[Lenovo Yoga Book Questions & Answers] jimnarey:
Hi,

Firstly, installing desktop OS's of whatever sort on the Android version (YB1-X90F), insofar as anyone has managed it, is a completely different process and none of what follows is likely to be relevant.

Secondly, it should go without saying that any use of the linked ISO or the information in this post is entirely at your own risk.

There are several threads on xda and elsewhere dealing with attempts to install Linux on the Windows version of the Yoga Book (YB1-X91F). They're pretty consistent in terms of results, both with each other and my own attempts. I have tried the latest and previous LTS or main releases Debian, Ubuntu (all flavours), Mint and Fedora.

Between mine and others' attempts, most distros have the following working, using a Live ISO flashed to USB:

- Boot to desktop and successful install to eMMC

- Display

- Graphics pad responds to touches, but not aligned with screen rotation and probably in need of other calibration.

- USB, including ethernet-to-USB adapter

Some distros/versions additionally have:

- Touchscreen (only newer kernels, I think 4.13 onwards but definitely 4.15 onwards)

- Sound via HDMI

- Not sure about Bluetooth - possibly

The following didn't work with any distos/versions:

- A lot of the ACPI subsystem, meaning that some ICs (e.g. SD Card) don't receive power.

- Wifi

- SD Card

- Sound via headphones or speakers

- Halo Keyboard

- Touchscreen multitouch

- Battery gauge

- OS control of battery charger IC, though the IC sits in autonomous mode so the device still charges

- Display brightness adjustment (always set to max)

- Display auto-rotate

The Mint ISO linked at the end of this post has WiFi, the SD Card, two-finger right click and brightness adjustment working in addition to the OOTB functionality. I've made a lot of progress on the sound - the driver and codec load but it needs some configuration. I have read elsewhere that configuring this incorrectly can blow your speakers which is why I haven't tackled it yet.

The Halo keyboard doesn't work yet, so the Yoga Book can't be used in laptop mode for now. The only real barrier to using it in tablet mode is the lack of a functioning battery gauge. More on this below.

Instructions:

You will need a USB flash drive of at least 2GB, a USB keyboard and mouse and therefore a USB hub as well as a way of attaching it to the micro-usb port. I use an OTG adapter which came with a Samsung phone.

The touchscreen does not work when the Live ISO boots but it does work after installation.

Once Linux is installed on the eMMC, the firmware will boot to GRUB by default rather than Windows. To boot into Windows you have to enter the firmware menu. This should be easy to fix/reconfigure but I haven't got round to it yet. I need to get the volume and power keys working in GRUB first.

- Download the ISO from the link below and flash to USB. I use Etcher on MacOS which flashes in a dd-like manner (other tools make their own changes to the target drive to make it bootable - this isn't needed or desirable).

- Turn off hibernate, fast boot and secure boot in Windows. There are easily found guides on how to do this. It ought to be possible to retain secure boot but I have found doing so a real headache on other systems so didn't try in this case.

- Turn off any secure boot settings in the device firmware (access the menu by powering on with the volume up button pressed down).

- Using the firmware menu, boot from the flashed USB drive. When the desktop boots, use GParted to shrink the Windows partition, leaving at least 11GB (Mint says it needs 10.7GB). I've been messing around with Linux for months now on the YB and have found 11 enough.

- Run the desktop installer. At the partitioning menu, choose 'Something else'.

- Create a new Ext4 partition using all of the free space created previously and map it to '/'.

- Ignore any warnings about a swap partition. If you get stuck on a dialog about forcing a UEFI install, open a terminal and run 'killall ubiquity' then run the installer again with the network connection turned off. If the install doesn't work, you may have to risk the default 'Install Mint alongside Windows....' option. I have never had a problem with this, but I don't quite trust it, or indeed the installer in general.

- If you fail at the point of GRUB install, go back and start again with networking disabled.

- Just reboot as normal.

Changes from Stock ISO (probably not exhaustive)

- New ISO using 18.3 Cinnamon as a base using Cubic

- Updated, inc dist-upgrade as of 6 Sept 18

- Missing Broadcom firmware (for WiFi) added.

- Additions to /etc/skel/.config to put Mint into HiDPI mode

- Florence on screen keyboard added and loads on start

- Touchegg, which enables two-finger right click added and loads on start.

- LightDM settings changed to enable Florence and HiDPI

- Most importantly, a custom kernel (4.18.5) which is responsible for most of the above-OOTB functionality. Some of this is just about enabling the correct Atom ACPI ICs, other bits relate to load order (to get past the lack of brightness control).

Help!

- I really need some help with the battery gauge IC. For now, dmesg is the best bet but I'll follow up with another post with more detail.

- There are other things which need doing, e.g. the keyboard and finishing off the sound but these are relatively straightforward by comparison. The gauge/charger setup is the last low level thing not working.

Custom ISO:

This is my first post. I can't post links! Remove the spaces and ..... :

drive.google.com/ .... open? .... id=1-5vtnKAVpERmzTFIR3TGXe1DgvoFvehc