yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] shawn99452:
Yes, I have a NextBook Ares 11. I had to compile a 32-bit EFI boot file for it, but was able to otherwise use the standard live 64-bit Ubuntu 15.04 image via a USB stick. While I had it up, I checked basic functionality. I think I saw the internal memory in /dev (as mmcblk*); I didn't know what device to look for for the microSD slot - I can try again, and check lspci/lsusb and lsmod to find out what kind of card reader it is, and see if it has a module loaded for it, or if one is available. If it does have the ability to access the microSD card (and it seems like it should), then as long as the module is included in the initramfs that goes on the USB stick, it should be possible to get a tiny USB stick as a boot device, install grub on it, and have it either chainload to the microSD card, or at least use the microSD card for the root filesystem. Unfortunately, as far as I know, there isn't any way in the BIOS to change the default boot device to USB, so it would have to be done manually when booting (not hard, but kind of a pain to remember). Also I don't know what kind of power management is available in Linux, for things like suspending on lid close, sleep support, etc. Have to look into those things. I'd like to get Linux working better, as DOSBoxTurbo crashes randomly in Android (looks like an ARM emulation bug, but no response from the developer yet), and this device would otherwise be a pretty good DOSBox machine. It would also be nice to not have it randomly close background applications like it does while running Android.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] shawn99452:
Ubuntu 15.04 live USB report:

microSD card works (/dev/mmcblk1, Linux automounts /dev/mmcblk1p1 and shows my files on a FAT32-formatted 64GB card)

Video works (Intel i915 driver)

Internal 64GB is available as /dev/mmcblk0*

USB stick is available at /dev/sda*

Interesting USB devices: 0603:0002, Novatek Microelectronics Corp. (keyboard/trackpad); 05e3:0608, Genesys Logic, Inc. USB-2.0 4-Port HUB (internal USB hub for keyboard/USB port/etc.?); there appears to be USB 3 support but nothing is hooked to it.

Interesting PCI devices: 8086:0f31, Intel Corportation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series Graphics & Display; 8086:0f38, Intel ... Camera ISP (webcams?); 8086:0f35, Intel ... USB xHCI; 8086:0f37, Intel ... OTG USB Device; 8086:0f1c, Intel ... Power Control Unit

Interestingly, I don't see the touchscreen, sound, or networking adapters at all. It looks like the sound and maybe network is actually SoC (system-on-chip), and is handled in a way I don't know much about. In lsmod, I can see modules loaded for the sound (snd_soc_core and friends), and it looks like an RT5640 chip. Alsa doesn't show any sound cards found though. Not sure about wifi, bluetooth, touchscreen, don't see anything in lsmod that looks promising, and lspci and lsusb don't have any unknown devices in them.

It should be possible to back up the android stuff at /dev/mmcblk0* using dd for the whole thing or per-partition, and parted to grab the partition info to repartition if necessary (sfdisk won't work since its GPT; parted -l seems to show accurate info for the internal flash). I'm not willing to blow away Android just yet though, and I'd need somewhere to store it (largest microSD card supported is 64GB, which isn't large enough after formatting to hold the backup; would have to do it per-partition and transfer stuff to PC to make room for more. The largest partition is the 'data' partition, which is 58.9GB. Most of the partitions are ext4, so it should be possible to mount them in Linux. The boot/esp partition is fat32 and should also be mountable.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] vampirefo:
Yeah, I don't have touch screen either, WiFi I built my own module, So wifi works just fine, could do same for Bluetooth. Would like to get touch working though.

I also have no sound probably could fix that.

Getting in to BIOS is simple enough on ares 8, Until I can get touch screen working the rest is not important, Ares 8 running Ubuntu mate 14.10 I think might be 14.04.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] shawn99452:
For the Ares 11, the touchscreen is "nice" but not required since the built-in trackpad works fine, and you could use the 2nd USB port for a mouse if required. When you say you built your own module for the wifi, I assume you mean that you identified the wifi chipset somehow and compiled (or cross-compiled) an existing driver and used that? If so, how did you identify which chipset it uses - I didn't see anything in lspci or lsusb that indicated a wifi chipset, so I assume its part of the SoC stuff. What driver did you end up using? It's possible that the Ares 8 and 11 use the same wifi chipset, or at least that the method you used to discover the chipset will let me discover the one used on the Ares 11.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] vampirefo:
ares 8 uses Realtek,

a simple lsmod, dmesg, or simply looking at the modules will let you know what wifi your device uses.

or just looking at the specs can help.

http://specdevice.com/showspec.php?id=256e-4bed-0033-c5870033c587
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] shawn99452:
Assuming you meant to look at lsmod / dmesg on Android instead of Linux, I had not realized that Android used the same module structure as recent linux, I thought the kernel was monolithic and included the drivers, sorry. The specdevice.com page however does list the wifi module (8723bs, a Realtek part), and touchscreen (atmel_mxt_ts). Both appear to have working modules on github that will work in Ubuntu, so I'll try those in a day or so, after I get a flush USB stick in the mail so I can install Linux instead of running the live distro.

I might also take a look at the boot partition on the internal flash, which is FAT32 (since its EFI boot). It might be useful to see how it works - so far, I've gotten Ubuntu to boot on it, but I was unsuccessful with Fedlet (a bay trail Fedora distro) and Windows 10 and 8.1 AIO installs, all of which had 32-bit EFI but would not show up in the boot manager list and would not load the EFI file from the filesystem manually either. I don't think I'd like to run Windows on it with only 1GB of RAM (esp. since Flexx 11 is the otherwise same hardware with 2GB RAM and Windows), but I'd like to know how to do it anyways, and others might be more interested.

Most of the hardware looks the same as the Ares 8 device link you included, so work towards making Linux work on either device benefits both, which is nice. Here is the link to specdevice for this device: http://specdevice.com/showspec.php?id=9413-6904-0033-c5870033c587

---------- Post added at 08:22 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:13 AM ----------

I don't have any previous experience with posting on XDA (just reading things for rooting other devices and downloading custom ROMs mostly, some HP TouchPad work) - how does one go about getting a new 'device' added to their forums, so that we can have cleaner repositories of info for people (how to root, how to install twrp, which xposed to use, progress on alternative OS installation, etc.)?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] shawn99452:
Don't use 15.04 for an install, or for liveboot if you intend to mount the internal flash! 15.04 has a bug in the kernel that will blow sometimes corrupt the flash; I had 15.04 installed and running on a USB stick, with /dev/mmcblk0p1 (the EFI partition) mounted as /boot/efi, and the system hard-froze and I lost the contents of the EFI partition.

Supposedly 14.x works fine though, so I'm going to try that. As far as wifi once it was installed, I was able to compile the rtl8723bs driver, copy it to /lib/modules/APPROPRIATE_LOCATION_HERE, run depmod, and modprobe the driver, and it started working fine (showed up in the system tray, was able to connect to internet). I wanted to do an apt-get upgrade to see if newer updates fixed any other hardware issues before diving into sound/touchscreen, but the freeze and loss of EFI partition put an end to that temporarily.

----update----

14.10 with kernel 3.17 instead of default 3.16 (3.17+ required for wifi module) also appears to have the hang / corruption issue. The corruption of the EFI partition on the internal flash can at least be prevented by changing /etc/fstab so that /boot/efi is mounted read-only. Haven't figured out yet why it freezes, but it looks SDIO related (and most of the devices on this tablet are attached via SDIO).

----end update----

I tried installing to a microSD card. You can do this, and it installs fine but can't boot. The EFI information goes to the internal flash's built-in EFI partition, and it shows up in the boot list as "ubuntu". grub loads, but its unable to enumerate the partitions on the microSD card, and you can't boot from it, you just get a grub console. It can enumerate the internal flash partitions, and view files on them, as well as USB devices, just not the microSD card, which it sees but cannot access. Installing to a USB stick (I used a flush 32GB one) appears to work fine and it will boot when you pick "ubuntu" in the OS list (the default remains Android if you don't push anything, I assume efibootmgr in linux can change that though). Once the system is booted you can mount and use the microSD card, but it doesn't appear to be a boot option for the default grub2. It might be possible its just missing a module or something. Booting off USB "works" but isn't ideal, because the USB ports are in the keyboard section, and the connection between the keyboard and tablet is flaky; booting into the microSD would be much safer, so I might look into seeing why grub can't access it after I get other devices working.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] vampirefo:
Yes, I only use even number 2014, 2016 and so on builds of Ubuntu. 2015, 2017 and so on are junk builds.

Even numbers are stable long life distros, I need ts to work, keyboard and mouse work. But who wants to carry a mouse and keyboard with them? Linux also uses up battery faster than android.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] shawn99452:
I'm working on the touchscreen and sound next. For the Nextbook Ares 11 (my device), the keyboard and trackpad are pretty much always connected, since its more of a laptop 2-in-1 profile than a tablet profile, so the lack of a touchscreen isn't super the end of the world (the touchscreen is not great anyways on this device, even in Android).
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] vampirefo:
Touch is good on Ares 8 in android, not a 2-in-1 like yours.

When I get home I will give you commands to get into bios, well they work for Ares 8, so might work for 11 also.

You need any img files, boot.img recovery.img fastboot.img doesn't matter which, it's will be used to boot into bios selections.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] vampirefo:
adb reboot dnx

Then boot what every img you have, below is using boot.img

fastboot boot boot.img
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] don_patch:
Did anyone figure out how to get our Ares device added?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] shawn99452:
vampirefo, actually if you (or anyone else) can get it, what I need is the contents of the EFI directory on the EFI partition. Either just image the partition (/dev/mmcblk0p1) with dd so I can mount it with loopback, or just zip up the EFI directory on the partition (its formatted FAT32 so it should mount in Android) and put it online somewhere. Since my EFI directory got corrupted, I had to format the partition, and I have Linux installed now, but the Android directory is missing so I can't boot the internal Android OS anymore. I assume the files are the same for the NextBook Ares 8 since its just the EFI bootloader and not really hardware specific, but if someone has an Ares 11 that would be preferable. Thanks!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] vampirefo:
Most likely the users who have Ares 11 doesn't know what you are asking for, They are newbie so to get any help from them you might need to tell them exactly how to get the info.

I doubt ares 8 will work as it's 64bit and your 32bit.

anyway to any Ares 11 users that want to help, you need root with adb working.

adb shell

su

dd if=/dev/block/by-name/ESP of=/sdcard/ESP.img

adb pull /sdcard/ESP.img

Here is from Ares 8

https://www.androidfilehost.com/?fid=24052804347808973
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] don_patch:
I did a thing. ( ESP.img from my Ares 11 )

ESP.img
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] shawn99452:
Thanks vampirefo, your ESP.img worked ok. I loopback mounted it and copied the EFI/BOOT directory to my EFI directory, and ran efibootmgr to make a boot entry, and Android appears to boot from it fine. I don't know why it won't USB boot from 64-bit EFI loaders, but I did notice that when I installed Linux without a 32-bit loader, it boots fine (from the bootx64 file). So it must have some 64-bit booting capability, it might just be really picky (since I still haven't gotten any Windows USB sticks to boot, even those designed for bay trail tablets.

---------- Post added at 07:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:18 PM ----------

Thanks don_patch, yours works also, and without an error (that didn't seem to hurt anything) like the one from the Ares 8!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] shawn99452:
FYI, I've sold my NextBook Ares 11 tablet, so won't be able to continue working on Linux issues with it. People are free to contact me with questions, but I think I documented everything I learned in my posts in this thread. Good luck!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] macgyverX:
Hate to ask about this, I know you mentioned you sold the tablet already. I just bought this for my son (for school) and want to disable encryption and fix mem leak to make it more stable. I've got root and have backed up the stock boot.img, but was wondering if you could post your modified Ares 11 boot_noencrypt.img one more time? It may help me to not brick this tablet.

Thanks

David
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] shawn99452:
Same link I posted originally is still accurate. Hope it helps.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/prc577kbco53x1c/boot_noencrypt.img?dl=0
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] macgyverX:
I have it now, thank you, really appreciate all the work put into doing this, I've rooted and customized a number of devices thanks to the efforts of folks like you.

D
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] evancrazyelf:
Hi there anyone have the recovery.img for aires 11? and anyone know how I would flash it recovery part partition?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] shawn99452:
Does anyone have a full dump of the stock data on the NextBook Ares 11? I performed a data wipe on one (everything but /system) from TWRP, and it appears to no longer have soft buttons on the screen for back/home/switch, and the home key on the keyboard doesn't work (back works), and there is no default wallpaper (just solid black). I assume that the wipe wiped something it shouldn't have?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] HedonJames:
EDIT: I just registered and not sure if original post went through. Please forgive if posted twice.

Hey guys, I also bought this tablet, for pretty much the same reasons as everyone else has already cited above. Love the form factor, love the Intel processor, love the size...blah, blah, blah. And as a Linux user (Ubuntu), it seems the Intel processor would lend itself well to a Linux installation in the future....if I choose to go that route, but I'm way ahead of myself. Just tinkering with it and getting Android setup the way I like it, I think this would be the PERFECT tablet for my personal computing needs, if the damn thing would quit crashing randomly, and so frequently.

I see where Nextbook has provided firmware updates for the Nextbook 8, but not the Nextbook 11. Maybe they will, maybe they won't, but I'm tired of waiting! Lo and behold, the collective community here seems to have already solved every issue I'm looking to address. But I can't figure out how y'all did it. Referencing Post #26, reading, and rereading, I seem to be stuck on step #1 (double clicking the downloaded and extracted launcher.bat file). I certainly don't know as much as you guys, but it seems this tool is a Windows only tool. If I'm wrong, how can I use this took in Linux (specifically, I'm using Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS)?

I have never unlocked, rooted, flashed, or anything else with a tablet. In that respect, I'm a newbie. But I have installed various Linux OS on desktops, laptops, & NUC devices in all forms of configurations: dual-boots, replace windows & single boot, and "something else" configs with separate /home partitions for data drives. I'm not afraid of the terminal and can follow instructions to the letter. I'd consider myself an average to above-average user with Linux distros, and have no fear of repairing anything I break in the Linux environment. But the tablet arena is new to me, and I just can't seem to figure out what the first step is?

At this point, I'm only interested in gaining ROOT access and installing XDA x86-based memory patch for Lollipop leak; possibly removing encryption, based on rave reviews of increased performance. Is there anyone here who uses Linux that would be willing to walk another Linux-user through the appropriate tools & steps, or even write a tutorial? I don't know the rules here yet, but perhaps it could be stickied on the main page, so less experienced folks like myself don't ask too many stupid questions because we missed 1 important piece of information? Just a thought...

Otherwise, great forum with great information! I love the exchange of information here! I can only hope to be able to contribute something to that discussion someday!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] vampirefo:
You can use my Linux tethered recovery to flash the root, I provided for nextbook 8, I only use Linux, don't flash nextbook 8 boot.img just flash the super user zip.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=61298767

Also there is no update for intel nextbook 8, that update is for mtk nextbook 8.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] brewjar:
Hmmm...

Hello everyone,

I too bought the Ares 11 and have attempted to gain root, and remove encryption. I haven't tried the memory leak yet, as I haven't gotten that far.

My problem seems to be not getting access to the /data. I used vampirefo's tools to get to cwm. In the log, it states the cannot mount error to /data. I have also tried the different TWRP recoveries as well. Still no luck.

I was able to fastboot boot_noencrypt to it, provided by shawn99452 in post #28. However, could not factory reset in cwm (unable to mount /data). The tablet boots up to a nonfunctional touchscreen and encrypt still enabled.

What did I do wrong?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] shawn99452:
If you have the Nextbook 11, this probably means that you flashed/booted the Nextbook 8 bootloader, which contains a different kernel and different touchscreen drivers. You can go back into your recovery and flash the correct one still. Also, turning off encryption can take a long time (I think it took at least an hour on my device), so be patient with it. If it DOESN'T take long (at least a minute), maybe you missed a step somewhere or flashed the wrong thing.

---------- Post added at 08:25 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:12 AM ----------

I tried this, there should be some info in my earlier posts (and some by vampirefo) about getting Linux booted and installed correctly. It will boot off the internal flash or a USB stick. I don't recommend the internal flash currently. It won't boot off the microSD card AFAIK because the EFI firmware doesn't seem to see it, though you can install a minimal boot image (or maybe even just grub) to USB or internal flash and then mount root off the microSD card. Ubuntu 13 and 15 both boot on it and can be installed. Sound doesn't work right (module loaded, but no I/O configuration loads) (fixable); touchscreen doesn't work (probably fixable); wifi works, bluetooth doesn't; keyboard/trackpad are fine, graphics are fine (haven't tried HDMI); USB ports work fine; microSD works fine; sleep doesn't work; battery monitoring doesn't work. Internal flash "works" but writing can cause random kernel hangs - after installing, modify /etc/fstab to mount /boot as read-only (ro instead of defaults), otherwise a hang can erase some/all of your EFI partition, which I had happen and is not great. The kernel hang with EMMC is probably being worked on by others (I think it affects many Baytrail Atom platforms).
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] vampirefo:
You shouldn't be using cwm, you should be using twrp. And the correct command is fastboot flash boot boot_noencrpt.img
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] brewjar:
Well that's embarrassing...

Ran fastboot FLASH boot boot_noencrypt.img

I will report back after it finishes. Thanks
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] brewjar:
So it's been a few hours and still stuck at the boot screen. Is there a way to determine if it is still decrypting or if its in a boot loop?

The other issue I am havng is no matter what recovery I use, cwm or TWRP, there is no access to /data (cannot mount /data). I do not have access to the files on the internal or external cards.

I also don't have access to the boot.img that was original on the tablet.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] vampirefo:
What instructions did you follow, Your problem sounds like you didn't follow correct rooting instructions seeing you didn't know how to flash boot.img.

Cwm can't now nor will ever mount and encrypted lollipop data partition. You needed to use twrp and format data partition, cwm can only mount unencrypted partitions.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] brewjar:
I started off using T4 option with TWRP. I noticed the cannot mount /data, so I attempted to fastboot flash boot_noencrypt.img (well, not flash, as I got the command wrong). What I failed to read and do was

Format the data partition

. And it took you to point that out.

So I formatted it, flashed noencrypt and now its working. Thanks.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] HedonJames:
I'm a little confused, as I'm a newbie with tablets (a virgin "flasher", LOL?!). Looks like I should follow post #2, correct? And assuming post #2 is what you're recommending, what is twrp? Can you educate me a little as to what we're doing here, and why? The depth of my knowledge is that we're "unlocking" a locked bootloader so we can install programs that provide Root privileges (required for XDA x86-based memory patch for Lollipop leak), and removing encryption. It appears that twrp "unlocks" the bootloader, is that correct?

I guess I could "just do it", but I'd like to learn more and understand more before I just start modifying things. It helps me to understand things better. You seem quite knowledgeable, and you have a Linux background, so I'm wondering if you can explain this to me in "newbie-friendly" terms that a beginner can understand. Thanks in advance Vampirefo! :cool:
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] HedonJames:
I think I'm missing a tool Vampirefo.

- I've got developer mode enabled; usb debugging allowed; and installation from sd card allowed on the device

- I've got phablet-tools installed on my Linux box; typing "adb devices" in the terminal reveals the Ares devices connected via usb

Referencing your post:

- Typing

adb reboot bootloader

did indeed reboot the Ares into the bootloader

- However, typing

sudo ./fastboot flash recovery ./twrp_recovery.img

into the terminal yields

I'm obviously missing something with ./fastboot. I know that the dot prefix "." on Linux is a hidden file, but I've never seen that syntax with a command before, only directories and files. What am I doing wrong?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] vampirefo:
You have to open terminal in the directory where you placed my files.

Why are you trying to flash Ares 8 twrp on your Ares 11? not a good ideal.