[Eee Pad Transformer General] carlosalvatore:
Hi, inspired by your comments I undusted my old TF101 and brought it back to life.

Objective: To have a working tablet for my children to play.

Restrictions: Tablet must be responsive and easy to use. Ads should be eradicated or reduced to a minimum. Tablet must not auto-reboot nor crash.

Initial state: Rooted tablet with TWRP recovery and Timduru's Marsmallow (random reboot problem) ROM installed. Linux computer with adb tools installed. A microSD (FAT32) holding every zip file I needed to flash.

Procedure:

Step 1. I've wiped everything (system, dalvik, cachè), all, using TWRP.

Step 2. Kind of followed Jan's guide at KCORE.ORG. (Read it here).

------ I did install Timduru's last Android 6 (a.k.a. Marshamallow) ROM (v34 from 2017). (Available here).

------ I skipped Super SU 2.52 from Timduru's (not sure whether it was a good idea or not).

------ I did not install any gapps.

------ Flashed F-droid (NanoDroid-fdorid and NanoDroid-patcher zips. I used the latest I found, 20.3.2018208). It was actually Nanolx's NanoDroid (Available here). It might be important to mention that when I selected Timduru's ROM to be flashed using TWRP, it asked me whether I wanted to add more zips to the flashing process; so I added both NanoDroid files to the queue (but skipped Super Su because I didn't want it to be flashed).

It took some time to finish the flashing process. Once it did I wiped dalvik and cachè, and rebooted.

----- Tablet booted just fine. When it finished I immediately rebooted to recovery (TWRP).

----- Then I flashed the last Super Su version I could find (v2.82-201705271822). The official site didn't provide a valid download so I used google to find an alternate source for it. (Remember to checksum everything before installing to avoid errors or malware -Trojans, virus, etc.-)

----- Once Super Su was flashed I rebooted (didn't wipe anything this time). It rebooted a couple of times until it was idle. I then ran Super Su app to check if it was Ok. It was. Then fixed some settings like language (Spanish, in my case), time zone (Mexico City) and location (changed to 'high accuracy' from 'device only'). And then connected to the Internet.

----- I ran F-droid and disabled all repositories but microG. Forced repositories update and installed microG Services Core and microG Service Framework Proxy.

---- Then I re-enabled the F-droid repository, forced it to update and upgraded microG (for me it was available).

---- Installed the recomended backends:

---- ++ UnifiedNlp (no GAPPS).

---- ++ MozillaNlpBackend (I didn't want the one from Apple as Jan did).

---- ++ NominatimNlpBackend

---- ++ WiFi Location Service (I don't know if this was necessary but I installed it anyway).

---- ++ Local GSM Location (I think this wasn't necessary because the tablet doesn't have GSM nor any other cellular SIM, but I installed it anyway to cover all my bases).

---- Patched the ROM to allow signature spoofing. (Check Jan's article about this). The second and third patch weren't applied because the files were already patched but I followed every step there to the end.

---- Followed Jan's article at sections "Configuring microG Services" and "Reinstall Google Play Store"

Step 3. I took the opportunity to install and run the AdBlocker script from this thread. In my case there was no pdf but the script file. I downloaded the raw text file and created a file named adblocker. Used the adb shell to ran it. I needed to remount the system partition in order to move the script to /system/bin. (A google search can help here if you don't know how to do it). Short version: it installed and ran Ok.

Step 4. On my first attempt (second, third, and maybe fourth actually), I installed apps from the Google Store. Eventually I ended with the reboot loop again. So in the end I opted for downloading the apk files of the apps I wanted to install (from apkpure.com) and did it manually (actually I used a for loop and adb in bash, but it counts as manually).

Step 5. That was it. Tested some apps and gave the tablet to my little monsters for further testing. The kids have been very happy playing around with the old tablet.

Additional considerations:

1. In my case I installed an app blocker so the children won't mess with anything important, microG settings and F-droid included.

2. I didn't install Google Play Games nor any games that depended on it. So the idea of me using the tablet to play was abandoned.

3. There are some apps that the old TF101's hardware cannot handle, so I uninstalled them as they crashed at start up.

Conclusion: TF101 is old but with this workaround it might live to fight more battles. Kids apps are simple, but they run (some Ok, some a bit slow). My kids learn and have fun with the old tablet, so mission accomplished!

Further considerations and remarks:

1. Updating apps is not a concern for me unless they stop running. If they run they do stay, otherwise I will check them manually and then decide.

2. No Google account was registered in the tablet. Store is there, but it is not used.

3. I installed some other apps aside from the children's ones, like the app locker, a file manager and things alike.

Good luck.

EDIT: Updated to Super Su SR5 (highly recommended) and added suhide-lite.

EDIT: Reboots restarted eventually. The solution was not installing microG nor Google apps, and therefore no store at all. I installed my kids' apps manually using adb. I also omitted Youtube kids. Tablet has been working fine for almost a week now.