[Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 Edition) General] Stevethegreat:
In my first post I described how you can get a relatively well performing Desktop envrironment working on our Samsung Note tablets. This post acts as a companion. Most of the tips here are either completely optional or easy to figure out. Still they may seem useful to many users so I include them here anyhow. As always any recommendations to improve on them or any additional tips would be well considered.

1) DPI Tips and seting up Volume Control :

a) Right click (S-pen button press) on Start menu -> Panel Settings -> Height: 70 and Icon: 70 -> Panel Applets (tab) -> Application Launch Bar (the first one) -> Edit -> Florence (extend Universal Access) -> Add -> Close -> Application Launch Bar (you have to scroll down for this one) -> Edit -> Mixer (extend Sound & Video) -> Add -> Close -> Close

b) LXDE Button -> Preferences -> OpenBox Configuration Manager -> Appearance -> change all to 13-15 (except Active/Inactive on-screen Display: 11-12 ) -> Close

c) File Manager (Black Icon) -> Edit -> Preferences -> Display (Tab) -> Size of Big Icons (96), Size of Small Icons (48), Size of Thumbnails (256), Size of Side Pane Icons (48) -> Close

d) Click the gear looking icon (in the lower-right part of the screen) -> Select Controls... -> Tick Speaker Digital -> Close -> Quit​

Explanation:

Those are easy-to-figure but I think essential changes that need to be done so that to make the LXDE enironment more functional on our HiDpi (and often keyboardless) screen. I would be glad to add more HiDPI changes accesible through LXDE's GUI (that you'd think that may be important).

2) If you want Linux's user data to be readable/writable/cacheable by/from your android apps:

Run the following from Privilege Terminal:

su;
find /data/media/0/Linux/Home -type d -exec chmod 777 {} \;
find /data/media/0/Linux/Home -type f -exec chmod 777 {} \;
echo"";

Note: This step has to be re-run if for whatever reason some of your Linux user-files are -again- not accessible from Android.​

Explanation:

While the folder Linux/Home contains all your personal data from Linux it's only accessible from within Linux. That's an obvious security feature, but it may also affect the practicality of running Desktop Linux side by side with Android. By allowing permissions to all "your" files they can be literally read by everyone/everything which also includes your android Apps (for example your edited photos could be "seen" from within your android gallery) which can be extremely useful to many, as well as an easy way to send/save files from Android to Linux, too.

3) In case you want to remove android's mouse cursor (for more experienced users, as inability to follow the steps will -well softbrick your device. BEWARE! )

a) If you're using Windows (if not equivalent steps have to be followed on your mac/linux) unzip the adb folder (included to the bottom of this post) to C:\ and install the samsung drivers (if you haven't already): http://developer.samsung.com/technical-doc/view.do?v=T000000117

b) Reboot your tablet to recovery and connect it to your PC

c) mount /system (from mounts and storage menu or similar). Disable MTP too, if applicable

d) On your PC navigate to C:\adb from command line

e) run:

adb pull /system/framework/framework-res.apk

f) Navigate to C:\adb, create a copy of framework-res.apk and rename it to framework-res.bak

g) Open the framework-res.apk (the original) with WinRar (or similar) and navigate to res\drawable-sw800dp-xhdpi or res\drawable-xhdpi-v4 and rename pointer_arrow.png to pointer_arrow.bak . Close Winrar

h) Back to the command line run the following

adb push framework-res.apk /system/framework
adb push framework-res.bak /system/framework
adb shell chmod 0755 /system/framework/framework-res.apk
adb reboot

After having followed the above guide succesfully you can restore the mouse cursor and then kill it again as easily as described below (those commands reboot the device, so beware)

To restore the cursor (after having it killed) in Privilege Terminal run:

su;
mount -o rw,remount /system; mv /system/framework/framework-res.apk /system/framework/framework-res ; mv /system/framework/framework-res.bak /system/framework/framework-res.apk ; chmod 0755 /system/framework/framework-res.apk; reboot;
echo"";

To kill the cursor (after having it restored) in Privilege Terminal run:

su;
mount -o rw,remount /system; mv /system/framework/framework-res.apk /system/framework/framework-res.bak ; mv /system/framework/framework-res /system/framework/framework-res.apk; chmod 0755 /system/framework/framework-res.apk; reboot;
echo"";

Explanation:

The above is to kill android's mouse cursor so that when you connect a mouse you won't have two mouse cursors on-screen. It would have been a far less dangerous endeavor if I was to include a flashable zip file doing those changes, but I much prefer to expose the way by which you can kill android's cursor, so that any user would be able to do the same on any other version of android that he or she is willing to run Linux on. Also as a bonus the user is just "one" shell command away from reverting his mouser cursor. Obviously any bricked devices resulted from this method is the user's responsibility and the user's alone (however it's a very recoverable situation)

4) Tips to make browsing easier when you'd want to use the Pen Exclusively:

a) Open the browser (Iceweasel) while in Linux

b) Type on the URL bar -> about:config-> "I'll be careful, I promise"

c) Search for: browser.search.showOneOffButtons . Change its Value from true to false (double click on it)

d) go to: ("hamburger" button ->)preferences -> privacy (tab) -> Iceweasel will: -> Use Custom settings for history -> Untick Remember search and form history

e) Right click on the search bar and untick "show suggestions"

f) Restart Iceweasel​

Explanation:

It kills Firefox/Iceweasel's fancy search so typing on the search bar when using pen/virtual keyboard is twice as fast. When I found out about that it completely transformed my usage patters, now I often "quick boot" to Linux if I want to browse to a web-site that android's mobile browser refuse to have rendered. Oh BTW, if you followed the "DPI Tips" (tip No1) the virtual keyboard (florence) can be found to the left of the "start button" (for quick reference).

5) In case you want a multilanguage keyboard:

a) Enter LinuxDeploy's shell by running the following on Privilege Terminal:

su;
/data/data/ru.meefik.linuxdeploy/files/bin/linuxdeploy shell;
echo"";

b) Run the following command. Where xx your choice of language: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_639-1_codes (only 639-1 codes are applicable)

echo 'setxkbmap -option grp:ctrl_shift_toggle "us,[B]xx[/B]"' >> /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE/autostart

c) when back in Linux/LXDE do the following:

Right click on Start menu -> Add/Remove Panel Items -> Add -> Keyboard Layout Switcher -> Add -> Close​

Explanation:

It allows to change keyboard's layouts in both your virtual keyboard (by tapping the flag icon) and physical keyboard (by pressing ctrl+shift). I have not tried any other key combinations other than ctrl+shift so I don't know how well they'll work but you're welcome to try/modify (just replace the ctrl_shift part of the command with any other combination, as you're following the steps).

6) Kernel level changes (Please read the expanation, those changes may well cause instability! BEWARE!):

To achieve those you'd need the Donate version of TricksterMod (much recommended app to own)

Ultra Aggressive OOM Values:

a) You can access them by navigating to General (tab) -> MinFree Control while in Tricker Mod

b) When there please save the default values ( tap on "untitled", then "save" and name it default -> ok )

c) Then proceed to change the values as follows:

Foreground = 384

Visible = 412

Secondary Server = 480

Hidden App = 512

Content Provider= 640

Empty App = 768

d) Again save them as "Aggressive" ( tap on "untitled", then "save" and name it aggressive -> ok )

e) Tap on the tick (that has just showed up) to validate the changes​

Undervolting

a) If your kernel does not support it you won't find it. If it does, you'd find it by choosing the "Specific" tab (MTU Voltages).

b) Similarly as above please save the default values ( tap on "untitled", then "save" and name it default -> ok )

c) Proceed to change the values. I won't include any here as every SoC is different, but typically the greatest clock the greatest undervolt is achievable. As an example I started by lowering my volts by around 100 mvolts in my highest clocks, and progressively less in my lower clocks (for example 1900Mhz was lower by 125 mvolts, 1800Mhz by 100mvolts, etc). You (the user) are the the only one who can find the best volts for your device (low yet stable). If your device starts to get unstable (restarts without notice) you'd have to choose higher volts (you went too low), etc.

d) Try different volt levels (Tap on the tick on each of your attemps)

e) When you found stable enough (hopefully low enough) voltages, save them ( tap on "untitled", then "save" and name it low -> ok )​

As an add-on you can "tell" TrickerMod to boot with the settings you just chose (menu button -> tick on "Kernel Settings"). Else you'd have to manually choose "your profiles" with every reboot.​

Explanation:

I struggled very much before deciding to add the above section. I know it may cause instability to many users (the undervolt) and/or significantly lower the capacity of the device to keep apps on system's RAM (due to the high OOM values) but eventually I decided against not including it. The reason is that Linux/Desktop usage can be characteristically RAM and battery hungry. That makes the above tip(s) less of an often uneeded option and more of a necessity, especially to those willing to make heavy use of the Desktop environment. Basically what running a whole OS via chroot means is that you'd need most of the resources of the device. That can only be done by using uncharacteristically high "killing" thresholds.

The OOM values -above- basically mean that the device would kill significantly more background processes than it is expected. In fact I've experimented with many values and the above are the only ones that I've found to (still) be acceptably "low" yet allowing seamless use of the chroot/Linux environment. I could go lower but I start to see hits in performance. Also keep in mind that those values are also dependant on the rom one uses. There are other Roms that "react" better on low ram envrironments than mine. So -obviously- those values are not panacea, but I would be surprised if significantly lower values were not to harm the "Linux experience" no matter the rom.

So -yeah- background processes would be killed left and right. The upside is more RAM for Linux use, less battery leaking from background processes and surprisingly better responsiveness in Android too. In fact that's the other reason why I've kept those values, I've never seen my tablet being as responsive than after adopting those values.Still depending on your usage patterns it may start killing some important background process of yours, in which case I'd advice lowering those values (but not way too much as it would impact Linux performance).

For undervolting (if you can do it) the story is very similar. It may well cause a more unstable system, but it greatly helps with performance and battery life. On Linux there are processes that are characteristically harder to the Processor than most of anything that can be found to a "consumption OS" like Android. This means that the high clocks of our device are used much more frequently, leading to a very much lower battery life, but worse of all overheating which leads to throttling (low performance) and even possibly lowers the SoC's lifespan. Undervolting sets to aleviate those issue. After undervolting my processor I'm getting much better *sustained* performance and while on Linux quite better battery life too, about 30-40 minutes more! I like to say that undervolting is the "overclocking of mobiles", as it achieves the same end-result by aleviating or -even- eliminating throttling, one of the most important causes of low performance on mobiles.

7) Kill multi-window before starting Linux:

Well that's very straight forward, just toggle multiwindow off on quick settings.​

Explanation: Ram (as explained above) is a precious commodity for "serious" Desktop work, so about ~100 MB of RAM is being freed in that way. But most importantly it disallows accidental activation of the multi-window panel which is a quite frustrating experience when it happens while "Desktoping".

This concludes my second post. The following (and final) one is all about the things that still have to be done (where I'd need you -guys- more) and also some work-arounds that I found to those.