miscellaneous
FDE
No data
USB-A
Works
USB OTG
Works
Sensors
Accelerometer
No data
Magnetometer
No data
Ambient Light
No data
Proximity
No data
Hall Effect
No data
Haptics
No data
Barometer
No data
Power Sensor
No data


Contributors

Users owning this device


Installation

Preparation

This tablet is essentially a small UEFI(32bit) computer, no preparation is needed on device other than ensuring secure boot is turned off, which can be changed through the bios. Do that by holding the windows button on the side of the tablet while it first powers on, then hitting volume down. Then it's like any other computer to turn it off.

The only other setup that is needed is making the bootable usb. This tablet has no ability to flash via a computer, therefor it has to be done manually on-device. As for making the usb, use pmbootstrap to make the usb. Use the tablet-x86uefi device and everything else is preference.

Flashing To Internal Storage

Being so flashing this device with a computer is impossible, to install, re-run pmbootstrap while booted from the usb, but then instead of installing to the usb again, select the internal storage of the tablet. Find it with lsblk or ls /dev/ | grep mmcblk. If a sdcard is not inserted in the reader it will be the only mmcblkX device. It tends to switche from mmcblk1 to mmcblk2 sometimes but it's not really relevant.

Hardware status

Bluetooth

Bluetooth support is available in other distros such as fedora, this means it will likely work in the future but no promises. likely configuration or driver related.

Camera

No Camera support in any known linux distros. Hopeful future support.

Battery

Battery charges and discharges as expected, however normally it does not report the %, it has been reported to work however. More investigation is needed

USB-A

There is no usb port on this tablet, however there is a microusb port which when paired with an adapter works just like a normal usb port. Hence why it is labeled as Works

Software issues

WiFi

As of 4/30/2024 you have to add the package firmware-ath6kl to get wifi working. and use iwd rather than wpa_supplicant

Audio Playback

If you experience issues with audio, or weird things like video playback hanging and an audible beep being emitted from the speaker, this is likely due to a misconfigured Sound OpenFirmware (SOF) setup. There are two different workarounds for this:

  • Disable SOF, by unsetting CONFIG_SND_INTEL_BYT_PREFER_SOF in the kernel or blacklisting the module(s) for it.
  • Keep SOF and force a specific DSP driver when SOF loads:
$ echo "options snd-intel-dspcfg dsp_driver=2" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/byt-sof.conf

Tested DE

Gnome-mobile

Good, rare but possible lock-ups, assuming ram issue.

xfce4

Good, no complaints.

plasma-mobile

Works better with more recent updates, on the slow side but that should be expected with this device.

See also