Talk:Chrome OS devices

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Guidelines for Chrome OS devices page and its subpages

Note: Please do not comment at this section but only at the #Discussion about the guidelines subsection

Intro

This page is a bit special because it bundles installation and configuration steps for a collection of devices, this is due to the fact these steps are the same for this type of devices dubbed Chrome OS devices.

As we already have an Installation and Beginner's guide pages (and also pages about specific topics) this page has the potential to duplicate much of the information that available on other pages, because of that and also as we want to keep uniformity between the misc subpages and devices pages, these following guidelines were constructed in the hope they'll help contributing here and would avoid confusing.

Notice that these guidelines collected here from the misc talk sections at this page and from ArchWiki maintainers suggestions and requests.

Guidelines

Main page: Chrome OS devices

Post installation configuration section
  • Limit the code posting in this section, especially on the Audio and Hotkeys topics, instead post the code somewhere else (e.g. Github's gists) and link to it here.

Chromebook subpage

Hardware comparison table
  • Remarks column is for firmwares related remarks only.
  • Storage type and upgradability: Please do not guess, we try to keep these details precise, please keep in mind that there're single chip SSD devices (SATA and PCIe), if the storage is soldered to the board it doesn't means it's eMMC so it might be wise googling the storage device model. Also note that sometimes Amazon is wrong and confuse eMMC with SSD.
  • Please do not add new column, start a new discussion about it.

Custom firmware subpage

Adding detailed information about flashing firmware and unbricking
  • A brief explanation of the process of unbricking and the way the write protection works were added in order to give the user enough details so users would have some sense of understanding what steps they should take in case of a problem.
  • The ArchWiki should not duplicate information from other sources and it's not an electrical engineering guide to Chromebooks.
  • If you're considering adding more detailed how-to on this page about: flashing firmware, unbricking, or anything related to hardware hacking then PLEASE DON'T !, instead post it somewhere else (the forums, your blog) and just add links in the See also section.

Specific device pages

Discussion about the guidelines

Here we can discuss the Guidelines section, I hope this would help to limit confusion of users who wants to contribute and will improve communication with the ArchWiki maintainers. Dhead (talk) 00:37, 1 April 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

removed old content

cgpt command

I moved this from the Chromebook page as it's cluttering the page and not fitted there. We should adapt the Alternative_Installation.2C_Install_Arch_Linux_in_addition_to_Chrome_OS to example the cgpt command or/and create a specific cgpt page but not put this topic on the Chromebook page. Dhead (talk) 17:23, 29 September 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You'll save your self a lot of time if you understand this command before you attempt to install Arch on a chromebook.

This is NON-EXHAUSTIVE but it'll help most people reading this. cgpt --help is nice too.

Use:

cgpt create /dev/sda

Used to initialise a disk with GPT headers.

Use:

cgpt show /dev/sda

To list all partitions on disk with boot information for each.

Use:

cgpt add [options] /dev/sda

Used to modify boot options

Example
 cgpt add -i 6 -P 5 -S 0 -T 1 /dev/sda

Example: modify partition #6, set priority to 5, successful to false, and boot tries to once(1), on device /dev/sda

 cgpt add -i 6 -t unused /dev/sda

Example: delete partition #6.

cgpt add -i 1-12 
Partition number to change
cgpt add -P 9-0
Priority 9 > 1 (Higher number will try to boot first)
cgpt add -T 0-99
Tries, used with the successful flag. Will try to boot this partition x times until tries = 0 then it will try next lower priority partition.
cgpt add -S 0-1
Successful flag, if 1 will try to boot this partition forever. Be careful with this one! If 0 and tries > 0 it will try to boot this partition until it' out of tries.

If installing yourself, don't forget to copy this onto your arch partition!.

CD burner for 64 bits

Hi,

Can you post an equivalent method for burning CD for install 64 bit, like you did here? Thanks a lot,--Xan (talk) 13:23, 29 December 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Transitioning the page to a generic Chrome OS devices page

Due to the fact that both the Installation and Post installation sections fit to all Chrome OS devices it seem like the logical step is to convert this page to a generic 'Chrome OS devices' page.

Per ArchWiki admins advice (User:Kynikos, User:Alad) it been suggested that the best approach would be:

  • Keep the common steps in the main page.
  • Create sub pages for specific information for each type of devices (Chromebook, Chromebox, Chromebase(?)).
  • Link on the main page to these sub pages (Chromebook, ...), not using transclusions.

With accordance to the above I devised the following steps, notice they are numbered, I recommend following this order and annotate 'DONE' when each step is finished.

  1. Change each (appropriate) occurrence of Chromebook(s) in the common sections Chrome OS device(s). DONE, mostly, the rest of the renaming can be done at the end of this process. Dhead (talk) 10:24, 17 March 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  2. Transition the Chromebook#Introduction section to a common intro and move the specific Chromebook details from the Chromebook#Introduction to the Chromebook#Chromebook models section. DONE, further refinements of the Introduction can be done later. Dhead (talk) 10:52, 17 March 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  3. Rename the page to 'Chrome OS devices' page. Done. Dhead (talk) 08:12, 22 March 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  4. Rename Custom firmware for Chrome OS devices page to 'Chrome OS devices/Custom firmware' Done. Dhead (talk) 08:12, 22 March 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  5. Move out the Chromebook#Chromebook models section to 'Chrome OS devices/Chromebook' and link on the 'Chrome OS devices' page. Done, need to add introduction for the sub-page and short explanation of the link to the sub-page on the main page. Dhead (talk) 08:12, 22 March 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  6. Create 'Chrome OS devices/Chromebox' with hardware comparison (important columns are existence of SeaBios in stock firmware and availability of custom firmware).
  7. Add details on how to flash a custom firmware on Chromebox (the recommend method only, EZ Setup Script) to the 'Chrome OS devices' page.

Suggested guidelines:

  • The main page should be a simple walkthrough installation guide, linear and easy to follow, would only mention the recommended method of each type of device (Chromebook, ...) for flashing custom firmware and the needed steps (link to custom firmware for more details).
  • The Specific sub pages for each type of device (Chromebook, ...) would only include short introduction and hardware comparison, no installation how to and post configuration sections.

If anyone has any suggestions or remarks please comment here, I added the steps above and guidelines so anyone could help making the necessary changes (though I'll do my best to getting this done shortly). Dhead (talk) 08:35, 17 March 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Commenting to myself: renaming the page to 'Google devices' is not a good idea, it a little bit confusing due to the existence of Android, also I guessing the page will better indexed in search engines if it actually include 'Chrome' in its name so it will be ranked better when users will google how to install Arch on Chromebook/Chromebox, so I believe renaming to 'Chrome OS devices' would be better, I'll update this section in accordance if there no objection. Dhead (talk) 09:17, 17 March 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
p.s. I'm holding renaming the page for a day or two so other will have the time to respond. Dhead (talk) 10:55, 17 March 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Product names

Merged from Talk:Acer C720 Chromebook -- Alad (talk) 22:40, 20 March 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Are there objections to naming this page "Acer C720" (without the Chromebook) ? -- Alad (talk) 19:16, 20 March 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Not really, though I will point out that in order to keep it simple to clients Acer actually publicize the product as "Acer C720 Chromebook 11", also the C740 is "Acer C740 Chromebook 11", C910 is "Acer C910 Chromebook 15" and so on (actually this might be coming from Google). Also I don't know how this will affect search ranking (google: "Arch on Acer Chromebook"). In any way, this should be a uniform change and should added as a directive in a section in the (current) Chromebook talk page about adding a new ChromeOs device page. Dhead (talk) 21:50, 20 March 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Alad, did you reached a decision? anyway you decide we should add it to the guidelines section above (keep the device page name simple, only brand and model or have also Chromebook and screen size in the name string), and close this discussion.Dhead (talk) 00:46, 1 April 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Well, simplicity is important but shouldn't prioritize over clarity or upstream naming, though cf. [1]). Third-party resellers seem to prefer the "Chromebook" naming. If we keep redirects in place search ranking shouldn't be affected, but don't quote me on that. I'll leave the decision up to you. -- Alad (talk) 08:26, 1 April 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Remarks / suggestion about the Chromebook sub-page

  • Chromeos has codenames for the various hardware products, it might help if the table had a column with the codename to disambiguate which chromebook is what (better than comparing marketing names) Amstan (talk) 20:07, 21 July 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Personally I'm against adding more columns and further details about each device in the Chromebook table. These code names are available at Chromium OS site which is linked at the main page, we should not duplicate this info. We tried (well I can testify about myself) to limit the information in the hardware comparison table while still keep it useful for quick comparison with focus about the specific features of Chromebook that might be limiting (like limited storage soldered on board). I agree that the code names are useful but the table would be just to big with another column and therefore on small screen / low res would expand down / drop down another line (at least it is true for my Chromebook (C720)). I was thinking about removing the Weight column but only for expanding a little the firmware related columns.Dhead (talk) 21:38, 21 July 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • I noticed that all arm chromebooks have a column which says Seabios is not supported, as if it's a bad thing. Arm Chromebooks don't need seabios, arch linux arm boots just fine on them without it. Amstan (talk) 20:07, 21 July 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Let's be a little precise, the text in the cell saying "Unavailable on Arm" which is different from "Seabios is not supported", but yep, it isn't the best phrasing, but saying that SeaBIOS isn't needed for ARM would be a little confusing as users might believe that running Arch Linux on all ARM based Chromebook models is all fine and dandy. I would prefer to keep the text as it is but maybe remove the red color. A better rephrasing is welcome.Dhead (talk)
  • The "not needing seabios" way of doing things is also available on intel since the chromeos stock firmware/bootloader works the same way. As long as you partition the drive properly and you provide a kernel partition, the bootloader should load it just fine. No firmware flashing/warranty voiding should be required if there's no seabios. Amstan (talk) 20:07, 21 July 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
To be blunt, I think it's silly for us, Arch Linux users, to give this a place in the official Arch Wiki. AFAIK you need to load Chrome OS kernel or bring your own kernel. We should not instruct Arch Linux users with band aid solutions, the goal of Arch Linux users buying Chromebook is to have official Arch kernel package running on their devices. I would love to stand corrected but I don't believe that just re-partitioning is gonna get Arch kernel running on Chromebook without SeaBIOS payload.Dhead (talk) 21:38, 21 July 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
p.s. we already telling users what their options if their device didn't come with a SeaBIOS payload, Chrome_OS_devices#Models_without_SeaBIOS.Dhead (talk) 21:54, 21 July 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I think this is too poorly advertised and it yields to more people looking for ways to flash(read: brick) their chromebooks instead of just using the default feature of the chromeos bootloader. sadly... Amstan (talk) 23:43, 21 July 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Thanks, now it's fixed. Dhead (talk) 21:46, 21 July 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
You're welcome to add them to the table.Dhead (talk) 21:46, 21 July 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I ve added the flip as I may try to install arch on it. Pierro78 (talk) 14:25, 27 October 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • The Haier chromebook, while there's no arch linux arm page for it, is essentially identical functionality wise with the other rk3288 chromebooks. The instructions are interchangeable, therefore that chromebook is supported. Amstan (talk) 20:07, 21 July 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Are you sure? if so then you're welcome to add it to the hardware comparison table, be advised that users might buy a device based on the information in the table so just make sure this is true.Dhead (talk) 21:38, 21 July 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Yep, I worked on the veyron chromebooks. I convinced leming to include all the veyron_ variants in the its file(veyron_jerry is the one of interest in this case). I already had arch booting on that chromebook :) Amstan (talk) 23:43, 21 July 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • I have recently (succesfully) installed Arch on my Dell Chromebook 11 2015 (3120). Is there a specific page for this model, where I can put my findings, or should I rather try to fit it into this page somehow?
In my opinion, create a new page for your experience, if it needs some specific steps rather than Chromebook general guide--Xan (talk) 07:07, 9 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Default custom firmware recommendation should be given a second thought looking at the alternatives available nowadays.

John Lewis's firmware should probably not be the default custom firmware recommendation since it has less hardware support than the other major option (Matt DeVillier's), does not upgrade the Embedded Controller (causing some annoying issues like lid switch booting malfunction on some devices, since the hardware fallbacks to the old read-only hard-coded one) and keeps TPAD as a wakeup ACPI device, which causes the suspend functionality to be broken by default (it works without any tweaks in the alternative one). It is also no longer really actively developed. This script also does not check if the firmware is readable before attempting to flash a new one, so it does not check if the needed kernel parameters nopat and iomem=relaxed are set. If they are not set, flashrom throws an error, possibly scaring users about a brick, although luckily it is not a concern, since flashrom will cleanly exit. Alternatives are listed in the Chrome OS devices/Custom firmware page.

--Icycat (talk) 12:30, 11 March 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]