[Other TouchPad Development] taylorcoffelt:
Installed on HP Touchpad

I have just finished installing this pre-pre-pre-pre-preview of Ubuntu Touch for the HP Touchpad!

I figured from looking at the replies that I could help bring some clarity by outlining what this is, and how it is installed, as I found the first post confusing, and had to read through it several times to make sense of it.

First off, a "Thank You" and tip of the hat to jshafer817 (and the people whose code this port is based on) for making this happen relatively soon after the release of the developer code for the Ubuntu Touch for Tablets.

Okay, so I am here with my Ubuntu-Touchified HP Touchpad in my hand.

I'll first tell you what's wrong with it.

- The Keyboard

The Keyboard is the wrong size. Oversized, lengthwise, which means that you cannot see all of the keys. Or use them all. You can barely see the left edge of the Enter key, and as far as I can tell, you can forget about using the backspace key, or the letter "p". This makes it very difficult to use. In addition, the keyboard has been getting stuck on the screen, effectively covering up half of the screen and doing nothing when I type on it.​

- The Text/Fonts

Almost all the text on the screen is...messed up. Letters are missing pieces, mostly from the bottoms of each letter, but it's different amounts missing for each one. This makes everything on it a pain to read. Amusingly and oddly, numbers (such as the time in the right hand corner) seem unaffected.

(Edit: noticed jshafer817's notice about fonts just now, somehow I missed it before. He suggests rebooting to fix the font issue.)​

- The Screen

The DPI looks like it should be scaled down a bit. I'm guessing that this is part of the fonts/text problem. Also, when I first started using it, it was fairly laggy, and wasn't responding to the touch input very fast. (I was running CM10 on it before)​

- Bluetooth

I'm not going to experiment with anything having to do with bluetooth for now, as jshafer817 has said it's not working​

- Camera

NO! Absolutely not! And I wouldn't expect it to. After all, we're still trying to get CM10 to play nice with the camera.​

- Sound

No Sound. At all. Not a peep. Also, all volume controls are missing, and replaced with the text "Empty!" (Microphone also does not work)​

- The Buttons

None of the buttons do anything, except for the power button. Sleep mode seems to work fine, except I'm not too sure about power drain.​

- The Search Button

The search button in the top left-hand corner doesn't respond when I tap it.​

Okay, so now for what does work:

- Everything else. Or so it seems. Haven't had it crash, it launches apps fairly quickly, the browser works fine, the settings menu works as advertised. Having two apps on the screen at the same time is pretty cool, although you can't type "HP Touchpad" very well without the letter "p". WiFi worked right out of the box, (jshafer817, I hope you have more epiphanies like that. ;) )

Do I recommend that you install this right now?

NO. I wholeheartedly do not.

(Unless you want to help fix all of these problems and are capable of helping to fix them)

However, for those that do, this is how I did it:

Download THIS FILE (UbuntuTouchPadAlpha.zip) first. This contains the formatting and Evervolv code to make your Touchpad ready for the SECOND FILE - (quantal-preinstalled-phablet-armhf.zip)

INSTALLATION

(Note: This will only work if you have MoBoot w/ CWM on your device. TWRP may work, but I haven't tested it.)

(2nd Note: This may make your Touchpad blow up in your face, kill millions of Truffula trees, or pour excessive amounts of malt in your cat's milk dish. Use at your own risk.)

So, once you have those files on the "SD Card" of your tablet, you then

Make a Backup. (For the record, TWRP makes backups much faster than CWM)

Double Check that you have made a backup. Copy it to another computer. Make sure it's safe.

Reboot into CWM, and choose "factory reset"

Do a "factory reset" again

Install the FIRST file first using CWM (takes ~ 5 min.)

Install the SECOND file using CWM (takes ~10 min. at least. Be patient.)

Reboot, choose Evervolv at the MoBoot screen

Wait for it to fail. It did for me, it may not for you.

Reboot into CWM, and install the FIRST file AGAIN

Install the SECOND file AGAIN

Reboot.

Be appalled at the Errors, finally understand why I did not recommend installing it, and then restore your CM10/CM9/CM7 backup, unless you understand how to fix the broken stuff.

Report only *NEW* findings to whomever is working on the port. And expect that there will always be bugs. And yes, not all of the apps work. This is a developer preview, after all.

Thank you again, to jshafer817, Ubuntu and others for making this happen.