Tutorial for Overclocking your HP Touchpad and installing Linux

Hello all and welcome! I thought I would put a little something together for our overclock community as a lot of us have purchased the HP Touchpad.

I am sure that a lot of you have visited precentral.net which is a great website to get started with doing almost anything on your Hp Touchpad.

After tinkering for a couple of days and following a lot of tutorials, I have been able to overclock my device and put lxde (lightweight version of ubuntu) on my touchpad.



This has enabled me to use the Google chrome browser, use gimp for photo editing and use libre office giving me access to word, excel and PowerPoint on my touchpad.

Throughout this post I will be providing instructions on how I accomplished everything that I have done, so you all can save yourself some time from going through all of the hassle of searching on the precentral forums and various linux websites all over the web and troubleshooting the various errors and roadblocks due to misunderstanding of correct codes.

DISCLAIMER: I am not the origionator of any of these mods nor do I claim to have done them all credit goes to the devs at precentral.net and their users. Credit for each mod shall be applied as such and originators will be given credit for all of their efforts. I thank them for all of their hard work. Also, I do not take any responsibility for any damage done to your device. All of these hacks have been done with much success, but just in case there is any faulty it is of your own accord that you take these risks.

Credit for installing preware: http://www.precentral.net/getting-st...-quick-install

Credit for overclocking to 1.5ghz : http://www.webosbuzz.com/hp-touchpad...ad-1-5ghz.html

Credit for installing lxde (ubuntu): http://forums.precentral.net/webos-d...-touchpad.html

So, lets get started. The first thing that you want to do is get precentral loaded onto your device.

GETTING PREWARWE:

The first thing we need to do is get into Developer mode:
In order to do so first go into the top bar on your device where it says Just type...

Type in the code: (reference to the konami code for 99 lives in contra)

Alternatively you can use this code as well



Once you do you will see the developer mode app. Click it and on the top right slide the button over to turn on developer mode.





Once activated now we need to get preware on the device. In order to do this you will need the application webOS Quick Install on your pc. You can get it here:

http://forums.precentral.net/canuck-...-v4-2-3-a.html

Once you have webOS Quick Install on your pc, connect your device via USB (NOTE: You only have to connect it you do not need to put your device in USB Storage mode). Once webOS Quick Install picks up your device, click the 3rd button on the right (looks like a globe)



Search for preware on the applications tab. Once it comes up press install and congrats you have preware on your device!




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OVERCLOCKING TO 1.5GHZ:

Now the next thing we want to do is our favorite thing to do to any device....OVERCLOCK IT.

The first thing you want to do is download Govnah from preware. So, open up the preware app on your device and go to list of everything.





Once it loads go into the search option and search for the Govnah app and install it on your device.





Once you have it installed close everything out and open up preware again.

Now we have to install the webOS Internals Testing Feeds. In order to do this click the top left tab on the screen and you will see a drop down menu. Click the Manage feeds tab





Go all the way to the bottom and create a new feed.
Type in EXACTLY This: 'webos-kernels-testing' without quotes.
Then put http://preware.is.awesome.com/ in the URL field.





Once done select add feed and reboot the TouchPad.

In order to reboot select the device info app on the settings tab.





The select the reset options button.





Lastly select the restart button and this will reboot your touchpad.

After you restart the TouchPad, Reopen Preware. Go to Kernels and Experimental, and download UberKernel. After UberKernel is installed, open Govnah and select profile tab.





You will see two settings:
Palm Default
OnDemandTcl 1512

Select the ' OnDemandTcl 1512' option and congrats your tablet is now overclocked to 1.5ghz! You can always revert back if you find it to be unstable. My device runs awesome with the overclock, but my girlfriends does not, so its effectiveness will vary by the device.

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GETTING LINUX ON THE TOUCHPAD:

Now that your device is overclocked its time to get linux on this bad boy. Heres what we've got to do. I am going to walk you through this process as I screwed this up following his directions several times. So I will literally use baby steps to show you what to do.

The first step as directed by Rennat is to create your own webos doctor. I tried it and it is VERY annoying so do yourself a favor and do as he advises:

Step One:


Do what he says. He is smart

Step Two:
Now the next thing you will do is mount the partition so the OS will work.

So the first thing you want to do is connect your device to WebOSQuickInstall. Make sure your device is in developer mode (It should still be in developer mode, but it doesn't hurt to check)

Next you want to open up opening WebOSQuickInstall and go to the tools tab and click on the Linux Commandline option.



Once the window opens it will look something like this:



Once this is open we must create the folder at /media/ext3fs using the following command lines (make sure to hit the <enter> key after typing in each command. These must be typed in EXACTLY as shown in order for this to work:


Rennat offers you two different options to mount the folder/files , but I suggest that you use the first options that he suggests:


Step Three:
Now we have got to install ubuntu and the programs to get it started.





After you have these three programs installed now we have to open up ubuntu and type in some additional commands to get programs and such (I have provided photos from my own device so that you can see what he instructs to do.

- Now open Xecutah and tap XServer and a new card will come up.



New card will look like this:




- Go back to Xecutah and tap UbuntuChroot. Then swipe back to the new card that came up.



- Now you should have the Ubuntu terminal. Done. It should have a few 'mount' commands and then the @Touchpad:

Step Four:

The first thing you want to install is the OS that you will be working on (lxde). In order to do anything in here you have to first shrink your keyboard to the XS size. Hold down the keyboard key (bottom left) and you will see an option come up displaying different keyboard sizes. Select the XS option in order to see the entire ubuntu and lxde screen. Now that that is fixed lets continue:



So first type in the following command to install the operating system:

You can launch the OS by typing : lxsession

Install eclipse as well:

Additional programs that you will want is the office program. Type in the following command:








Here are some additonal programs
Code for AbiWord (Another word processing program)

Code for Chromium Browser (Google Chrome Browser)



Code for GIMP (Photo editing program)



Once you open lxde you will see a bunch of code popup that will look like this:

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CREATING RIGHT CLICK ON LXDE:



Awesome and grats on getting this far, but now we need to create a right click function on the touchpad and make an easier way to get on ubuntu rather than tying lxsession everytime...it get annoying after a while.

so inside the ubuntu terminal there is a program called leafpad that we will use to make a new profile for the right click option and change it so all we have to tope is /go to get onto the OS.

first we have to install a small package:

Now type in the the code

to make a script called GO

Once inside leafpad type the following command as such:

save the file and exit leafpad. Now you should be back inside the ubuntu terminal type the following command:

Now your button under the number 1 key should be a right click button (Press the ABC key and in the same place the letter q is, that hyphen key is now remapped to be a right click button).

This option is very good, but we need another way of using the right click, especially so that we can add icons to our desktop. This code will allow us to hold down a spot to right click on the touch pad instead of having to press the ' key every time.

In order to get tap-and-hold right-click functionality in LXDE and other GTK based environments, first install libgtkstylus:

Code:
Then set the GTK_MODULES environment variable before running LXDE:

Code:
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TWEAKING LXDE FOR TOUCHPAD:

Ok so the nest thing we are going to do is go into the OS and modify the window/font size in order to make it a little more touch friendly. type the following card to start the OS:

Code:
Once the OS comes up go to the start menu and go into preferences:



one that is open go to the appearanes tab and change the following values on the fonts:

Change the Active window title to 16
All of the ones underneath change them to 15



And congrats all! Now you should have linux on your overclocked touchpad with word processing and Google chrome! I hope that this was a help and encourage you all to check out the precenrtal forums for more info on tweaking you touchpad. Here's a pic of my apps that are all optimized for the touchpad. Download em and check em out. Theyre all free on the app catalog and preware. Best of luck and enjoy!


Edited by zerobahamut - 8/31/11 at 9:19am

actually overclocking it definitley makes a noticable increase in the reaction time on the touchpad and makes things flow naturally rather than that incessive lagging. The overclock increased temps about 1c-2c so it really does no harm to the device. There are additional overclocks that go into the 1.7-2.0ghz range, but the temps are very dangerous and I do not reccomend it. 1.5ghz is the best overclock you can do to get rid of the lagging on the device while only sacrificing about 1c which is really nothing.

Thanks Phillistine It took a while to put this together but hopefully itll save everyone a lot of heartache and searching
Edited by zerobahamut - 8/29/11 at 9:10am

Wow did not know that. Thanks for the info. Well I consider it an overclock because you essentially have to overclock* it per se in order to get it to run at the 1.5ghz range. It can not just be selected like a regular option and must use outside software and kernels in order to get it at the appropriate setting. If it was a basic setting change under the Device Info app then I would not consider this to be any type of modification, which is what is essentially being done.

thanks lol i knew you could use that code just loved the konami code ill put it in the tutorial though
Edited by zerobahamut - 8/31/11 at 9:20am

Thanks so much! I wanted to do something for our community that was easy to follow and could help everyone avoid typing in incorrect commands and using the webOS doctor about 8 times like I did lol