Replacing Windows on Toshiba Tablet

Hello,

Can anyone suggest an alternative OS for a pretty old Toshiba tablet, please?

It's a WT8-B with 1GB "installed RAM" and "32-bit operating system, x64-based processor" and I thought 16GB of storage but if I check "disk space" it says I've got "9.25GB available of 24.6GB". It came with Windows 8.1 installed. If I remember rightly a few years ago I tried to upgrade/update to Windows 10 but I think either the tablet 'told' me or I read somewhere that it didn't have enough 'brain' or whatever to cope with Windows 10.

I haven't used it for ages but I'd like to try reviving it, by installing a new OS. However, I'm not techie at all. That said, I have managed to install Linux Mint on a couple of laptops, and I am loving it, so much so that I rather fancied installing it on the tablet. However, from stuff I've happened upon while looking up online how to access the boot menu on a tablet, it would appear that maybe my tablet can't run Linux Mint. If this is so, could anyone recommend something that would work, please? I've seen mention of Puppy Linux; would that work? And if it would, how easy would it be to install - and use - compared to Linux Mint? Bear in mind here that I'm 'so' tech-savvy that I've still not worked out how to access the tablet boot menu!

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can give me,

Alison

What is the model number of the Toshiba tablet.  Linux Mint may have issues with touch. Some of the earlier tablets also used a 32bit version of UEFI which is not normal.

Supposedly Linux supports 64bit kernels on 32bit UEFI.

Hi,

Thanks for your reply and question. I'm sorry for taking so long to get back to you. I've looked everywhere I can think of and the best I can do on the model number is WT8-B, that's what it says on the cover of the instruction manual that came loaded onto the tablet (I didn't realise it was there so I've been hunting through USB storage and finding the receipt [which was no use at all]). According to the cover it looks like the manual can also be used for the WT10-A as well. From the receipt it looks like I bought it in 2015, but from the Argos outlet on ebay, so it may have been a return or similar then.

I'm actually not that bothered about the touch not working, so long as I could get a wired mouse and bluetooth keyboard working that would be fine by me. Turning on the tablet reminded me of how nice it is - and how little I've used it (as a back-up etc), so iut would be so good to give it a second life.

Thanks, again, for responding,

Alison

Can you boot from a USB on this tablet?

I don't know; can I, please?

The manual gives instructions for creating a recovery USB and booting from it. I already had a Windows USB so I plugged it in and accessed the boot menu and this is what I got.

As far as I can tell, this screen doesn't look any different to the BIOS that came up when I powered up without the USB attached (I disabled the secure boot thing). I can't see any way of telling it to boot from the USB, but I made the Windows USB when trying to rescue a laptop, so maybe the Windows is protected in some way, so it could only be installed on the machine it had already been installed on?

Thanks!

Alison

From this article it seems the tablet does have a 32bit UEFI BIOS with a 64bit CPU. Linux can be installed but it needs a workaround using 32bit Grub loader which I have no experience with. I would say to keep Windows 8.1 on this table. 

Windows 10 would not run well on this tablet because of the RAM and low end CPU.

Edit: Add link

https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-laptop-and-netbook-25/toshiba-wt8-a-netbook-does-not-detect-any-bootable-linux-usb-4175677610/

Edited by JohnC_21, 11 July 2022 - 12:16 PM.

Ooh, thank you for this! I knew there was a reason why I was looking for alternative OSs and I think I know what it is now - I've just checked the Microsoft website and support for Windows 8 will end in January next year. I could carry on using the tablet offline - use it to write stuff, edit photos etc and if I want to share them online etc, transfer them to my Linux laptop. But I might try to make head and tail of those posts and at least try to install Linux. I got really confused when I first started using Linux because the vocabulary was different to what I was used to, but once I had worked out that, for example, the 'grub' is the boot menu, it started to make sense, especially as the Linux Mint forum community was so helpful. (The Bleeping Computer community is too, of course!).

It may take me a little time to work out what I'm going to do, and then - possibly - pluck up the courage to try tinkering with Linux, but when I do, I will post back here about how I've gone on.

Thanks, again, for taking the time to help me.

All the best,

Alison