FZ-G1 Alternative OS exploration.

Hello All,

Anyone out there running Ubuntu, Mint or Pop on their FZ-G1?

Im playing around with alternative operating systems on my lab rat toughpad however keeping my primary unit running 10 as its been operating very smoothly. (thanks to help from folks here on the forum).

The last couple days I have been playing around with Ubuntu and Mint. I created USB drives and have given over the entire unit to the OS when installing. I know enough about linux to know that there are seemingly infinite options but not enough to know how to enter that world yet. Therefore I have been playing abound with what Im seeing with the installs as they are but without any driver installations other than what is provided.

I really like the look and layout of Ubuntu but the latest version that I loaded seemed a bit much for the i5 or measly 4MB and 128 GB hard drive on my lab rat. System would freeze often and would require hard reboot. Mint is running much smoother.

My primary issues with both so far has been been the windows buttons and scrollbars are stinking tiny and a pain in the rear when using my finger. The onscreen key board both both is very basic...a little under impressed. Managing the key board on Ubuntu was a bit easier but on Mint its a bit annoying as it is either easily available but in the way capturing at min a third of the screen and staying on; or it has to be pulled up from settings. Could not seem to find a way to have it more more accessible such as pinned to start menu or desktop.

With these being Linux OS I am sure there must be fixes out there for these issues.

At any rate that is where I am at with it. Im going to load POP today and see what that is like.

 

Try POP OS and let us know...


Sent from my CF-M34

 

Installed POP on my lab rat right after my last message and monkeyed with it until mid day yesterday. On instal I received a message stating that my system did not meet the min requirements. However when comparing the side by side chart POP was showing for needed vs what I have my system requirements was with in. However I believe the pop site states a 2GHz requirement. This FZ is the 1.9 GHz and 4GB. I would then be bumped back to the precious page after attempting to click on the continue button. However after about the 4th attempt the button lit and I was able to proceed. System installed quickly and for my inexperienced eyes it looked pretty similar to Ubuntu and Mint. I ran into the same issue as the others except I was experiencing more freezing than with Mint. Something to note here...not sure if it matters...I devoted the entire hard drive to the systems so there was not possibility of glitches due to partitioning and running two systems.

On the whole my system was running better with Mint 19 and with there being more info on line for Mint problem solving... I switched back. After about 7 hours of Linux youtube videos, on the phone with my IT buddy and starting to get familiar with Sudoing I have Mint 19 interface in a more manageable place for using as a tablet and not a tiny desktop. Widened most of the skinny scroll bars and enlarged the buttons on the windows...etc Most of this was done with the help of youtube videos and the Mint forum. However despite success on most windows I have still not been able to adjust the scroll bar width in the menu yet.

On screen keyboard is still very awkward. I found adding a virtual keyboard shortcut to my tool bar helped a great deal but if you select the option for auto open of the virtual keyboard when input is required it cuts some of your windows down by a quarter minimum whether or not the keyboard is on screen. Have not found a fix for this yet.

Speakers are not working...headphones are ok. Did a system check and all hardware is fine. Found a youtube video that walks you through the sudo process...took about 4 or 5 minutes but did not fix the problem. I know the computer and hardware is fine ...I was running windows 10 on this machine prior with no problems.

Last night system started stalling...with windows stuck open and system unresponsive. Or a window would stick open and stay open even while continuing to navigate elsewhere on the machine. Sometimes it would close on its own and sometimes it required a restart.

I have also not been able to adjust screen brightness yet. The slide bar does nothing.

At any rate that is where I am at in this process. Others of you may have more success; especially those of you already familiar with linux. Im coming at this with next to no Linux experience and only recently reluctantly becoming resolved to the fact that I really can keep running XP. Therefore...Windows Millenium, 7, 8, 8.1, ya missed all that fun and Im new to 10 as well. Lol! I have my work cut out for me catching up.

 

I have mint running on cf-c2 cf-h2
Does not work fully out of the box. a bit of work to get brightness control working on both. Works now but a couple glitches I will eventually fix.
Sound has some issues on cf-c2. Have to use alsa mixer or better use the pulse audio to run at start. Need to un-mute headphones manually at startup. Not perfect but a fix. This affects all Debian based. So far all software is good, I use some windows software via Wine
@ kusa run sudo alsamixer. probably muted speakers

 

Greetings, I'm new here to the forums and found your thread. I have a FZ-G1, Mk2 I believe, and Mint 19.3 Mate is running. I lowered the screen resolution a bit to 1440x900, setup the "onboard" onscreen keyboard to start when you click on a text entry item(it starts 95% of the time). Sound is working, using a bluetooth headset works great, bt has also been tested with external keyboard.

The A1 and A2 buttons are not mapped, the GPS kit it came with is not currently working, and screen rotation kinda works, but sucks, so I don't have it enabled right now. Both touchscreen and digitizer works, I use xournal for handwritten notes, it's neat because you use your fingers to scroll, and the stylus to write. Docky is installed to put in my common apps, you can adjust the size of the icons on it. One thing I noticed, is when I'm streaming video the desktop resolution doesn't seem to matter a whole lot. The video will play in HD nicely.

Both front and back cameras work, I use GTK UVC video viewer, although I do have to select either to capture video or images.

It has been running for a couple of days now, and I will start to try and get the GPS working. I did try Android x86 (Pie) live boot, and the gps worked fine there.