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MINIX Z83-4 Pro

Product Page: minix.com.hk
Amazon Page: MINIX NEO Z83-4 Pro
Manufacturer: MINIX
Product Name: Z83-4 Pro
Version: V1.1

Use case

Works great for a simple web-browser/video viewer. Streams video from Netflix/Emby with no issues and supports 4K resolution. Quiet and passively cooled. Uses 12VDC input, so may work good as a carpc. Comes with a VESA mount for mounting on the back of a monitor.

Specifications

Processor: Intel X5-Z8350 (64-bit)
GPU: Intel HD Graphics
Video Connectors: HDMI, Mini DisplayPort
Memory: 4GB DDR3L
Storage: 32GB eMMC 5.0
Ethernet: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express
WiFi: 802.11ac Dual-Band
Bluetooth: 4.2
Micro SD card reader
USB: 3x USB 2.0, 1x USB 3.0

Notes & Issues on installing Arch Linux

Booting Install CD

The F11 key is used at boot to enter the UEFI boot menu and boot Arch Linux install media from USB.

Booting using Arch Linux UEFI results in a brief display of systemd starting services, followed by a blank screen. Adding nomodeset to kernel parameters allows system to boot into install shell. With nomodeset graphics acceleration is disabled, but the correct options can be set in grub after installing.

Partitioning

The EFI partition is on /dev/mmcblk0p1. The other partitions {mmcblk0p2, mmcblk0p3, mmcblkp3} are used by the pre-installed Windows 10 Pro. Deleting p2-p4 and creating a single Linux partition formatted with ext4 is probably the best choice for such a small storage device.

Bootloader

With /dev/mmcblk0p1 mounted at /boot booting the kernel EFISTUB probably works fine, but GRUB also works and is a little easier to configure. Setting up /etc/defaults/grub and running grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg works with the following options set:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet video=HDMI-A-1:1920x1080@60D"
GRUB_GFXMODE=auto
GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=keep

Video

When using the main HDMI output the onboard Intel video is recognized by the kernel but cannot be setup properly by KMS. The xrandr utility reports HDMI1 disconnected despite a monitor being connected. Using xrandr to manually add modelines and force output on HDMI1 works, but is not persistant.

The Linux Documentation details a way to force a display to be connected. Adding the kernel option video=HDMI-A-1:1920x1080@60D works for forcing the display to be enabled and use digital output, as well as correctly enabling the example resolution (1920x1080) to be detected by Xorg when using the xf86-video-intel driver.

Networking

Ethernet works out of the box. Wifi requires firmware for brcmfmac. From the linuxiumcomau.blogspot.com website, the firmware can be retrieved from C:\Windows\System32\drivers\4345r6nvram.txt on the Windows 10 partition which could be mounted from /dev/mmcblk0p3. The file needs to be copied to /lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac43455-sdio.txt. A copy of this file is uploaded to this repository.

After installing drivers (and dialog), wifi-menu works properly, and the created wifi profile can be enabled with netctl enable PROFILE and started with netctl start PROFILE. This might fail the first time because wlan0 is up, which can be fixed by running ip link set wlan0 down first.

X11 Setup

The onboard Intel HD graphics works with xf86-video-intel. Alternatively, the xf86-video-fbset driver can be used with nomodeset if video acceleration is not required. Installing xf86-video-vesa causes Xorg to crash.

Firmware

The AUR packages aic94xx-firmware and wd719x-firmware can be installed to suppress warnings when using mkinitcpio, but are not required. The intel-ucode package should be installed and will be recognized by grub-mkconfig for installing (microcode)[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/microcode] updates.

Bluetooth

Works out of the box with bluez and bluez-utils.

Sound

From (linuxiumcomau.blogspot.com)[http://linuxiumcomau.blogspot.com/2017/12/linux-on-minix-neo-z83-4-and-z83-4-pro.html] ALSA sound can be fixed by adding a definition for the ALSA Use Case Manager. Put the HiFi.conf file from this repo in the /usr/share/alsa/ucm/chtrt5645/ directory. PulseAudio sound worked with no additional configuration.

Powersaving

Battery

In KDE the power tray icon reports a battery status. This is because of the axp288 module recognizing AXP299 Power Management Integrated Circuit as having a battery. This can be fixed by blacklisting the axp288_fuel_gauge module.
/etc/modprobe.d/10-nobattery.conf:

# Do not load the axp288_fuel_gauge module since device has no battery
blacklist axp288_fuel_gauge

Resuming

Resuming after sleep puts Xorg back into 1024x768 resolution. A systemd resume@user.service can be used to run the appropriate xrandr commands to restore resolution.
/etc/systemd/system/resume@.service:

# Restore resolution after sleeping

[Unit]
Description=User resume restore resolution
After=suspend.target

[Service]
User=%I
Type=oneshot
Environment=DISPLAY=:0
ExecStart=/usr/bin/xrandr --newmode "1920x1080_60.00"  173.00  1920 2048 2248 2576  1080 1083 1088 1120 -hsync +vsync
ExecStart=/usr/bin/xrandr --addmode HDMI1 1920x1080_60.00
ExecStart=/usr/bin/xrandr --output HDMI1 --mode 1920x1080_60.00

[Install]
WantedBy=suspend.target

The service can be enabled with systemctl enable resume@USERNAME.service

Managing Storage

Periodic cleaning of the pacman cache can help manage disk storage.
/etc/systemd/system/clean-pacman-cache.service:

[Unit]
Description=Clean old pkg files from cache
After=multi-user.target

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/bin/sh -c 'yes | pacman -Sc'

/etc/systemd/system/clean-pacman-cache.timer:

[Unit]
Description=Clean old pkg files from cache weekly
After=time-sync.target

[Timer]
OnCalendar=weekly
Persistent=true

[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target

systemctl enable clean-pacman-cache.timer