On Wed, 2020-09-02 at 11:42, Andrei POPESCU wrote: > On Ma, 01 sep 20, 18:27:40, Milan P. Stanić wrote: > > On Tue, 2020-09-01 at 17:32, Arnd Bergmann wrote: > > > On Tue, Sep 1, 2020 at 4:28 PM Matti Palmström <mattip.deb...@gmail.com> > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > Hello everyone. > > > > > > > > Just saw a good price on an ASUS Chromebook C202XA that runs on a > > > > Media Tek MT8173C. Does anyone know if it's possible to install > > > > Debian to a chromebook like that? I'm googling as I write this but > > > > I can't really find anything about it. > > I'm using Debian buster on an Acer Chromebook R13 with the kernel from > archlinuxarm.org. > > https://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv8/mediatek/acer-chromebook-r13
Yes, also I used kernels from Arch linux arm, but rebuild it locally to tweak some options and drivers and add some patches for about four years (from time I've bought R13 chromebook). For all this time I cross compiled it on Debian, native at beginning and later in Debian LXC. Worked well. Nowadays I build it native in Alpine. > > > Normal user space should work as it does on any Arm platform. I assume > > > this uses google's > > > "Hana" mainboard design like Acer R13 and some Lenovo Chromes, which > > > was only added > > > with Linux-5.8 and presumably won't work in the standard Debian > > > kernel. I think you can just > > > use the original ChromeOS kernel though. > > > > I use oak-elm Acer R13 which is also mediatek MT8173 (though don't see > > 'c' at the end) with Alpine linux userspace and kernel from > > https://gitlab.collabora.com/eballetbo/linux/-/commits/topic/chromeos/somewhat-stable-next > > made by Enric Balletbo i Serra (and some other developers). > > Are there any compilation / installation instructions for this? As per > the installation instructions from archlinuxarm.org the installation > appears to be quite finicky. It is not complicated to build new kernel, just look in Arch alarm PKGBUILD file in PKGBUILDs/core/linux-oak/PKGBUILD. Enric have some scripts and short guides for installing Debian here https://github.com/eballetbo/chromebooks You can also post me private mail and I can send you my kernel .config and kernel.its file, and my simple hacky script which I use to build kernels from Enric's site above. Also there is #linux-mediatek IRC channel on freenode with very low traffic, if you are interested to join. > > Enric told me that he use Acer R13 (elm-oak) with Debian userspace, so I > > think/hope this board could also work. > > > > Some things doesn't still work, i.w. suspend-to-ram/resume, dmidecode, > > sensors-detect and maybe something else which I didn't tried. > > I would be glad to get something newer than 3.18 working ;) Understand you fully :) that is why started to hack and search. Have to add that I had some success with mainline kernel 5.8 to boot it but it didn't worked well. 5.9 looks more promising because Enric upstreamed some patches for drivers. > > When I bought this chromebook (Acer R13) I installed Debian on it with > > chromeos kernels and it worked fine but I switched to alpine for other > > reasons. > > > > > The biggest problem is likely going to be the GPU, as there are no > > > open source drivers for > > > PowerVR. > > > > Yes, looks like there is no chances to get this working, though > > mediatek-drm is quite usable for 'normal' work. > > Yep. > > Kind regards, > Andrei > -- > http://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser
