How to install 64bit Manjaro linux on the Asus t100ta

manjaro-t100ta.md

How to setup Manjaro on the Asus t100ta

Based on this tutorial by jbMacAZ on forums.manjaro.org
Made on 26/05/2020 for the Asus t100ta and Manjaro 20.0.1
These instructions should work for any 32bit EFI / 64bit CPU system, but I only tested it on the Asus t100ta, use at your own risk.
I tested the community editions for Budgie, Gnome and LXQt, but this tutorial should be good for any 64bit Manjaro edition.

My setup

I'm using vanilla Ubuntu 20.04, you will need gparted and unetbootin for this tutorial.
You will also need a 4GB or more USB stick which data will be wiped.
If like me your t100ta dock is broken, you can charge the computer normally until full, then use the charging micro-usb port to have an OTG cable + USB hub to connect the USB stick, a keyboard and a mouse.

Steps

1. Download a 64bit manjaro iso of your choice from the official website
2. Download a 32bit manjaro iso from the 32bit manjaro project site
3. Download bootia32.efi (or build it) from jfwells "linux-asus-t100ta" github
4. Format the USB stick to have one fat32 partition of 100% size (you can use disks or gparted to do this)
5. Label the USB key MANJARO (you can use gparted for this)
6. Burn the 64bit iso to the stick with Unetbootin (this is important because you want to be able to write on the stick)
7. Copy bootia32.efi to /efi/boot on the stick
8. Copy the folder /boot/grub/i386-efi from the 32bit iso to /boot/grub on the stick
9. Edit on the stick /boot/grub/kernels.cfg replace misolabel=anything_that_is_here to misolabel=MANJARO
10. Edit on the stick /boot/grub/grub.cfg, find the efi_detect function, replace
    for efi in (*,gpt*)/efi/*/*.efi (*,gpt*)/efi/*/*/*.efi (*,gpt*)/*.efi (*,gpt*)/*/*.efi ; do
    with
    for efi in (*,gpt*)/efi/*/*.efi (*,gpt*)/efi/*/*/*.efi (*,gpt*)/*.efi (*,gpt*)/*/*.efi (*,msdos*)/*/*/*.efi ; do
11. On the t100ta, reboot and mash F2 to go to BIOS/UEFI. Disable secure boot on the "boot" section
12. Plug in the USB stick, Save and exit, then mash escape to choose a boot option, then choose the USB stick
13. On the menu that appears, choose "install manjaro", then install regularly and reboot to your fresh insallation !

Fixes

The screen shuts off regularly and the system hibernates (around every 15 seconds)

1. For Gnome desktop (based on 5bentz "linux-asus-t100ta" github)

   1. Install gnome-tweak-tool
   2. Open gnome-tweaks
   3. Go to the power section
   4. "suspend on lid closed off" => "off"

2. For Budgie desktop (based on a ubuntu budgie power management thread)

   1. Open /etc/systemd/logind.conf for edition as admin
   2. Remove the starting # on the lines HandleLidSwitchXXXXX
   3. On these lines, change =suspend to =ignore

   Note : You may want to let some of these options to suspend, for example the "docked" one

3. For other desktops

   • I tested community edition LXQt+openbox edition which worked fine and didn't have this problem.
     However, if you get this problem i think that the For Budgie Desktop section above may be the universal solution to this problem. I'm no expert though, so you may need some tinkering .

After following this everything seems to have worked except setting up grub on the new installed drive which meant it wouldn't boot. I had to boot into the live install, mount the partitions, proc, sys etc. chroot into the new drive, mount efivarfs and update grub to get it working fully.

Keep in mind that in Calamares installer, you must choose manual partitioning set the boot flag to a 512MB FAT32 partition, and set its mount point to boot/efi, and use another ext4 partition for the rest (or multiple, for example a /home partition).

It never gave me any options for manual partition setup or should that have been done before running the installer? Either way it's up and working well now. Thanks

I'm glad you've got it working. It should have given you an option to partition manually right after keyboard setup, maybe it was not visible because of scrolling ? If you can reproduce this and report it to the manjaro team, this would be helpful for them

This really should not be so hard except that maybe it is Manjaro? I do this all the time on my Asus T100. All I ever have to do is add the bootia32.efi in the correct place and I get a live disk.

I've got Mint 20 running and without any problems. I can boot the 32 bit Manjaro but then I'd have to go through the adding Wifi issue.
Stuff like this -- cp /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/nvram-74b00bd9-805a-4d61-b51f-43268123d113 /lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac43241b4-sdio.txt

The 32 bit version is using an old kernel and what I have found is a kernel about 5.0 will have the wifi taken care of....but not always. The Ausus T100 (and others) is an odd little 32/64 duck.