Linux & Acer Spin 1

Right now, I do not know the model.  I think it originally came with Windows 8.1.  The specs are:

• CPU:  1.10 GHz Dual Core N4020

• RAM: 4GB RAM

• HD: 64 GB SSD

Five years later, what's up with Chrome OS?  Now, there isn't a CloudReady, but since it was bought by Google, it's become Chrome OS Flex.  I still wish that Android apps were supported on Chrome OS Flex, but oh well.  

As expected, the installation and usage in laptop mode was great.  I wasn't expecting the performance on this Acer to be like my regular desktop running Chrome OS Flex.  But it still performed well.  No issues with Google's webapps, including streaming YouTube.   In fact, I've been working on this article on the Acer while YouTube is playing.  

Now, did anything change towards tablet mode?  Well, still using the Acer to type this, so not too bad.  It doesn't auto-rotate, but the keyboard/mousepad did turn off.  I had to enable the on-screen keyboard in Accessibility settings.  So far, not too big a deal.  

Flipping it back to a laptop, and the keyboard and mouse did not start working.  So that was disappointing.  And it isn't really for the faint of heart to try to change Chrome OS Flex to fix either issue.  That all means Chrome OS Flex is out as an alternative OS.  :-(

Kubuntu worked great as a laptop.  I used Kubuntu 24.04, and they've slimmed it's memory footprint down quite a bit.  It wasn't blazing fast, but worked well for most regular apps like LibreOffice as well as all of Google's usual webapps.  

Also, the touch in laptop mode worked fine.  No issues for a bit of working and some random use of touch instead of the trackpad.  

Now, the other side of being a convertible ... tablet orientation.  That was a bit disappointing.  Flipping it around did not rotate the screen.  The keyboard was also not turned off, but the mouse was.  Strange.   {Could I turn it back on manually?}  Touch still worked, but no on-screen keyboard, not even in Acccessibility settings like other OSes.  Flipping it back around to laptop orientation, and the mouse still did not work.

{maybe I'll go back and try to figure out about rotation, turning off/on the keyboard/mouse, and getting an on-screen keyboard}

So, basically Kubuntu was a bust for wanting to use it as both a laptop and a tablet.  Which is a shame because Kubuntu is usually my go to linux distro.

Since Kubuntu worked great, I figured Ubuntu was the next option.  They have the same base, but many things can be altered besides the desktop environment.  Installation went fine, and the touch even worked in the installation environment.  The basics were the same as Kubuntu, including touch as a laptop.  It did "feel" a bit slower, but I'm not doing that kind of review.

The behavior when "flipped" into a tablet was pretty much the same.  There was an on-screen keyboard in Accessibility settings, but it did not work in Google Chrome.  These days, that's kind of absurd.  Maybe there is a good technical reason, but Ubuntu has been making some weird decisions.  Anyways, even if you wanted to use Firefox (which isn't a bad idea), since "flipping back" to laptop mode did not enable the keyboard and mouse, regular Ubuntu is ruled out as well.

Though technically based on Ubuntu, they do a lot of things differently.  I used to like them a lot, and moved many of my machines to elementary OS.  I stopped when they had some internal struggles and also a big delay with getting on-board with using the LTS as a base.  Anyways, they are working hard and been meaning to check them out again.  So, I'll do another review at some point.  For the purpose here...

So, using elementary OS in tablet mode was a bit weird.  It had the on-screen keyboard and did the auto-rotation.  After starting an app, the touch did not work on the system bar.  The app happened to be the built-in web browser, and after typing riotsu.com into the search bar, it came right up.  I could not tap into the address bar though.  

Then, when trying to figure out if I could make the experience better, I went into Settings.  And random controls would not work; for instance, a slider was fine, but taping checkboxes did nothing.  

I wanted to give elementary another go.  After a reboot,  the same thing.  The OS might have other issues though, because going to the AppCenter had issues.  It got stuck on Checking for Updates, even though I tapped on it because it the icon had 1 showing 1 update.  

I wasn't ready to give up on elementary OS for the Acer.  I bought into the Early Access; I had done it before, and the cheapest was only $1/month, so I bought a year!  Why not?!?!?!  :-P

Sadly, the installation never completed.  I got an error during making partitions.  Which might have been hardware, but I moved on and tried Fedora next.

I was a little bit worried.  Not just the partition error in elementary OS, but also the trackpad did not work when the Fedora installation started.  Oddly, the mouse was turned off hardware wise.  I hit F7 and the mouse started working.  Very strange, so I went back to the elementary OS installation USB and it was fine.  Back to Fedora and it was off again.  At least the installation worked, and the trackpad never got turned off after updates and reboots.

But the question remains is Fedora good for tablet mode?  Well, no rotation, and the keyboard/mouse did not get turned off.  I could not find a manual way to turn them off.  So even though the on-screen keyboard was fine (in Accessibility settings again), this made the Acer difficult to use in tablet mode.  :-(

I really wanted this convertible to work out of the box on Linux.  But, oh well.  So now it's time to roll up the leaves and try a bit of digging.  

Kubuntu was the first.  I tried a few things, but none really worked.  There was:

• qtvirtualkeyboard-plugin => this created an icon under utilities; it technically worked, but was really unusable in any practical sense

• maliit-keyboard => wayland only, so Kubuntu 24.04 is out

• xvkbd => it was easy to launch, but never typed anything anywhere

• matchbox => not sure, I never saw it

Oddly, the virtual keyboard worked great at the login screen.  Simply popped up at the bottom of the screen.  I could never get it to work in a session.  After looking through numerous posts around the internet, the common thread was that the state of virtual keyboards on Plasma sucks.  None can be integrated well.