Acer Iconia Tab A500 (acer-picasso)

Features
Flashing	Works
USB Networking	Works
Internal storage
SD card
Battery	Works
Screen	Works
Touchscreen	Works
Multimedia
3D Acceleration	Partial
Audio	Works
Camera	Broken
Camera Flash
Connectivity
WiFi	Works
Bluetooth	Works
Miscellaneous
FDE	Partial
USB OTG	Works
HDMI/DP
Sensors
Accelerometer	Works
Magnetometer
Ambient Light
Proximity
Hall Effect
Haptics
Barometer

Acer Iconia Tab A500
Manufacturer	Acer
Name	Iconia Tab A500
Codename	acer-picasso
Released	2011
Type	tablet
Hardware
Chipset	Nvidia Tegra 2 (T20)
CPU	Dual-core 1.0 GHz Cortex-A9
GPU	ULP GeForce
Display	1280x800
Storage	16/32 GB
Memory	1 GB
Architecture	armv7
Software
Original software	Android
Original version	3.0
Extended version	4.0
postmarketOS
Category	testing
Pre-built images	no
Mainline	yes
postmarketOS kernel	5.15.0-rc4
Unixbench Whet/Dhry score	299.5

Contributors

Worldblender

Maintainer

Worldblender

Users owning this device

Arthurlutz (Notes: postmarketos installed)
IonAgorria (Notes: Unknown)

How to enter flash mode (requires a custom bootloader)

See https://forum.xda-developers.com/iconia-a500/a500-2019-2020-t4039271 for a through explanation of how to go from stock to fully modded.

To get serialnumber, use adb shell then dmesg then look for serialnumber in it.

To convert the CPUID to SDK without Windows, you can use the perl code referenced on xda-developers.

The nvflash tool is documented by Nvidia on https://http.download.nvidia.com/tegra-public-appnotes/flashing-tools.html#_nvflash

Installation

From https://forum.xda-developers.com/iconia-a500/linux-acer-iconia-tab-a500-2020-edition-t4136023:

Follow the Installation_guide as usual, where theses specifics have to be specified when requested:

Vendor: acer
Device code-name: picasso
Install non-free Wi-Fi + Bluetooth firmware: y

Only the mainline kernel is available for installation now, as downstream kernels no longer successfully compile. The user interface may be freely selected, as long as it is not one that requires 3D acceleration. To use KDE Plasma 5, add these lines to /etc/security/pam_env.conf:

QT_IM_MODULE=qtvirtualkeyboard
QT_QUICK_BACKEND=software
LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1

Next, run the following commands in succession, after each one finishes, assuming the working directory contains the pmbootstrap.py script:

$ pmbootstrap build device-acer-picasso
$ pmbootstrap build firmware-acer-picasso
$ pmbootstrap build linux-postmarketos-grate

From here on out, the generated chroot can be either installed to the eMMC, or a microSD card that must be inserted at or before boot time (the latter method allows for dual-booting Android already installed to the eMMC, although it can be directly accessed from the Linux system). The boot partition always has to be flashed to the eMMC in fastboot mode, as it is not possible to boot directly off of a microSD card. If installing to the eMMC, run

$ pmbootstrap install
$ pmbootstrap flasher flash_kernel --partition secboot
$ pmbootstrap flasher flash_rootfs
$ pmbootstrap flasher boot # optional

If installing to a microSD card, run

$ pmbootstrap install --sdcard $DEVICEPATH # path to the device for installation
$ pmbootstrap flasher flash_kernel --partition secboot

Depending on what user interface was chosen earlier in the installation process, there may not be enough packages installed to get a fully-loaded GUI. Besides the built-in Wi-Fi, it is also possible to use a USB ethernet adapter, or connect to another computer with a micro-USB cable and get RNDIS access that enables using SSH to the tablet.

After installation to either a microSD card or the eMMC, the screen should look like:

Graphical Interfaces

Interface	Info	Working
none		Y
fbkeyboard
GNOME 3
i3wm
Kodi
MATE		Y
Phosh
Plasma-Desktop
Plasma Mobile
Shelli		Y
Sway
Weston		Y
Xfce4		Y