PXE Boot HP X2 210 (Hybrid tablet Windows 10 Pro)

[Sebastian Roth]

@schnecki We are more than happy to help people solving their linux problems. But please understand that this forum is about FOG and we focus on getting FOG or FOS (the buildroot linux system at its base to do the imaging) to run on the devices. We only have basic knowledge on kernel stuff and we won’t be able to help you with this one I suppose.

The OP was about the linux kernel freezing when trying to enumerate PCI devices booted in UEFI mode. I guess you don’t see that issue as you probably use GRUB bootloader (which actually bypasses the UEFI STUB and boots the linux kernel as old school bzImage). What you ask is totally unrelated. Feel free to open a new discussion and see if anyone from the FOG community is able to help.

[schnecki]

@Sebastian-Roth oh I see, I thought that might be related. But you’re right, I’m booting via Grub. Thank’s for the info though

[Sebastian Roth]

Marking this thread solved for now as the OP is able to capture and deploy his tablets with the modified kernel. Although this is not a proper solution (more a hackish kind of workaround) we cannot do anything else than waiting for the people from HP we got in contact with to possibly fix the UEFI firmware!

As of now the HP devs confirmed our findings (screwed memory addresses) but we haven’t heard back from them for two weeks now. No solution yet…

[Matthieu Jacquart]

@sebastian-roth Hi Seb and @tom-elliott, I re-open this topic because I need to deploy once again our hybrid HP X2 210, but modified bzimage that Seb provided to me (bzImage_rb) is now too old for fog (base on kernel 4.3.3).
Without this I can’t deploy our 32 hybrid, is there any way to update the bzImage_rb ?
Thanks
Matthieu

[george1421]

@matthieu-jacquart Has there been any movement on HP’s part to update the uefi firmware on this hardware?

Is there a compatibility issue with the kernel your have vs the current release of FOG? Or is it just old and you want it updated? I’m just trying to understand the context.

[Matthieu Jacquart]

@george1421 It’s a long story, but it’s an incompatibility between this HP model and fog kernel (HP never made modification for this model and last bios don’t change the problem), so the only solution in February 2016 was to modified fog kernel (big thanks to Seb for his work), and after that everyhting worked fine.
But now I want to deploy these hybrid and with modified kernel (based on 4.3.3) I’ve got fog (1.5.0 RC8) message : kernel too old.

[george1421]

@matthieu-jacquart Ah ok, now I understand.

Just be aware the developers are taking a short holiday for the rest of the month. So their response will be a bit slower. Just be aware so you can adjust your schedule.

[Sebastian Roth]

@Matthieu-Jacquart Oh yeah, I definitely remember this one. It’s been a long endeavor till we got this fixed. As far as I remember HP provided a fixed UEFI firmware. Just checked the mails in my archive and sent you the message via E-Mail:

On Tue, 03 May 2016 16:11:34 +0200 JACQUART Matthieu <email deleted> wrote:
Ok ! With Shell_Full.efi I was able to boot on EFI shell and to downgrade/upgrade bios, and everyhting works fine with Yu Max bios ! I was able to register hots (using ipxe.efi in DHCP options) without error, good !

So I am a bit confused that you say things don’t work. I had the impression that HP actually fixed this and possibly also officially released a new firmware including that fix. But maybe I am wrong. Please read through the old message I send you via mail and let me know what’s up.

[Sebastian Roth]

@Matthieu-Jacquart I really hope I remembered correctly the change I made more than a year ago. Just compiled a new kernel which does not call the hanging function setup_efi_pci(). This is very ugly but seems to be a way to workaround this dang HP firmware bug! Find bzImage_disabled_setup_efi_pci here.

Turns out HP released at least two new firmware versions but didn’t include the (probably very tiny) fix we worked out together with them. As they even provided fixed firmware blobs to try out I have no idea why this didn’t make it into their official code base?!?

[Matthieu Jacquart]

@sebastian-roth You’re just a master chief Seb ! It works perfectly !
Do you think there’s any way to contact HP people to modify bios, or maybe (but I’m dreaming) just add an argument in fog Web UI “Host Kernel Arguments” ?
Thanks a lot, once again
Matthieu

[Sebastian Roth]

@Matthieu-Jacquart I am sorry but disabling these setup_efi_pci routine is a really dirty hack to make it work on those HP devices. We’re not going to include this into FOG not even with a “Host Kernel Parameter” thing.

Sure I can send a message to those same guys but I kind of doubt that the fix will ever make it into the official firmware - whatever reason they have?!?! Would you mind preparing a piece of text so I don’t have to do this alone? Just read through the mail I sent you and put together a couple of lines. I’ll finish it and send it off then.

[Matthieu Jacquart]

@sebastian-roth Ok thanks, I’ll email you as soon as possible.

[Wayne Workman]

@sebastian-roth said in PXE Boot HP X2 210 (Hybrid tablet Windows 10 Pro):

I’ll finish it and send it off then.

Did you ever get a response?

[Sebastian Roth]

@Wayne-Workman No, they didn’t get back to me. But Matthieu just had another try and sent a new message two days ago. Let’s see what happens this time.

We have an old firmware binary that might be useful to flash those devices with a fix. Though this has never been officially released and is missing other fixes that have been released since then. Let me know if you need help on this.

[Matthieu Jacquart]

@sebastian-roth @Wayne-Workman No news for the moment but I’ll keep you in touch

[BSZAdmin]

@matthieu-jacquart
Hey Matthieu, i also try to deploy HP X" 210 Tablets.
I tried to download the mentioned bzImage_disabled… but the link is broken.
Can you provide this image to me?
Greets Jürgen

[Sebastian Roth]

@BSZAdmin Wow, this is bringing up a really old topic! Though I compiled this one off kernel I don’t have it anymore.

Last time I wrote:

I really hope I remembered correctly the change I made more than a year ago. Just compiled a new kernel which does not call the hanging function setup_efi_pci(). This is very ugly but seems to be a way to workaround this dang HP firmware bug!

I might be able to do this again with a newer kernel version. So which version of FOG and which kernel version do you currently use?

[Matthieu Jacquart]

@bszadmin Hi, old subject, this file was necessary few years ago to deploy image on X2 210 G1, but for at least 2 years everything works fine with official HP bios and Fog 1.5.
What concern do you meet ? is it for X2 210 G1 or G2 (G2 always worked fine).
Matthieu

[BSZAdmin]

@sebastian-roth
Good morning, sorry for bringing up ths old topic.
The clients are HP x2 210 G2 as @Matthieu-Jacquart guessed.
The fog process stops here:

We are running fog 1.5.6 with kernel 5.10.50.
Thanks for the support and the great work.
Greets
JT

[Sebastian Roth]

@bszadmin said in PXE Boot HP X2 210 (Hybrid tablet Windows 10 Pro):

We are running fog 1.5.6

Pretty old version of FOG, hmm!? You might want to grab newer version iPXE binaries from github and see if those work with your HP x2 210 G2.